Another Dig, Same Day

Chris checks out the hole action on the last sette of the day, while Mountain guards the exit.

Chris and I loaded into the truck and headed up the road and around the corner to another farm. We met the farm manager's wife at the entrance and she noted I had a new vehicle. Yes ma'am. Got me a new used Ford Explorer! The farm manager was under a tractor doing some work, but he came out from under and we chatted for a few minutes. Very nice people.

Chris and I started off at an old feed bunker where I have bolted a few raccoon. The hole in the side of the bunker is impossibly small, but Sailor got in (just barely) and she bayed it up and then went deeper. Too bad. The trick with this feed bunker is to hope Sailor (the only dog I know small enough to get into this particular location) can catch the coon or the groundhog resting in the upper hollow part of the bunker, rather in the dirt sette underneath it, as the bunker cannot be destroyed. Sailor came out (I suspected, from the rather uninvolved way she was acting, that it had only been a rat) and I scooped her up and put her into the truck for a short ride into the middle of the farm.

Mountain had been struck in the truck all morning due to her recent surgery, but had been begun barking like a madman when she saw Sailor enter the feed bunker. Now I decided to let her out with a locator collar on so she could do a little locating.

We headed over to a dry flint ridge which proved blank, but Chris got to see how much stone these groundhogs can move out of a den pipe -- and how small and tight those pipes are in hard ground. Why so small? Simple -- groundhogs don't have dynamite.

We walked past a few blank field holes to a lightning-shattered tree at the far end of the farm. This old sette is actually three den pipes right next to each other. As luck would have it, the dogs found in the deep part of the sette which dives almost staight down under massive roots. The ground here is shot through with seams of slate, and I have picked a dog up at 10 and 12 feet. Without at least three diggers, and maybe a chainsaw, this hole was not worth starting. Quarry is too plentiful to spend so much time and risk at a single dig.

Chris and I pulled back a bit to encourage Sailor to come out (she generally will if she hears no digging or movement top side). Bingo, Sailor was out, and after a few minutes, Mountain was too. Mountain looked a bit alarming, as she had taken a small bite over one eye and the blood had made a startling red ring around here eye. A quick examination showed it to be only a slight boxing cut above the eyebrow. No worries.

We headed across the farm and found a few more holes, but they were all blank. The sky was getting a little threatening, and I suggested we try a sette in the large open Morrison shed where the combines and some of the large round bales were stored.

Sure enough, after a few minutes of mucking about, the dogs located something and Sailor opened up to a nice solid bay.

Chris and I shifted a large round bale and slid a pallet aside and tired to locate, but the dogs were moving all over the place underground. Mountain could block a hole and enter part of the sette, but most of it seemed too tight for her.

We let Sailor push it around a bit but it never quite settled. We eventually decided on a location and began to dig -- if nothing else we could cut the sette in half.

The soil was dry and compacted here -- a product of massive bales and machinery pressing down on dry ground for many years. We eventually cut into the pipe about three feet down, and Sailor bayed it up and we could hear a little bit of snarling below. Chris pointed to some raccoon scat near the hole, and I thought there was possibility that might be what we had in the hole. Hope so!

We cut one more hole into the sette right on top of the groundhog which quickly decided that now was a good time to bolt. Mountain, who had been unable to get into the pipe much more than her shoulders, backed up a bit and grabbed the groundhog as it bolted, and then Sailor was on it too. For a brief moment there was a little excitement as the two dogs rolled the groundhog. I quicky got a boot on the groundhog to prevent it from biting the dogs. That done, it was quickly dispatched. This female weighed 10 pounds and had a 13" chest.

This was a good day in the field as quarry was accounted for, the dogs were uninjured, and my body did not feel too beat up from the experience of lugging tools solo across the farms.

Chris was great company and a ready digger who is approaching the world of digging dogs sensibly; seeing what actually works in the field and what is really needed in a dog.

Theory ends at the hole, and ultimately you have to find a dog that will work for you and the way you work (barn or dirt), the quarry you dig, and the ground you dig on.

If you dig only a few times a year, a hard dog that is laid up with injuries is no constraint on your next dig.

If you mostly show dogs and only dig a few times a year, you may be able to get by with a larger dog -- there are always a few pipes that even a large dog can get in to.

That said, if you dig week in and week out, you are looking for smaller, not larger, and too hard a dog becomes an expensive tool and an economic and emotional liability.



A little rag after a quick dispatch.