My Dog Duke

[jack hamilton]

My dog Duke

Gentlemen,

"Got me an old dog and his name was Duke."
"I fed him some grease and it made him puke."

And so began my new {used} hounds 'literary life' here at my farm,
'Dog land'. Duke was 14 months old when an old girlfriends son Gary,
who is grown now, called and said he knew of a free Black and Tan hound and I needed to go and get him.
I live alone on "My 25 Acres" but for Sandymay my Walker, Red my saddle mule and Sugarmay my paint. Throw in 50 chickens and that's about all the company I keep.
Also Sandymay is so tight mouthed in the woods that unless she trees I never know where she is, and generally go to one of two camps, build a fire and hang out listening to the fire and the night sounds waiting for her to tree.
I knew I needed a male hound to make some tracking and trailing noise, as I felt like I was alone out in the woods all night hunting with Sandy. She is a good hound even if a little old and we kill coon every year but I also knew that she needed some help out on the trail at night and Dukedog fills the bill.
He sits and shakes hands perfectly, but his former owner was a girl and her mother hated Duke. Duke has been abused in really bad ways that only an old women can do. He was even thrown in the dog pound!
But the girl after coming home and finding Duke gone went and busted him out. Her mother wouldn't let her bring Duke back to their house so he was dumped at friends of the former owner for 3 months.

There are only three things that make Duke attack me,
or did when I first got him, and that was:
1. If he is asleep and you touch him he comes at you like a bear and bites the sxxx out of you!
Alright... don't touch Duke when he is asleep.
2. If you grab Duke by the collar like you are going to beat him for sxxxxxx on the floor, he will attack you like it wasn't even funny,
turn, bite the sxxx out of you and make blood run down your arm!
Alright just don't grab Duke by the collar, no problem.
3. And if Duke gets caught in a coon trap out behind your chicken coop, even with heavy gloves on and working fast, you are going to get bit. So I fenced the behind the coop off from dog traffic, problem solved.

Two nights ago we went out and I built a fire at the observatory camp. Sandy was elsewhere but Duke treed a hundred yards to the south/east. It was a possum so I called him off and went back to camp. He bayed the possum 5 more minutes and left.
Next he treed 2 possums in the same tree, 100 yards to the east.
I called him off, saying no possum Duke, COON! COON!
He bayed the two possum for 1 minute and left.

Then he treed 50 yards from the camp!
A real excited bawling like only Duke can do and it was a den tree.
I knew it had coon in it because of the coon hairs all around the hole at the base of the tree.
So Duke treed his first coon!
He bawled up the inside of the tree with his head in side the hole. And I yelled and fired my .22 up in the air, saying Duke! That's a COON!
A COON...GOOD DOG DUKEDOG!
I rubbed his back and petted him real good saying,
COON! COON!
Good dog Duke! we had a great time and I praised Duke and patted him real good telling him I had me a coon hound to hunt with Sandymay now and he was it! I stayed a long time and made sure Duke knew he had done good,
went home and went to bed about 4 am.

Last night we went out again but they were running a track on the ground so close to the house and were so excited I just followed them. All around east of my poultry empire the track went. They spent half an hour running all over the place in an area of only about 2 acres, then the trail was followed across my road and east over the old abandoned road to Hog creek. Around and around and up Hog and down the lower Coon, ending up at the Coon Creek Camp which is where I wanted to go in the first place.
Duke and Sandy both were bawling like crazy all night and the weather was almost freezing but no wind and walking it was beautiful. The low clouds made the lights from Dallas, 25 miles away, reflect back down and even though it was only a half moon we could see very well even without my old 'Nightlite'.

It was as exciting and as fun of a hunt as I have had in many years. Hounds were taken out too late because the trails were so long.
Tonight we will go out at 11:00 and not almost 1:00 and the coon will not have so long to wander around. Sorry dogs my fault.


Thank you...

Jack the Knife