Coon hunting with hounds


Lucy Joined in the Hunt

written by Mary Lou McKIllip


Lucy was a precious precocious little fat bull dog. She had her nose in every thing and us old Dawgs couldn’t tolerate much of her. Grady was our lead coon hunting dog he ram rodded every hunt or yet he thought he did.

This night Lucy led the pack and they all strutted after her because she was a female I guess. Lucy had no ideal of what the hunt was about, she wanted the boys to follow her. Grady came up to her and bite her fat butt hard and told her to get home and now. She whined and the other coon hunting dawgs took up for her and of course that ended the hunt for coons that night. Lucy slipped by John and followered the truck home.

I wasn’t wanting Lucy in the hunt either and me and Grady devised a plan to keep her home so us coon dawgs could hunt coons like our master taught us to do. The Master John keep us in a lot with our dawg houses scattered around in the lot.

We tricked Lucy into the lot,,but not after the other coon dawgs were out. Lucy was incited by a bone Grady had stashed. Grady hollowed for Lucy and at first she was afraid he was going to bite her on her rump again.

Grady said," Lucy, you cute little thing, I didn’t mean to hurt you last night and to prove it I saved my bone for you."

Lucy rushed in barking,"Thanks Grady, you a super friend."

While Grady gave Lucy his bone, I was working my way to the gate then Grady ran out while she was still holding the bone slamming the gate shut.; he slammed it hard and the latch flopped down securing the gate.

Lucy realized we had tricked her and she started bawling like a female, but it done her no good for John was already in the truck waiting for me and Grady to hop in the truck. He raced his motor and way we went to hunt those trickily coons.

Millie, John’s wife heard Lucy barking bloody murder and came to see Lucy fastened in the lot. She almost let her out, but thought John had a purpose for putting her up and went back into the house. This time Miss Lucy didn’t have her way to infer with us old coon hunting dawgs. If John had caught her the other night he would have put her in the truck, I know he would, but since us old dawgs aren’t supposed to talk who was to tell him. She had managed to stay clear of John, Lucy was not a push over when it came to smarts.

Grady and I decided to take her out on a trail run, we ran passed the helper who fed us our supper and managed to sneak passed him away we ran hollering for Lucy. We knew she would try to follow us, so we make it up to out run her short fat little pugy body.

Grady looked over to me and said, " I didn’t know Lucy had that much running power, but we managed to stay ahead of her. Then we doubled back and went home when we thought she was out far enough not to find her way back. Sure enough she traveled South all night getting farther and farther from the farm, while us old dawgs went back, but had to sleep out side the lot that night in the cold.

Lucy never came home that night and me and Grady were getting concerned, but relieved to I guess. If she stayed lost she would never interrupt a coon hunt again. John got on the phone and called everyone of his friends and described Lucy. One man said a bull dog doesn’t have much sense of direction when away from home, maybe some one stole her.

John said , "I don’t think they would steal her, she would bit them."

This rocked on and on for over three months and some man called and said he spotted a female small bulldog fitting her description. This was over in Tennessee and a far piece from Virginia. I asked Grady , "you don’t think that Lucy could have walked that far do you?"

"Heck no, I don’t I replied .this can’t be the pesty Lucy we had."

Another man called and said he had her up in his lot , he was sure it might be Lucy and John drove down to Bristol , Virginia to see if this was Lucy, but he was disappointed once more.

One year later when us old coon dawgs were on a hunt we heard old Lucy bark that spunky thing had found her way back to the hills were we hunted coons. Dang! if she didn’t have a coon treed, I’m not telling it.

John and us dawgs came running up to the tree and John saw it to be Lucy, I thought I’d have to go to the creek for water and bring him around. He took his gun and shot the coon down and it landed near Lucy’s feet and I’d be darn if she didn’t fetch the coon to John.

When dawgs and man are coon hunting at night strange things and sounds along with impossible things might just happen.

John caught the coon by his tail and said, " Let’s get Lucy and the coon home, then he looked around and no Lucy. Grady and me almost passed out with fright, had we seen Lucy’s ghost? Dang!! What had two coon hunting dawg done?

Signed Arvil the second best coon hunting dawg around.


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