re: Hunting Dog Stories

Back in ancient times when I was about 18, I paid $65 for a registered beagle. I already had 2, but felt I needed that one also. Bought it in the spring and ran my 3 dogs then and late evenings in the summer.
Could not wait to try my "pack" out hunting during the season as they ran so well together. Opening weekend, I went alone, as i didn't know how they would run with my cousin's dogs.
Right off the bat, my jump dog, Sandy, a gyp, cold trailed for a few minutes and then the chase was on. New Dog Stub was all in there with Sandy and Rock as he had been all spring and summer.
I shoot the rabbit and Stub disappears !! I spend the next 2 hours trying to find him after putting the other 2 up.
That SOB was as gun shy as anything I have ever seen. It was like he was a deer when he heard a gunshot. I tried all remedies and never broke him.
That November, I was hunting with my cousin and I shot the last rabbit I ever saw him run. He was leading the pack the whole race. I shot the rabbit 50 yards in front of the pack and all the dogs came up except Stub. Last time I ever saw him. I left some feed and a shirt I had worn out in the area I had lost him and he never turned up. Someone in lower St. Bernard Parish probably had a rabbit-runnin, gun shy mfer of a dog after that.