Got this mountain cur pup for Father’s Day, he’s 15 weeks this Friday and driving everyone and everything crazy.
I think this is the first time I've been able to think about sharing this. My old buddy Tango is on the other side. He was my super faihful companion for 17 years. He waited for me to return from a trip to let us have one more day together. He was my best friend and we went everywhere.
This is the time, I gotta lay out my greatest, maybe the greatest, hunting dog story of all time, that I happened to witness as a young man in the great state of AR; Yep, I'm a hunter and fisherman also but those days are long gone; Not a safari guy by any stretch of the imagination. And not a guy to purchase a dog. We got them from friends . I'll try to make this as short as possible but there are lots of details about country-boy life and hunting wild animals for sport and food that set this hunting dog story up. And yes, we have owned house dogs also. More of an outside fan though. What I witnessed with these hunting dogs at work was as great as most any human endeavorer I've seen. This story happened behind the Mississippi River levee in SE AR, late 70s, early 80s I'd guess; I was in my early 20s at the time; That levee keeps the flooding Mississippi River in check. The Mississippi floods every yr and might get well over 15 miles wide where we were hunting at. Deer season at this time was 1 week long and everything in SE AR shutdown for deer season that week. Yep, it was big. We used dogs to force the deer to move and then maybe get a shot at one; I either had my Browning Auto-5 shotgun I was given at age 10 or I had my Remington 35 caliber lever action scoped rifle at the time; Outside chance I had my fathers' Remington woodsmaster 06; Now on to the black&tan hunting dogs story; The Story: I had left our camp and walked several miles across the woods just enjoying seeing all the different looks of the wooded terrain, as the terrain changed; Finally, I came across an old break that had about a foot of water in it with green scum formed all over the water. This was dead standing water, about 30 yrs wide. Very very bucky looking; Like a picture painted with a big 12-point buck standing in the deep woods, surrounded by does. I got up on a big big tree that had fell over the water and was looking down the break for a deer to show. After maybe 20 minutes, I heard some dogs coming across the woods in front of me on my left. It was 3 of our camps dogs and they were sniffing and coming up the left side of the water towards me. All at once, the lead dog was about 20 yrds from me, hit the scent of a deer, and went off trailing\howling\running to the high heavens across the water in front of me. The other 2 dogs fell in behind him and barking to the high heavens also, just ripping across that water. I nearly fell off the tree it scared me so bad but recovered and started looking for a deer to show himself but nope. The silence of the woods was broken and totally filled with the sound of 3 black&tans trailing this deer scent! The dogs stayed on the trail about 10 minutes maybe; Then the woods went totally quiet. They had lost the trail! So what did these animals do? They suddenly came back across the woods at angle from the trail they had been following and hit the water almost exactly where the trail was at on the right side of the water, that they had just been trailing. The same dog that had hit the trail the first time was leading them back and the instant he hit the trail the second time coming out of the water, he went to trailing again, howling, as he did the first time he found the deer scent. What did the other 2 dogs do? One of them started back-trailing; Meaning he was on the trail but going the wrong way. This dog, ran back across the water just barking loudly. The third dog? Confused; He ran out into the middle of the water and appeared to start back-trailing also but nope; He was hung on which dog to follow, so he was in the water barking loudly and went one way a few steps, then quickly turn towards the other dog and then turn back again, all the time in the water, splashing water everywhere but going no where! He went back and forth like this, in the middle of that break, maybe 7-8 times as 1 dog was back-trailing and the other was trailing correctly. This, my good buddies, was dog, hunting-dog action... Finally the dog that was back-trailing realized his mistake and ran back across the water and back towards the lead dog. The dog in the water followed him. When all this was happening, I was just blown away by these dogs instinct and actions. Never had seen or heard anything like this before or to this date. Totally forgot to watch for a deer at this point and was just dog-watching now! The dogs went out of hearing range from me and did not lose the trail this second time and ran the deer, a buck, back close to the levee about 8-10 miles away. We know this happened because the deer was shot and our dogs were there. The rules in hunting are that if you shoot a deer being run by someones elses' dogs, you give half the meat to the dogs owner. So the people who shot the deer, read the tags on the dog and contacted our camp. This hunting area where this happened is all but gone now; Just another part of the south (and America) that is gone with the wind; - Here is a pic of a black&tan... Easy to see where the name come from; They are very good hunting dogs plus friendly enough most times. At a deer camp like ours, BS flows, all in good nature; Guys who have dogs, want their dog to perform as I've tried to outline above, with their dog being the best hunting dog of any group of dogs. My father always said the best of these dogs was the dog that lead the other 2 dogs that day. Others did not always agree with that but what I saw these 3 dogs perform that day, proved my father was right-on! -- Just to try and give someone an idea on the excitement of seeing a real hunting dog working and coming across a scent and then rip-off + start trailing an animal with his barking and such, I went to youtube; It was insulting what I saw there for hunting dogs; One guy was in his back yr pulling a cow bone or something around his back yard for his 'hunting' dog to trail,,
This is Frieda- shes always with me going Racing, she loves to be around with hundreds of people, dogs ... She is (sometimes) very loyal- if i tell her something she (might) does it- typicall german dachshund! Can t think about not having her by my side!
It's honestly a pretty boring video, but it's my first time letting Jasper (4 year old spaniel / poodle / something else mix) follow me around while putting through the woods. He did great *and I didn't roost him* :-) View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KRB0YSmD2HY :-) He was a tired little dude that night!
Thats an adorable puppy. Their a damn handful that young. My two pups are siblings and I brought them both home at 7 weeks and man what a pain haha tons of fun though
