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-- Part Two (http://forums.ukcdogs.com/showthread.php?threadid=266145)

Part Two

There was a time…by BigE

when I was pretty much forced to hang up my leash. I started hunting as a boy of 12. My dad and uncle were heavy into dogs and I guess I was naturally drawn to the sport as well. I can remember hunting by myself at that age and learning all the sounds of the woods. The great adventure of it all. Imagine,just a boy and his dog. Many a night we spent in pursuit of the ring tailed bandit....and more often then not he bested us. That was okay, cause we'd be after him again soon. Things slowed down a bit in my late teens as differing influences competed for my attentions. But always there was my buddy, tied up out back, ready and waiting. I got married young and the responsibilities that accompany that left little time to enjoy my sport as much as I wished. Like Larry A I had to play dad. Again, there was an old hound and familar face ready to make an escape with me. To take some of lifes pressures away. Well, the kids grew and the wifes job shift changed to a more favorable one for hunting and I got to get more involved in this sport I love. And along the way I have had the good fortune to make a number of new friends and enjoy many a nights fellowship and laughter. Fond memories indeed. And all the little trials of training and the fustrations of lifes trials in general seem to slide away as soon as the tail gate drops. And I am back to being "just a boy with his dog".

Only once…by Larry Atherton

I started hunting with a dog when I was 8. From the time I was 8-16 all my dogs were mutts, but each one hunted. I usually picked my dogs by how much they looked like a redbone or black & tan. I really wanted a coonhound bad. When I was 13 I started hunting with the husband of a women my mother worked with. I hunted with Mr. Lewis for 3 years. His idea of a coonhunt was buy a 6 pack of Pabst Blue Ribbon Tall Boys, turn the dogs loose, drink the six pack, wake up at dawn, call the dogs in, and drive me home. I never once seen a coon treed in 3 years. When I was 16, I bought my first coonhound. It was a redbone. I hunted her for two years at least once a week and only ever treed one possum with her. After that everything is sort of a blurr. To be truthful I haven't been able to figure out exactly how many dogs I owned between 18-21. THe number is high. I have owned nearly every bred. I finally decided I needed to raise my own dog. It was a plott. He was my first coon dog. He got killed at 17 months old.

I was 21 when I ordered a treeing walker puppy. I named the pup Dan. He was a natural. He was making old dogs look silly at 7 months. I only hunted him in 3 or 4 hunts, but didn't like competition. He got hit and killed by a car when he was 6. I had several pups at the house, but I quit hunting for nearly a year. I buried my hunting coat, leash, and several other hunting items with my dog. I finally got over his lose when I realized I wasn't doing his memory justice by not hunting his pups.

I am not a hard hunter. I try to hunt two times a week, but that is getting increasily hard with my sons ages 7,4, and 1. My hunting is diffently like Pappy's. It is my release. If I don't get to hunt the wife says, "I get grumpy". Can ya imagine that? At this point in my life, no I can't imagine not coonhunting. Nearly all of my closest friends are people I have meet through my dogs.

Finally, the proudest accomplishment with my dogs is that all my dogs today trace back to Dan. I believe its only now that I am truly honoring his memory.

Very touching story larry i enjoyed that . see ya round …by Cosz

Nice.

Kicked by the Bad Luck Mule…by blu4u2

I'm sure everybody has had those moments when they decide that they have had all the fun they can stand, but I've got a story to rival any. In the not too distant past (3 years or so) I had what I considered to be a decent pair of young dogs. Sure I had to spend all the money I had saved for my fall tuition, but that was a minor sacrifice. I'd never really had a good dog and I was eating it up, rolling up and down the interstate paying entry fees. I began to meet new people and learn alot about the sport. Then I was, to put it nicely, kicked in the @** by the bad luck mule. I lost both dogs, one to a truck and one to a train, one of which was wearing a new shock collar. My light went out (two weeks out of warranty),and I wrecked my truck. This might not have been that bad, except that it all happened in two weeks! This was almost a claim to fame for me. I worked at the Nite Lite store in Clarksville and met countless people who had heard of my incredible run of luck; I was a borderline legend for a short time. Few were the coonhunters in NW AR who hadn't heard. I even met people from surrounding states who knew about my misfortune.Needless to say, I swore off coonhunting for good. However, within two weeks I was hunting a borrowed dog with a MagLite and sort of built back up from there. I think we all want to quit sometimes, but once its in the blood its hard to hang up the waders, box up the light, and call it quits.

I did…by misfit

I started hunting with a hound in 1979. I longed for a hound for four years prior to that. I had a couple of cattle dogs that I trained to fetch the cows prior to the hounds but although they were great companions, they didn't have any hunt in them. When my favorite cattle dog was killed by a car I begged for a coonhound and got another cattle dog. I appreciated the thought but a 12 year old boy with tons of hunting stories from his grandpa in his head cannot make a coon dog out of a cattle dog. I got a couple of dogs given to me, a fox/bull terrier that would kill about anything and had to shoot after he bit me. Another fox terrier pup that died of parvo. Finally I scraped the $25 together to buy a grade walker pup that I led home a mile and a half on a piece of twine. That pup meant the world to me and was with me for six years and three litters of pups that I kept a couple out of each and raised. In the meantime hounds came and went but never the pup I started with. When she died in 1985 I quit hunting. I lived in the city until August 1998. In October of 1998 I bought a male walker pup. In January I bought a female. The male was killed in the road in February 99. I finished the female to Nt. Ch. in Oct. 2000 (just after her second birthday). I do it because its in my blood. I've also given up most every other pasttime I had (some good some bad) to have time with my family. Coon hunting is my time for the most part. I do share with the kids but 90% of the time I'm alone and enjoy it. I love getting with the Ashley Social Club and going too but that time I have for myself after trying to please clients day in and day out is really the thing that keeps me going. Aside from that I would like to be known for keeping a couple good dogs and for people to know that if a pup is raised at my place it will be a good one and if I ever have one for sale it will be a good one. Not one that needs a few more coon, not one that just needs breaking, not one that has to be hunted alone because its ill. Those are the ones that are culled or free to someone that I think may know more than I do about working a dog or has more time to spend on them. I do go to a few hunts but I really don't like them. I like to see how my dog measures up to the others out there and to get my dogs around strange dogs to fill out their experience. If I get the right one I won't say that I won't go for broke, just not high on my priority list.