Squirrel Dogs

I was surfing over at My Front Porch and came upon this post. In the comments, GUYK talks about squirrel dogs.

Roy Burns always kept a few squirrel dogs and he taught me how to hunt over them. Basically, you turn a good squirrel dog out and follow him through the woods till he trees one. Then you search the limbs above the dog for the squirrel. It's a lot of fun.

When I was a young deputy, there was an older hand who had a good squirrel dog. We'll call him Harrison. Harrison was bragging about his dog one day and I told him that if he would show up at my house about daylight on Saturday, my wife would have coffee and biscuits ready and we would eat, then go out to give that squirrel dog a chase.

Harrison showed up just before daylight on a cold, clear December morning. His dog was tied in the back of his truck. We went inside to eat, and when we were finished, I gathered my shotgun and hunting vest and we prepared to leave. As we walked to the truck, I had to go around to the passenger side, and Harrison jumped in behind the wheel. I noticed something on the side of the truck and when I got in, I mentioned to Harrison that his dog might not want to hunt today.

He looked at me. "What are you talking about? That dog is going to do just fine."

"I don't think so," I replied. "Looks to me like he hung himself about an hour ago trying to jump out of the truck. He's already stiff."

Harrison jumped out of the truck and ran around the bed, then stopped dead in his tracks.

I hate it when that happens. We didn't kill any squirrels that day.