A groundhog, with its body barricaded in the hole by dirt and stone, and with it teeth facing out at the dog, is well-positioned to defend itelf.
Against all common sense and better judgement, Chris and I hit a farm today in order to do a bit of digging. We started at 8 am, but it was already approaching 80 degrees. By noon (when we quit) it was past 90 in the shade and very humid.
Mountain located in a very difficult-to-find sette underneath a jumble of trunks in a small plot of forest in the middle of a field. It took some effort to cut a clearing around this sette, but with machete and folding saw we finally managed to clear out enough room to stand.
The sette had two eyes going into one pipe. The eyes went in from the left and the right under a giant stone, and then joined a center pipe that ran perpendicular to the entrace holes.
The enormous slab of stone at the entrace to this sette was about 9 inches thick and looked like the kind of thing a biblical Abraham might have used to sacrifice a sheep or goat. There was no moving this stone since tree trunks on either side of the slab had grown up over the edge, effectively pinning the stone to the ground.
Smart groundhog -- this one found a fortress.
Mountain came out of the pipe -- it was too tight for her -- and Sailor went in and took the corner and began to bay. Along with rocks, we had a lot of roots to contend with, and not much room to maneuver. With the help of the bar, we managed to bore a hole near the rooty base of a tree, and smash our way through a layer of stone just underneath. Though this dig was no more than two feet deep, it was some tough stuff.
The pipe was a decent size, once we got into it, and Sailor was baying it up. We pulled Sailor, and used the posthole digger and bar to expand the hole so we could get a better idea of what was what.
The groundhog was right there (a shallow pipe and not long), so we tied up Sailor in order to let Chris's young dog Moxie have a turn "schooling" on the groundhog. Moxied bayed a little, but was a little too quick to grab hold. I was worried she was going to get drilled by the groundhog, but we managed to dispatch the groundhog while Moxie was still in the hole working it (a well-placed bar and two men applying pressure). When Moxie came out, she was fine, and she spent the next few minutes pulling the dead groundhog out of the hole. The groundhog kept sliding back into the hole due to effects of gravity, so all in all, it was a pretty good work out for her. We will have to be carefull with her -- she is very eager. She may be a little more reticent in the pitch dark of an unopened hole -- I hope so. This Moxie dog is well-named.
Moxie pulls a dead one out of a hole.
After repairing the sette, we noodled around looking for another hole and then called it a day, as the heat was making our legs a bit rubbery.
A short day out, but no day in the field with the dogs is ever wasted.
The dogs rag a July groundhog.
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