The best I ever hunted behind was a dog I called Abby. Kinda funny story how she came about. A number of years ago I had been looking for a plott dog to play around with. I had come in contact with a guy from up around Paris, TX that had what I thought I was looking for. I drove up to this guys place one Saturday morning and long story short the dog I went to look at just didn't excite me much. However, on a chain across the yard I saw what I thought was the best looking yellow brindle female I had ever seen. I inquired about the dog and he said she was a well started dog...hunted pretty good but wasn't for sale. I told him I'd be real interested (don't know what I was thinking....I knew better even back then to buy a dog based on looks but there was something about her) if he would sell her to me but he was pretty sure that he wanted to keep her, so I ended up leaving empty handed and drove 6 hours back home.
About two days later, the guy calls and says if I was still interested in that brindle gyp that I could come have her for $150. I told him I would be there the next day and so I drove all the way back up there and picked her up.
The following weekend, I took her hunting and as my luck would have it she wouldn't leave...wouldn't hunt...and when we caught a hog she wouldn't have anything to do with it. Started dog my azz!! (I found out later on that this guy was a big-time dog peddler). So, I set about working this dog from the beginning...laying tracks...mock hunts...a little work in the pen. Wasn't a few months later, and she quickly began her journey towards occupying the #1 kennel.
Even at a year and a half old, Abby was what I consider the best I've hunted. She was SUPER fast on a track, would hunt as deep as I would give her time to hunt and had a working style all her own. It was fun watching her cast into a block of woods, then come blazing out of the woods a hundred yards down or so working back and forth on the ground, then hit a 180 and back in knowing she was running the track the wrong way. I got to where I would purposely hold her back when hunting with other folks, let other dogs make a round and then put her out. 9 times out of 10, she would come bayed somewhere. In fact, Richard Walker on here had come out and hunt with me one weekend shortly before she died and witnessed me put her out to times behind other dogs and her strike. Impressive is what she was.
I lost Abby in Oct. of 2008 at a young age of almost 3 years old to a fungal infection in her lungs called Histomycosis that she picked up while hunting. Unfortunately I never bred her before she died. A good while later, I was able to run down the guy I got her from and he was less than helpful about providing me info about her. I made mention (just to see what he would say) that I would probably pay upwards of a couple thousand dollars to have another from the same breeding and he started to back-peddle saying this and that....at which point I told him a few things my momma probably wouldn't be proud I had said.
Still miss this dog...
