by Carl Moore
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Coon hunters love to get their friends into the sport. I lived in northwestern Pa. and hunted coon almost every night. There was a small band of coon hunters in my area. When I went to the woods I always had some of these guys with me. We were mostly farmers and we worked around our coon hunting. One evening as I was getting ready to go to the woods and some of the guys showed up to hunt. They brought this fellow from Pittsburgh with them. John was a big man with lots of baby fat on him. I just shook my head and thought “The guy won't last an hour before he starts to complain”. We took him to one of the easy places to hunt. After we thought that should be enough for John. He wanted more. We went to another easy place to hunt and of course the coon took the dogs up to the top of the mountain. To my surprise John made it to the top. Some of us had to harvest hay the next day, so we called it a night.
John hunted with us almost every week end. He had transfered a job in Eire Pa. and had to be a work before 7AM. He drove about 25 miles to and from work, of course he could not hunt on weekdays. This guy had coon hunting in his blood. That fall my Bluetick bitch was bred to my big Night Champion Moose. In early November she had a nice litter of five pups. The rest of the regular coon hunters and I picked one well marked male as a Christmas Gift for John. Of course we didn't tell him about the pup. John hunted almost every night in November and December until the snow just got to much for us and the hounds.
We had a lot of snow that winter. John and the rest us of the hunters would have a party each statuary night. We took the kids with us and just had a lot fun. The men talked about the hunts of the past few years. Most had never hunted competition. I hunted in UKC hunts a lot and had a few night champions and show champions. We talked about the training needed for a hunt winner and about understanding what your dog did as the hounds ran track and treed the raccoon.
Well on Christmas morning and the whole group went to Johns house to deliver the pup. John had played with him since birth and had no idea the pup was his. John just grasped the pup. He had big Ole alligator tears rolling down his cheeks. The kids and John's wife loved the puppy. They chased and rolled around on the rug until the pup and the kids got tried and laid on the floor and slept. John and his wife wanted us to tell them how to train the new pup. We told him to wait until spring. We would help Train the pup then. Until then feed him and let the kids play with him,he would be just fine.
About two weeks later one of the guys called me and ask me to meet at Johns house. He said John's wife had called him and wanted us to come over for a surprise.
When we got to John's house, all of coon our hunter friends were there. Johns wife brought us coffee. As we sat there drinking coffee, John said he wanted to show us something. He picked up the pup and put him out on the porch. His wife came into the room with a piece of polish sausage. She drug a trail though the house, around the couch, into the bed rooms, down the hall to the boys room and out into the other hall. There was an old hall tree in that hall and the sausage was tied to its top. The pup was let in to the kitchen. That pup started to smelled around until he found the scent. He threw back his head and threw a beautiful bawl. He ran the track with open brawls and chops. Through the house, around the couch, In to the bed rooms, to the boys bedrooms and down the hall. He put both feet on the hall tree and just barked his heart out.
John let him tree while we egged the puppy on. John said he must tree for a while, wasn't that the competition dog had to do. Well, he had a point. That pup rattled the windows and our ear drums, but he treed on and on.
That winter I was a consultant for a large company in Erie and didn't see much of the guys. There was a nice thaw in early February and I got a chance to take old King out a few times. King was about 16 years old and a great dog to train young dogs with. He got stiff when he wasn't put to the woods every night and I just wanted the old boy to be happy. King hunted really close in and was always on hand.
One evening he treed a yearling coon behind our house. The coon was only about six feet up an 8 ft tree. I left King at the tree. Went to the house to get a sack and came back and bagged the coon. It was mid week, I put the coon in a cage. I would take the coon to John that weekend. I took the coon to John and showed him how to handle it. Again I didn't see John and the pup until one night on the way home from work I saw Johns truck parked in a field road on the farm. I stopped and heard a hound treeing in the hollow down by the corn field. I walked down that field road and found John sitting on a log a smoking his pipe. I knew that voice, it had to be Johns pup.
I sat down and ask John about the pup. He told me that the pup had no interest in the coon I brought him. Finely he and his wife would take hold of the coon. While John held him she rubbed polish sausage all over the coon. Then lead the coon to a tree in the woods. When the pup was turned loose he would follow to the tree,and stay treed until they went to get him. After while they rubbed less sausage on the coon until the coon was sausage free. The pup now could run and tree a wild coon and the family would take him out on the weekends and John took him every night. He turned out to be a fine hound. John had a real coon hound he could be proud of.
John hunted in a few competition hunts. John and his wife didn't like the completion hunts, They wanted to take the kid hunting and the Competition hunts cut in their hunting time with their boys. Our little pup became a top line pleasure hunter. He always made the family proud.
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