Larry Atherton
UKC Forum Member
Registered: Jun 2003
Location: Central Michigan
Posts: 6539 |
First off, I have hunted a fair amount hunts, I have probably seen about 6-7 cast where a dog got significantly hurt. Overall, I had more good cast than bad. That being said I hunted a walker male in the 1990s. A buddy was handling him for me. We thought there was a mean dog in the cast. My buddy convinced the judge to stop and watch the dogs tree. We watched the judges dog bite my dog several times. My buddy tried to get the judge to scratch his dog. I finally yelled at my buddy to withdraw my dog he was getting ate up. We were only about 12 feet away from the whole thing. My dog never stopped looking up or missed a beat treeing the whole time.
After we withdrew, I took my dog home and treated his wounds with penicillin and malox coated aspirin. I treated him several times, but I missed 1 bite in the middle of a black spot by his spine. Two weeks later, he seemed good so I took him to another hunt. He was actually dominating the cast and had 3 trees to himself with a coon. On his fourth tree as we walked into the tree I was ready to leash him. He suddenly stopped treeing and started walking away from the tree with his head hung just off the ground. I caught him and it was now obvious something wasn't right. In the morning I drove him 2 1/2 hours away to see Doc Kelly. The dog's left lung was collapsed from a bacteria infection. I asked Doc what was his chances. He replied I can't give you any. Well, thanks to Doc Kelly he did survive and most people would never guess he only had one lung. That crazy dog and I had many more memories.
What I can tell you is I was so mad at that dang stupid dog for letting another dog bite the crap out of him without sticking up for himself. Before that whole incident I would have been upset if he fought back or at a minimum back off the tree. Afterwards I can't say that.
Fortunately, I have not had that issue since.
__________________
Larry Atherton
Aim small miss small
Report this post to a moderator | IP: Logged
|