When It Rains It Pours

Many of you probably saw my post about my missing dog. Honestly, I had very dim hopes of finding the dog alive because I believe that the pup was shot and thrown in the Brazos river. This pup was out of my litter born May 24th of last year. For the past several months I had been hunting him (Ranger) and his brother (Romeo) pretty hard. These two pups when hunted together and alone were very impressive. They had been finding hogs pretty regularly and weren't scared to travel as far as necessary to do so. 2 miles for these pups to range out hunting was very common, and what ultimately cost one his life.

Sunday morning of last week we had turned out on a place and the pups rolled. A hunting partner and I sat talking and about 20 minutes passed before I checked the Garmin. I then realized that the pups were just shy of 2 miles up-river. We started heading that way and found one coming towards us. A check of the Garmin showed the other pup still .8 miles on the edge of the river and had lost signal. My first thought was that he was swimming the river. We got closer and it never regained connection. Decided to walk to the river where we found fresh tire and foot tracks in the sand. We went back to our machines and rode up river a short while until we found a house. I knocked and asked the man if he had seen a yellow pup to which he replied they had been barking at his goat pen a short time ago and he had shot at them with a .410. He said he didn't kill the one (and I hope he didn't) but the evidence shows otherwise. I suppose by law he was justified, but still upsets me nonetheless. One pup lost.

Two days later on Tuesday evening I went to the kennels to feed. When I got down there it looked like someone had been murdered in Romeo's pen. Blood EVERYWHERE! My first thought was that the dog had been injured internally on Sunday, and was passing large amounts of blood. I found him in his barrel and pulled him out. A quick look revealed that his back right foot was MANGLED! I still don't know whether the dog next to him bit him under the panel somehow (NEVER even had growled at one another...his sire) or if he got it caught on something (which I still find unlikely) but irregardless, the foot was in bad shape. I went to the house and called my vet. We decided to wait until Wed. morning to take him in. Long story short, I left him under great care for over a week at the clinic but the foot just couldn't be saved.

Both my up-and-commers lost within a week, and that really sucks. A good friend described these dogs to me pretty goodyesterday...it's like playing poker. It's not if, but when you'll get dealt that crappy hand. I guess thats the way it goes...you can't ever get rid of a sorry dog, but if you have one sure-enough showing promise....watch-out!

RIP Romeo and Ranger.

The two brothers in the center.