We are OVER the kennel cough - hallelujah!!!!! I hope I never have to deal with that ever again, it wound up going through my entire kennel and wound up an argument between me and my vet of heartworm vs. kennel cough…ugh
My husband has been out of work for a few weeks but has managed to squeeze in some hunts….I cannot tell you how truly hard it is to get up in the mornings and drag myself down to the concrete jungle to work with a bunch of City Folk while I know my other half is out enjoying the dogs and weather!
My husband took his ‘old man’ Goober out of his semi-retirement since it was cool and he hadn’t been in quite some time. I get a text about 9.30 that morning of a big ole toothy hog head (gas money). He went 180ish and his teeth measured 3 and 3 ¼ , he managed to gouge Goober enough to spook my husband and since I wasn’t there to tend to him they went ahead and dispatched him there. Allen said Goober, Tana and Chance bailed off the truck and went in about two road, let out one bark and then stretched him out….needless to say I guess Goober is going back on the retirement list much to his upcoming dismay (it really is quite pitiful to watch him ‘beg’ to go).
They hunted the rest of the day catching 2 or 3 more with no other pictures or events. When Allen made it home he said ‘well I guess we will just hang out all weekend since I killed my gas money’….haha, NOT I managed to scrape a few pennies together cause goodness knows I wasn’t missing out on the wonderful weather!
Saturday rolls around and we are childless since our little boy ditched us to attend a birthday party in Leesburg, we almost had him convinced to come ride along with us but there is still something about cake that he just cannot say no to.
We get up about 6.00 and load the dogs headed south, we made it out there about 7.30 or so and put the dogs up top. We didn’t get on anything in the first spot, tons of deer but no hogs so we go across the road. We put Forrest, Chance and Gweedo my wonder hound (ha) out beside a milo / rice field duck pond but didn’t jump anything in those fields, we rode up another block and the race began.
Gweedo is a trail barking, coon trashing (not totally his fault since he was used on coons for 8 months), hog baying dork. We just got him back so we haven’t quite figured out when he is running or baying….but we are getting there! He jumped and ran for about an hour, none of the other dogs have learned to ‘honor’ him yet but he finally stopped a sow and Chance took it upon himself to take him seriously which then coerced Forrest into believing it….
All three dogs are baying (not typical for Forrest or Chance) and they are on the backside of the cane / duck pond / cypress head…whew the water was tire deep and thank goodness for the sandy bottom. We eased around to them and when we got within sight we could hear the dogs fighting and see the cane shaking so my husband’s buddy jumps out, throws Psycho out for insurance and follows behind him. Once the CD makes it, Gweedo figures he has done his job and rolls off (bless his heart he is the loosest thing we have EVER owned) to go find himself something else to run barking the entire way.
We end up with a fat sow that is about to burst with pigs that purely whooped poor little Forrest, she had some small pokers and his poor flank and shoulders showed she knew how to use them. We got her loaded up, put Forrest in the box and dumped Charlie out to go with Gweedo and Chance.
They ran for the next hour or so in one HUGE circle, at one point Gweedo had his something stopped which we assumed would have been a hog because we heard some blowing and cane breaking but never actually seen it. I did video the road hoping like crazy something would dart out so I could watch them tackle it in the road…..never happened but you can see how thick this mess is and it is still a few months out from harvesting.
We wound up meeting my brother in-law with his family and my husband’s buddy’s wife / daughter and making a family day the rest of the afternoon. We caught another sow about 200lbs with Chance, who is really starting to step up and put the burners on.
Psycho broke off of this sow and wound up going on his own escapade (my ‘return button’ wasn’t working) and Tana wound up baying almost a mile away with us catch dog less! We go to Tana, dump Chance and Nitro to her and it winds up being a little hundred pound boar hog (thankfully) about 10 minutes later after we cut him Psycho shows up….
After getting all the dogs loaded, we wound up just riding around bsing and letting the dogs work. We wound up with two more little boar hogs and cutting them but the grand finale of the night was coming….you know twilight hour when you can just barely see anything but it isn’t quite dark enough for a light. The dogs jumped something in a head that they ran for a while, stopped and caught but by the time we made it to them it had broke so we waited on the crossing. About 15 minutes later this black thing comes out and starts trotting down the road, then Tana appears so my brother in-law hits him with a spotlight and she spies him….she turns on the rocket boosters and makes him tuck his rump in the middle of the road and has him bayed up against a ditch.
We sit there and let the two little girls watch her bay, Nitro comes barreling out of the cane never slowing down and hits him like a freight train knocking him into the ditch. They catch him in the ditch so the lariat is used to fish him out, it wound up being a good little barr hog that got a second chance.
On the way home, a boy from here in town called and asked my husband if he wanted to go try to catch a bad hog in an 80 acre pasture that killed his catch dog….he obliged and met him about 10.00 with just a catch dog since everything else we had was (thankfully) worn out.
Within an hour the boys dogs had bayed a NO EARED barr hog in a nasty palmetto head, the dogs that were baying are loose and not gritty at all. Allen said he got in about 25 yards from where they were baying and cut Psycho to them, he said you could hear him giving it all he had since he was on his own and it took my husband a while to finally make it to him because it was hands and knees the entire way in. They got him caught but didn’t have any hobbles on him so they had to dispatch him and drag him out. They wound up baying another good hog but Phsycho didn’t make it to him before he broke so they packed up and come home…Psycho was wore out after that escapade, he isn’t quite used to doing it all on his own lol
Today, my husband sent me this text of one of his collars. The no eared barr they had caught had a broke off tooth on one side, well his tooth was jammed into the Garmin collar between the plastic and metal piece!
We also wound up getting the ‘Lucky’ dog back from our neighbor (Chance’s littermate), said he was given a 8/9 month old finished dog that will slap burn up the woods….my husband gladly accepted him back. Hopefully a few months of good feed and good handling he will be out there with the rest of them. He is built well and moves good, I will try to see if I can get some pics of him up in the next few days! Sadly to say he DOES have dog / food aggression issues, which wasn’t bred into him but from the past two owners not correcting it in the beginning....I feel sorry for dogs like him because he is almost dealt a one way pass if I can’t talk my husband into keeping him around and working on him for atleast a little while.
