Took Roy to the easy spot and sent him in. A coyote was crying in the woods by the first pothole. I walked in and started banging on a tree to get it to be quiet. I waited for quite a while before Roy opened. I could tell it wasn't much of a track and he was confused. He located and treed and then left. He went back and treed again. It was slick & I scolded him. I didn't want to send him back out on a bad track. I don't think he's ready for it yet & would have probably just slick treed again. So instead I headed for the truck. Several coyotes started howling to the south of us. They're going to give me trouble this year. I drove over to Don Edens section and turned Roy in on the south side of Stokels. He milled around for a few seconds and then took off. About 5 minutes passed & then I heard him open, this was a good track. He hit a tree with confidence. He had a big coon. I was happy with the nights work.
It was warm enough to melt some snow today so I thought I take Roy out. I went to the easy spot about 7:30 pm. I walked him to the edge of the woods and sent him in. He really took off fast tonight. Most nights I've let him go from the road & he didn't get away nearly this fast. Looks like I can control how he hunts a little by where I turn him loose. As I was standing there I thought to myself that it was a mistake to hunt tonight. It must not have warmed up as much up here. The snow was all powdery & not much of a crust on top. I headed back to the truck figuring I'd have to drive around and catch Roy later. Before I reached the truck, I heard him treeing. I turned around and headed his way. He was way down in the southwest corner of the section on the edge of a pothole. Normally dogs only have to go back this far to tree in the winter. He was on a big den tree when I arrived. Mabel has treed on this same tree a lot in past winters & I have seen a coon there about 1/2 the time. Because of that and the weather tonight, I was pretty sure there was a coon inside the tree. Anyway, I gave Roy the benefit of the doubt and headed home.
Wade called a while back and told me that Queen had been behaving poorly for about a month. He said that he finally discovered that there is something wrong with her vision. He was going to take her to a vet and have her checked out. Friday night he called again to let me know what they found. Basically she is blind in one eye and almost blind in the other. She has something called Sudden Acquired Retinal Degeneration (SARD). I had never heard of this, but when a dog gets it they go blind fast. I read that a dog can go for a walk and come back blind. They don't know what causes it and there is no cure. It sounds like his family likes Queen and Wade is going to try keeping her as a pet. He's getting a book on blind dogs and some goggles to protect her eyes. He says he may try to let her tree some pop-ups but he knows that her coonhunting days are pretty much over. Queen is a little over 6 years old.
Took Roy to the easy spot & sent him in from the road. He went out for about 15 minutes and then came back. I drove a few hundred yards to the vegetable garden and sent him along the edge of the woods. He struck in the close woods and treed. I started in but he quit treeing before I could get to him. I used the tracker & could tell he was headed north. I finally heard him open & thought I better drive around. He picked a tree, but left that one too. Fianlly after about an hour he treed & I could tell he was there to stay. Unfortunately he was right behind George's house. This is not the best place for a dog to end up as George doesn't really care for coondogs. I've spoken to him before & he's told me what he wants. First, stay off of his land. Second, if my dog trees a coon on his land, I better shoot it. His wife has to get up early Monday morning so my dog better not wake her on Sunday nights. When I got to the tree I could see Roy had a big old coon up. I looked at my watch and saw that it was 10:30. I figured rule 3 was in force by now so I got Roy to be quiet and I got off of George's land as fast as I could. I sure would have liked to spend some time praising Roy, he ended up turning down at least two slick trees along the way tonight. Oh well, there will be plenty more nights to come.
Took Roy out to the same spot from Sunday. He struck ran hot, got quiet and then treed. It was a big oak. 50/50 wheter a coon was there. Dropped him in the section north. He struck and opened sparingly. Finally grabbed a tree. Looked like a coon would go up there and hang out, but I don't think there was one in that tree then. I expressed my displeasure to Roy, he seemed to understand. I let him go in the easy spot next. He was out for 1/2 hour without a bark and I called him in. I think he's starting to understand, but plenty of work ahead of us.