A Boy, A Beagle, and A BOAR 01-03-18

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A Boy, A Beagle, and A BOAR - excerpt from my book 01-03-18

I got my Beagle pup when I was 5 and he was smaller than his ears. They really drooped and dragged the ground back then. I wanted to call him 'Snoopy' after the cartoon dog, but we all tried different names and he wouldn't pay attention. My mother said BINGO and he looked up at her and that is how he got his name.

When I was growing up, dogs came inside with us and we treated them like people, so they sort of adjusted and thought they were too. They laid on the sofa or in a chair or on a braided rug my mother made in front of the fire, and from the beginning Bingo slept on my bed with me. Our house was heated with two wood stoves downstairs. There was a cast iron cook stove in the kitchen and a big iron chunk stove in the living room and the stove pipes passed up through the ceiling and warmed the two bedrooms upstairs. At night my folks would "bank the fire" with ashes to keep it burning all night and upstairs in my room it would get chilly enough to see my breath at 4 o'clock in the morning when I got up to pee. I would lift the covers and Bingo would scuttle down under and he was the toastiest bed-warmer you could imagine. Dogs give off a lot of body heat. I was the 'little human' and Bingo took to me right away and Uncle Ray said "Boys and Dogs go together just like peas and carrots!" and they all laughed.

Now a Beagle is a hound dog, like a bloodhound in miniature, with the same big ears and brown eyes and sense of smell, not to mention curiosity. Whatever I was doing he had to be right in the middle of things, usually in the way. I tested his 'smeller' with my mitten. I held it for him to smell and Uncle Ray held him while I hid it and when we turned him loose he gave a hound dog sound and took out after it. He found it too in less time than it had taken me to hide it. Beagles are natural born hunters and he would dig into a woodchuck hole with persistence one could only admire, even after the woodchuck was long gone out his 'back door'.

He loved the 'hunting game' and I had my boy scout jackknife and my slingshot that was strong enough that I could barely pull it back. I loaded it with a small handful of gravel and it became a deadly little shotgun and I regularly got squirrels down out of a tree that way. We ate squirrels and other critters and rabbit was like fried chicken 'cept all dark meat. We never killed anything for fun.

Bingo was already two years old when I got those goats and he hated them right from the start. They were bigger than dogs and smaller than cows and they weren't that friendly and they came after you with horns! He liked the game with the wild ducks that landed at the pond in the fall. They would tease him quacking until he swam out and they easily stayed out of reach until he swam to shore exhausted. He never did catch a duck, but it was not for lack of trying.

When I started first grade Uncle Ray gave me a boy's .22 single shot rifle and hunting turned to bigger than squirrels. Coon Hunting was a pastime of older boys and men and they had coon-hounds... big 'red-bone' breeds that could handle a bear or mountain lion, working together in a pack. The boys wanted to make fun of Bingo with his short legs, ears and hound-dog voice, but my step father told them "You just watch him! that thar is a real hound-dog yes sir-ree!" He was right, Bingo held his own right with those big dogs who accepted him like one of them. "thats cause he speaks Hound" said my step father grinning and we laughed.

We had been running coon for over an hour and we could hear all the dogs ahead of us somewhere in the woods and we followed the sound. When we got closer and from the sound of their voices we knew they had one or more coon 'treed'. Sure enough, the flashlights revealed eyes up on the limbs far above us. My stepfather liked my little .22 and he borrowed it and said "I'ma gonna bark him" that meant hit the bark of the limb and try to make him fall down. The bark splintered and scattered and the coon wobbled.. he was a Big One maybe almost 50 pounds, a big old Boar coon.. the grand daddy of all coons! Then he did something unexpected.

That boar coon with teeth bared leaped from that limb and landed right on my stepfathers shoulders, who was saved by his red checkered coat and wool hat. From there he spring-boarded to the ground and it was Bingo who was enraged and tackled him. The coon was twice the size of Bingo and the men held the other dogs off while my step father looked for a clear shot. But it was like a cat fight.. just a huge ball of fur and teeth and flying ears that marked out Bingo.

That coon tried to escape but Bingo would have none of that, and jumped him again "Geez would you look at that dog!" whispered Skinny Jimmy. Bingo had him by the throat and when there was room my stepfather killed the 'ol coon. Bingo would still not let go and it took some persuading to get him loose. He was all cut up from coon teeth and claws and was still fighting mad while I got the leash snapped on him.

Bingo was cut and bleeding all over and we couldn't tell how bad, so I wrapped him up in my jacket and we carried him back to the pickup and two men carried the coon-corpse. At home we could tell it was superficial but nasty cuts. In those days farms did their own animal doctoring, and with a mitten over Bingo's nose they sewed up the wider gashes.

Now word got around school and Bingo gained some real hero worship. We all remember how Skinny Jimmy had said "Geez would you look at that dog!" and now we looked at the pint size hound-dog who a few months later would challenge a big Bobcat that threatened me at the creek. If I hadn't thrown rocks, him and that 'ol cat would have been into it all over. Bingo did not take crap from anything.. 'cept those darn goats. They had Horns!

© Copyright 2018 by Daniel Blankley. All rights reserved.

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