Hazards in the Hedge

Teddy Moritz with Harris hawk, dachshund and rabbits. Teddy has worked dogs for 40 years, starting with a bull terrier and then moving to Russells before finding true happiness with working dachshunds.



The post about "glass middens" a couple of days ago got Teddy Moritz to reminiscing about some of the odd things she has dug into over the years.

"Living and mouching about for varmints in northern NJ has shown me many 'middens', aka trash heaps. One county where I lived was the bottom of an ancient lake therefore much of it is wetlands. However, before legislation to stop development many sites were filled with debris of great variety. An archeological dig in many parts of this county would probably yield trash further back than the early 1900's. Maybe Jimmy Hoffa is out there too. I did find a set of false teeth once...

"Groundhogs being the resourceful prey species they are, my dachshunds once cornered one in a damaged glass cider jug. The neck of the bottle had been broken and the chuck was harboring in the main part of the bottle. Pretty efficient for awhile. Another time a chuck was backed up under the roots of our favorite dump-site tree, a young Ailanthus. The dogs would go in, bay, then back out. I would jab my small trowel in and the chuck would bite it. I would send the dogs in and they acted as if they were blocked off. When I eventually opened the den I found an old license plate. The chuck had been pushing it up in front of the dogs when they went in. Clever rodent. The dachshunds often found chucks harboring inside old buried cars. Tough to get them out when they are in the drive shaft. One chuck was up inside a car door. When I tried to pry the door apart with my shovel the shovel handle broke, hit me on the eyebrow and knocked me out briefly. When I got the bleeding stopped I continued and we got the rascal. Half-buried old truck beds are also good places to find varmint. I once lost a red fox because he was tight up inside a bulldozed mound of old cars. Just could not get to him. Most of our groundhogs use plastic as bedding and it's not uncommon to find many yards of plastic sheeting jammed into dens. And on and on. Old farm dumps are great places to find varmints, as you've found. The broken glass can be a problem...I've got scars on my fingers where I've tried to pull dirt out and found shards of glass. The dogs often yank at old mattresses, balls of twine, old clothing, etc. when trying to get to a chuck. Good times in skanky places. Cops asked me to leave one of my best spots after it was declared a Super Fund site. There was every kind of ground game imaginable on that old landfill. Kind of spooky working a place where the ground was burning, especially in winter when the warm places were devoid of snow. The access to this spot was over an old bridge. Had to 'walk the plank' to get to the good area. The dump was an island in an old river bed, ah the memories. My big male bull terrier couldn't swim and he chased a coon into that water. About half way across the chocolate-colored water his body reminded him he had no floatation and he started to go under. I swam out to him to rescue him, grabbing sixty pounds of hard muscle and light brains. The dachshunds of course thought the bull and I had something, so they swam out too, trying to ride my shoulders. The coon got away across the river. Another swim occurred while ratting in a big landfill. The rats would run across the debris floating in the water but the dogs would have to swim. Again the bull had to be rescued. Sometimes I am amazed I had normal children, after those drenchings."