COTTONTAILS

[Reggie B]

I find it funny how people think about dogs. Growing up my uncles had "treeing hounds". They primarily hunted squirrels during the day and opossum at night because raccoons were supposedly scarce in the day. Well the coonhunters swore that hunting squirrels with coonhounds would ruin a good coon hound. And the foxhunters who ran dogs at night claimed that hunting rabbits with foxhounds would ruin a good fox hound.

I always kind of thought that a good treeing dog would tree anything and a good running dog could "run" anything and a good pointing dog would point anything (preferably flying things).

[mobirdhunter]

When I was a kid, and growing up without a living grandfather, we "adopted" and older former Texas League ball player and then trapper by the name of Wilbur Davis as a stand in. He was a noted coon hunter in the area (peninsular Virginia), and my brother and I loved his coon hounds. I especially loved "Stupid," a black and tan variant of some sort. Stupid would go squirrel hunting with me all the time. I remember Wilbur lamenting to my mother, "Miz Gawden, that boy done ruint my dawg!" I always saw his wink to her when he said this. At his death, his wife said he wanted me to have Stupid. We had no place to keep him where we lived, and so I had to turn him down. I still think about that every now and then.

I won't let my dogs chase rabbits, but if they point them on a slow day (and we have many in 21st Century Missouri), I just tell them "bunny!" and they know not to chase. If I would shoot rabbits over my dogs, and if I could shoot bucks over their points (not to mention turkeys), I'd be eating rabbit stew at every meal, and would be in the Boone and Crockett record book several times over.

Sorry to ramble, but Jerry's bunny hunt got me to thinking. Thanks, Jerry!

[J. A. EARLY]

Originally Posted by Garry L Gordon

I won't let my dogs chase rabbits, but if they point them on a slow day (and we have many in 21st Century Missouri), I just tell them "bunny!" and they know not to chase.

Our bird dogs would point rabbits but would never chase them at all. Even if you killed one in front of them. They seemed indifferent to them, and we did not kill that many. But my uncles each had a setter, two from the same litter, and cats were a different story. One would chase the cat while the other lay in wait for the kill.