Son is dropping off the grand dog at the office tomorrow. Going to have to keep an eye on him towards dark, if he sees deer on the lake he will think they are dogs and run like heck, not sure the shock collar would stop him, but I know the snow on the ice would wear him out and slow him down. Not my concern I am out Thursday morning.
Trip up to camp to work b4 trout season this Saturday. Had my buddy Evie with me, 2.5hrs and she just kicked it. Wanted her hand held tho haha.
Monday, 27th, was 4yrs since putting Molson down. Miss her, miss hunting pheasants with her, miss killing squirrels with her. Best dog I ever had.
Going on 9 months without Roscoe. Daily life is getting better but being at my cabin without him is still tough. Having that big baby curled up next to me while I slept was was great.
I had a vole problem this winter, Pita I belive has taken out the population, thought they were safe in their burrows. So fun to watch the radar ears work, she hates it when it is windy.
So yesterday A. J. Protected me from a bear. We were in the garden working and A. J. went on full alert and into what I call his " war" stance. Body tight, fully stretched, back legs squared, head high, ears forward and chest puffed out. Just a classic protection stance. He was staring up into the nieghbors woods. Then I heard something I'd not heard before, the lowest most guttural growl I've ever heard from any dog. The hair on my arms stood up. I said what do you see bubba( nick name)? He immediately did a semi circle and came to my side and a bit forward to do the same stance and growl a bit louder. I started scanning the neighbors line and then saw the movement, a mid sized bear just slowly ambaling just off their trail on the edge of the woods. A.J. never barked and did not move until the bear was out of sight. What a great boy! and I told him so.
My old black lab / Border Collie cross (Jade) was a good early warning system when a bear was around. She would hackle up and let out the same kind of growl, very low and deep in her chest. When I heard that low rumble out of her I could count on there being a bear close by. The first time she ever did it we were camping. She started doing it about 10 minutes before it got fully dark. In the back of my head I kind of wondered if maybe it was a bear she was reacting at but wasn't sure. About 30 minutes later we got confirmation when a bear showed up on the edge of camp in the firelight. It was very bold and didn't react much at all to our shouting. I finally put a couple .44 mag rounds over its head to make it leave, but it came back later that night and got into my grandpa's dry box. Stole a loaf of bread and bag of chips he had in it. We saw it again a couple other nights when we were cooking dinner but kept a tight camp the rest of the week and it didn't make off with anything else. The very next year we were camping in the same area. The very first night Jade started doing that growl again as it got dark. This time we all knew what that meant! We had just finished up dinner and it was almost full dark. When we had pulled into the camp area another camper had come over and warned us there was a bear raiding the camp pretty frequently, he said they had shot over its head several times and it just kept coming back every night. I had my daughter's 10 pump pellet gun with us, so decided I would pop it with that if I saw it. Camp raiding bears get pretty used to guns being shot around them, so I thought I'd see if a good sting would teach it a lesson. As it got fully dark, I set up in a camp chair with the pellet gun, a full 10 pumps with a bb loaded. Had the .44 too, just in case. I faced the direction that Jade had been facing when growling. Pretty soon a young little boar came out of the brush across from me, maybe 18 yards. I flipped on my head lamp and shot it in the azz with the bb gun. It must've stung pretty good, the bear made a little growl noise and swung his head around to bite at the spot I'd hit it. It then ran off into the brush. We stayed there for another 5 nights and never once saw the bear, nor did Jade ever alert that there was one nearby. Apparently it worked, at least for a while. While we were there a Ranger showed up and put in a live trap for the bear, responding to several complaints from other campers. I heard that it did finally come back around 3 days after we'd left and they caught it and relocated it.
Snow finally melted enuff today to get to Roscoes burial spot. Knelt down, thanked God for the 12 superb years we had together. Walked away and said " I Miss You Bud". Yep, shed some tears.
What are the damn chances? Older dog not doing real hot lately. We buy a puppy today so I get home and take our older dog out before the puppy gets home....she looks at me and puts her nose into the wind and breathes. I pet her then take her inside. 3 min later my wife gets home with the puppy and takes her in the backyard. Kids go inside to get my older dog and she had passed away in that short period of time. This is our new buddy Luna. RIP CC
