Pretty tough sledding for our first squirrel hunt of the season. Crunchy snow, squirrels laid up, and the coldest "first" squirrel hunt of the season I can ever remember. Slick could not do anything hardly today besides go to dens and nests on cold tracks. He did find one pretty early but would not stay treed. I tied him the first time he ran off the tree at me and before I found the squirrel, which took a few minutes as it was a huge Red Oak. Lucky to ever lay eyes on that one, and I made a perfect head shot for the first squirrel of the season. Only squirrel we saw today. Slick got tired out pretty fast for him and the snow was a little hard on his feet, I think. Probably try again tomorrow if dog is up to it since the weather is turning to crap for the rest of the week.
Squirrel Doggin' 25-26
- Thread starter Jamie
- Start date
- 25,704
- 276
Went out this afternoon after it warmed up a little, but it made no difference. Slick did not hardly even want to try today. That tells me he is smelling nothing at all. I spurred him on for a while and we hunted for over two hours before Slick finally found one. I proceeded to shoot 6 times and get 6 deflections, shot two more times at fleeing rat and hit it in the throat on one of them. Rat tried to jump to another tree but could not hold on to the landing and fell to the ground where Slick over ran it and squirrel got up a tree but not far and fell again. A longer foot chase ended in Slick yelping and bleeding, rat dying in his jaws. Was the only fun we had. Not much old or fresh tracks in snow yesterday or today and the wind picked up pretty bad today. Slick needs a rest. Try again on Thursday. No pics today.
And the hits just keep on coming...
I had high hopes for today after we got some weather out of here yesterday. On Tuesday morning before we left Slick hurt his leg or foot jumping down off of the tailgate in out driveway. He seemed to get over it pretty fast, so I went ahead and went. This dog did not move ten feet all day yesterday. He stopped limping and was pretty excited to get his collar on this morning. I have not let him jump in or out of the truck since Tuesday morning. As soon as we started walking toward the woods he was limping again on the same foot, but seemed better the more we walked, so I went on. We hunted one of my better spots and he did hunt with some enthusiasm, and he treed a bunch 8 or 10 times, but they were all dens. I walked 3 1/2 miles in a couple of hours to wind up shooting a squirrel 100 yards from the truck on our way back, lol. Dog limping bad again and all of his paws are pretty beaten up from the crusty snow and ice. We are done until next week now.
Early last spring both Lefty and Slick somehow acquired an infection in the prostate that made them both very, very sick. It literally almost killed Slick. Had we not taken him to the emergency vet in Delaware that evening, he likely would have not made through the night according to the vets. Both dogs fully recovered, but as a precaution our Vet urged us to get them both neutered to help prevent a similar infection again; almost completely eliminating the possibility. So, we did it and they both recovered fine from that, too. Unfortunately, within two months after getting de-nutted, Slick ballooned up like an overstuffed sausage, gaining nearly 10 lbs (he only weight 50 to begin with) for no apparent reason. It is rather upsetting to see such healthy, sleek, athletic dog look so fat. No change in diet or activity level. We cut back on his food and still exercise him as much as possible, but he's only lost a couple of pounds in the last 6 months. He is not the same dog in the woods now either. This has been a really lousy start to our squirrel hunting. We should have killed a dozen this week, but after three outings, I barely have enough for dinner. I'm hoping that plenty of hunting will trim his back down some, but he is going to be 10 in May. His frustration is as apparent to me as mine. I'll give him a good rest until Monday and see if we can do better next week. The struggle has been real, but he's only found three and they are all in the freezer. Batting a thousand, so there is that I guess. Slick cleaned rats fatal head wound pretty well this time.
I had high hopes for today after we got some weather out of here yesterday. On Tuesday morning before we left Slick hurt his leg or foot jumping down off of the tailgate in out driveway. He seemed to get over it pretty fast, so I went ahead and went. This dog did not move ten feet all day yesterday. He stopped limping and was pretty excited to get his collar on this morning. I have not let him jump in or out of the truck since Tuesday morning. As soon as we started walking toward the woods he was limping again on the same foot, but seemed better the more we walked, so I went on. We hunted one of my better spots and he did hunt with some enthusiasm, and he treed a bunch 8 or 10 times, but they were all dens. I walked 3 1/2 miles in a couple of hours to wind up shooting a squirrel 100 yards from the truck on our way back, lol. Dog limping bad again and all of his paws are pretty beaten up from the crusty snow and ice. We are done until next week now.
Early last spring both Lefty and Slick somehow acquired an infection in the prostate that made them both very, very sick. It literally almost killed Slick. Had we not taken him to the emergency vet in Delaware that evening, he likely would have not made through the night according to the vets. Both dogs fully recovered, but as a precaution our Vet urged us to get them both neutered to help prevent a similar infection again; almost completely eliminating the possibility. So, we did it and they both recovered fine from that, too. Unfortunately, within two months after getting de-nutted, Slick ballooned up like an overstuffed sausage, gaining nearly 10 lbs (he only weight 50 to begin with) for no apparent reason. It is rather upsetting to see such healthy, sleek, athletic dog look so fat. No change in diet or activity level. We cut back on his food and still exercise him as much as possible, but he's only lost a couple of pounds in the last 6 months. He is not the same dog in the woods now either. This has been a really lousy start to our squirrel hunting. We should have killed a dozen this week, but after three outings, I barely have enough for dinner. I'm hoping that plenty of hunting will trim his back down some, but he is going to be 10 in May. His frustration is as apparent to me as mine. I'll give him a good rest until Monday and see if we can do better next week. The struggle has been real, but he's only found three and they are all in the freezer. Batting a thousand, so there is that I guess. Slick cleaned rats fatal head wound pretty well this time.
