Grub

Grub is a five year old male Black and Tan Coonhound.  In the middle of December 2007 we took him into the woods on a whim, to see if he was gun-shy.  He sat in the car while we fired the gun and at the first shot he went nuts!  He was bawling and tearing to get out of the car.  There was no fear in his voice.  I took him out and he pulled frantically on the leash to get to where we were shooting.  That's certainly not a trait that is instinctive to a dog so we were immediately aware that he was either hunted before or at least knew that gun shots=dead animals.

A couple weeks later my husband and I went out and I shot a couple raccoons.  We brought them home and "introduced" them to Grub.  The night of January 2nd, 2008 was Grub's first hunt.  He remained on leash and we walked around in the woods.  He definately kept nose to the ground.  As chance would have it I saw a raccoon run past the front of my truck.  By the time I got Grub out of the truck the coon was nowhere to be seen, though there were a couple of trees that held strong possibility for his whereabouts.  I let the dog sniff around (on leash) and though he seemed to have a hard time grabbing the trail, he eventually did.  He tore over towards a tree and immediately locked onto it, treeing very hard.  It took me awhile shining the tree to find the coon, but find him I did!  Turned out to be a decently sized male.

After praising Grub profusely I shot the coon out.  For the first time I brought an animal to the taxidermist because I was so absolutely proud of my dog that I wanted the coon skin just perfect.

 Between 1/2/08 and 1/12/08 Grub has treed up six raccoons.  I shot one more down for him but for the rest of his trees we stuck with praise.  Grub will go on his first leashless hunt this Friday, with the aid of a GPS tracking collar.  I'm excited and very nervous, but the excitement is winning out.