BigGameHoundsmen.com

Training season opened in parts of TN yesterday and I had a pretty good day. I might as well tell up front that I wasn't prepared and forgot the camera at the house, which really sucked.

I free hunt my dogs and no they aren't 100% straight bear dogs and they will run a hog and my old dog will tree a coon. I was mainly just getting them some running time and figured if they struck a hog they would quit it once it got hot anyways. I was running my pack of 6 plus a friends pack of 4 since he had to work. I had my 2 older dogs his 1 older dog, 6 11 month old litter mates and 1 7 month old pup of his. I had been leading the older dogs a ways and letting the pups run off some pent up energy when 2 of the 11 month old litter mates opened up on the road bed infront of me. Everything except for the older dogs had bailed off the road and were trailing it hot by the time I got to where they opened and I didn't have to search hard for a track it was sticking out in the mud like a sore thumb. The older dogs were going nuts and I had to scold them pretty good to shut them up. They weren't used to "playing second fiddle" in this group. The pups took the track a couple hundred yards and then went quiet and I figured it had gone up a tree and they couldn't figure it out. So, it was time for the old boys to show them pups what to do next and off they went in a roar. Sure enough they got to the pups and the old dogs new exactly where he went and sat in to letting that big boy know that he was caught. When I got there the 300 # plus boar came sliding down from the top of the big oak but stopped only 10 feet off the ground. He was perfect for the pups and stood on a limb 10-12 feet off the ground and they were going nuts. Every pup even the 7 month old had went up the hill where they could look see it eye level from a few feet away and were blowing the top off the tree. After I had dumped every single thing in my pack out looking for my camera I got pissed off and tried my cell phone but, since it had been out of cell service for a while the battery was to low and when I would try to take picture it just died.

I figured the bear had just about had enough and was walking in to leash up the old dogs when he bailed straight over my back and into the whole pile of pups. Where he landed there was an old dead pine laying down and he crashed into and the pups piled on him like ticks. One pup jumped and landed on his back which I don't believe was his plan and his back legs were digging for some traction which I found funny. The bear broke free and went about 200 yards and went back up but, didn't stay long enough for me to even make it to them and jumped again. This time he kicked it into gear and out ran the dogs for about a mile in some bluffs before they caught up to him again and he treed.

It took me over 2 hours to make it to them because of the bluffs and the thick mtn laural. I would fight my way through that crap only for find a shear wall of rock. That sucked but, I was spurred on by the sound of the pups barking treed. I finally made it and the bear was setting WAY up in a huge poplar tree this time so I just sat and ate a bite and enjoyed the moment. The pups stayed treed the entire time and I had to leash and lead 9 dogs (the 7 month old came along) down the bluffs and out of the moutains. I was soaking wet with sweat by the time I made it back to the truck.

When I got home I noticed 1 of the 11 month old pups wasn't wanting to get out of the box and when I finally got him out I found he had been snake bit on the foot and it was starting to swell. I went and got my wife, whose a nurse, and she went to getting her stuff. She gave him bynadril (spelling) and a baby asprin and cleaned the bite area. Within an hour his leg had swelled double all the way into his shoulder and his foot was 3 times as large and starting to drain at the bite hole. He wasn't responding to anything that she done to stimulate him and we figured he was in in shock or nocked out by the bynadril. He was 1 of 2 that didn't want a drink when I got them back to the truck so he hadn't drank in hours so the wife took a big needle that we use to give meds to cattle, and used distilled water to give him fluids. Since she didn't have a trip bag she gave it to him (I don't remember what she called it) she put it between his shoulder blades under the skin. She would put enough just under the skin to make a knot about the size of a golf ball and stop. It wasn't as good as an I.V. she said but, better than nothing. We had him on the back porch where it was quiet and cool and the wife sat there with him reading a book while I took care of some farm work. I was gone for a few hours and when I came home he was alert and wagged his tail when I walked up but, didn't raise his head.

This morning when I got up he had moved from where he had been and raised up to greet me and the swelling had got down some but, not much. I figure he'll make it now. I'm also pretty sure it was a rattle snake since I've never had a dog swell up like that from a copper head bite.

Oh, I forgot to tell about this litter of pups. Last year my friend picked up a female Plott and brought her to my farm to try her out. We ran her solo for a while and she done ok but, didn't tree anything. He asked me to put my male Allison Plott with her and see if he could find anything ... yad, yad, yad, anyways, turns out she's in heat and we find them knotted up. My friend is livid and hasn't paid for the dog yet. The vet wouldn't abort them without spaying her so he buys the dog and the more he hunts her the more that he dislikes her, mainly because she was skiddish. He calls me up one night cussing and says that if I want this blank ed, blank, blank I can have her or he's getting rid of her because he's chased her around around the truck trying to get her loaded up for the last time. So, we work up a deal that I would come get her, work with her until the pups are born and weaned and then he's to take her back. If he still doesn't like her he can do what ever with her. I would keep the pups until they were 6 months old and then if he wanted any I would give him half of the litter to sell or keep.

I bring her home where I have a son (6 years old ) who LOVES dogs and since we have a big farm he and the dogs can roam at will. I worked with her and he took her with him every where "hunting" and she started treeing squirrels. She would come to him any time he would call her but, never did come to me and I worked with her a lot myself. She gave birth to 7 pups, 6 males and 1 female in sept. last year but 1 died at birth. My son had the pups running through the woods and fields on the farm as soon as they could walk. They would follow him off a cliff if he were to go over it. A few months after they were born the pups got into my shop and tore into a couch cushion and the foam and one got a piece stuck in it's throat and died. After 6 months my friend took 2 and I kept 3 including the female. They loved the caged coons I would catch at the barn and I had to stop letting them roam free at the barn because they were catching and killing the barn cats. When they got about 8 months old I loaded them up in the truck and was driving them around the farm looking for a deer to dump them on so I could break them. This was their first time and they went absolutely crazy when I drove right past the doe and she took off. I went to the back of the truck and opened the box and they came busting out and a male, who was showing the most promise and the female came out of the box at the same time. The male came out so hard that when he hit the side of the aluminum door frame he busted his hip socket bone where it meets the ball joint. He instantly went to screaming and biting at his hip. I shocked the other dogs off real quick and put him in the front seat. I didn't know what he had done and at first thought he had dislocated it. I watched him for a few days before taking him to the vet. The vet wanted to do $1,000's of dollars worth of shit but, I'm a farmer and I can't afford to throw that much money into an animal. So, I took him home and nursed him for months and I came very close many times to just putting him down but, he's my son's favorite and it would devistate him if I put "ole crip" (as he calls him) down. The pup is just now getting to where he can even remotely close keep up with the pack but, he's trying and hasn't dropped out of a race yet.

My friends 2 pups are doing out standing as well and he says that this litter as a whole is probably the best litter that he's saw in along time.

Sounds like a good opening day. I had a 8 month old get his hip busted up by a truck. The driver talked me out of shooting there on the road. He still runs funny but has become my best male with a lot of trees around 150 since the accident 2 years ago.