THEY CALL IT PUPPY LOVE or I'M ON YOUR ASS 'COON by Bucky Lewis I was at a party recently at which a friend of mine - Charlie - was bragging about his dog. He has a female Brittany Spaniel in whom he had bred and sold the pups. The reason he had bred this dog he said, was because she was an incredible hunting dog and all-around super-fourlegged creature. Now, I have been around dogs all my life and my last animal was a female Brittany who lived to thirteen until getting run over last year. Brittany Spaniels are exceptional dogs, not only being great pointers on birds for hunting, but also have a great temperament as far as family dogs, so I was extremely interested in my friend's Brittany. Well, after building up his dog to the point of being the best thing since Rin Tin Tin, his dog shows up. Seems she had found a way to get into the house. Before I go any further here, I want to tell you about the delicate breeding process. There's a lot of inbreeding that happens when breeding dogs. Consequently, in the hunting world, sometimes dogs are bred so they can be rather high strung. Well, Charlie's dog was no exception. She found her way into the house and immediately leaping onto the dining room table, sampled the buffet and great fare that had been put out for the guests. All the while eluding everyone who tried to corral her. Charlie then tried to explain that "I don't like keeping my hunting dogs in the house, so she doesn't really have many manners when she's inside." Hmmm. I can understand his way of thinking, I guess. Growing up in Laconia, our family lived in an apartment over my grandparents in their house in the French neighborhood of town. My grandparents had been forced to sell their 250 acre farm at the foot of Mt. Israel in Sandwich after my dad lost his leg in a hunting accident and they wanted to be closer to the hospital in Laconia in which he was in for over a year. So my grandfather had a hard time giving up the things that he loved to do in the country. One of them was hunting with dogs. His specialty was 'coon huntin', and he was widely known to have some of the best raccoon and rabbit dogs in the state. I remember always growing up around Bluetick hounds, Black and Tan hounds, Beagles, and many others. And none of them EVER came into the house. My grandfather said that "hounds weren't meant to be in the house as that would lessen their abilities to hunt, ruin their smell processes, etc". Any man and woman who have hunted with dogs will tell you that the real pleasure is watching the dog work, or in the case of 'coon hunting, is hearing the dog work. Let me tell you what I mean by describing a typical raccoon hunt: First of all, because raccoons are nocturnal creatures, hunting them happens at night when they come out to forage into your garbage cans. You put the hound in the back of the pickup or in a cage in the front and start driving the dirt roads. When you come to where the raccoon had crossed the road within the last hour or two, the dog who has the scent well in his or her memory starts going crazy. At this point you "release the hounds" and the chase is on. "AOOOHWE" "AHWOOOHE" "OWE , AOOOWE!" The dog tells you that by his howling that he's hot on the trail of the raccoon. So off you go into the darkness, walking through briar patches, swamps, and general impenetrable forests following the dog following the raccoon, listening to the incessant howl. Fun. Now, what happens next is that the dog, which moves faster than the raccoon, will ultimately catch up to the varmint in oh -let's say 3 to 4 hours- and cause the animal to take refuge in a tree. At this point when the dog trees the coon, he gets really excited and changes his howl to more of an excited yapping and squealing. So that's how it goes: the chase "AOOOHWE" "AHWOOOHE" "OWE , AOOOWE!" then the treeing "ARGHE" "YUP, YUP" "RALPH" "YAP, YAP" "HERE YA GO DUMMY"…. I think the most memorable raccoon hunting story involving my grandfather and his famous dogs comes about from a day that one of my father's cousins had come up from Massachusetts to visit and experience the Hunt. He had heard the storied accounts of my grandfather and his dogs, and wanted to see for himself. So off they went one night on a hunt, my grandfather, my dad, my dad's cousin, and one of my grandfather's famous hounds. It wasn't long until the dog started howling. After about 30 minutes of following the "OWE , AOOOWE!" into the woods, all of a sudden the dog started yipping very softly: "yip!" "yip, yip!" "yeieep, yeipp, yip!" "yip, yit". Well, my father's cousin turned and asked my dad what the dog was doing being so quiet in his barking, to which my dad dryly responded, "It sounds like that dog is huntin' on posted land!" Now THAT was some good hound! And he never saw the inside of a house.