Police Investigate Theft Of Hunting Dog
- Thread starter Teegate
- Start date
It's amazing how many lost dog signs go up at Greenwood WMA quail management area after opening day. I found a very nice German Shorthair walking along 539 one year.
A friend of mine from Atco and his father ran foxhounds throughout the pines for many years. One of their hunting buddies lost a dog on a chase at night off of 206. The guy looked for his dog for several weeks, put out food and put out pieces of his clothing for scent with no results. The dog was wearing a collar with a brass tag with contact information on it when he went missing.
Months later, the guy received a call from a woman in New York City. She had picked the dog up on 206 back when it went missing. She took the dog to her home in NYC and cared for it and then after several months decided to call the number on the collar. She told the guy that she just assumed that someone dumped the dog on purpose and would not have wanted the dog back. He was furious but glad the dog was alive and they made arrangements to get the dog back. I actually think the dog was just too much for her in the Big City.
My son and I have held coonhounds at our house three times over the years for a guy that regularly hunts along the Albertson Branch. He lives across the swamp from us and has a large pack of hounds. The last time we had to call the guy we had three of his dogs tied off. This time they were wearing tracking collars. When we called he told us he knew exactly where they were and as we were talking, he turned out of the woods and onto our street. Great use of GPS technology for a hound hunter !
Months later, the guy received a call from a woman in New York City. She had picked the dog up on 206 back when it went missing. She took the dog to her home in NYC and cared for it and then after several months decided to call the number on the collar. She told the guy that she just assumed that someone dumped the dog on purpose and would not have wanted the dog back. He was furious but glad the dog was alive and they made arrangements to get the dog back. I actually think the dog was just too much for her in the Big City.
My son and I have held coonhounds at our house three times over the years for a guy that regularly hunts along the Albertson Branch. He lives across the swamp from us and has a large pack of hounds. The last time we had to call the guy we had three of his dogs tied off. This time they were wearing tracking collars. When we called he told us he knew exactly where they were and as we were talking, he turned out of the woods and onto our street. Great use of GPS technology for a hound hunter !
My son and I were walking in a swamp, leaving Friendship bogs last April, and 5 bloodhounds came scrambling and baying right by us with green plastic collars. We walked out another 1/2 mile and standing around a pick-up at the end of the road were 5 guys looking like they were in GQ - Hunter's Edition, drinking coffee. They told us their dogs were after a fox. I suppose once the dogs caught it, one of them would gear up and go get it. I don't know if the collars were to find the dogs at the end of the hunt or find a lost dog.
Foxhunting in the Pines is deeply entrenched in tradition and from what I have learned from my friend and his late father is that the object was never to kill the fox. They would break them off the trail after a good run. They ran the dogs all night just to listen to the hounds speak their language. My friend's father had 22 foxhounds in Atco years ago. When he retired almost 30 years ago, he moved to Delaware and got into beagles. He passed away 2 years ago at 90 and my friend took over the remaining dogs. We still run 5 of his beagles. They can really hammer !
Foxhound hunting is very much a working man's sport in the Pines and it seems unusual that you came across some GQ types.
There is still a very active foxhunter near Chatsworth named Jake Meredith. Jake is featured in the book cited below. I see him down in our woods on occasion tracking down a few straggling hounds after a long night in the woods.
You may find this book interesting. I have not read it but I have read some reviews of it and it appears to be very well done.
https://books.google.com/books/about/Chaseworld.html?id=raKDDtyH5ewC
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Looks like an interesting book, and I may pick it up. But the description and reviews are very different than the guys I saw. The guys last April were in Friendship early morning, and they had just gotten there because we came in that way and left that way. I commented to my son that they looked like a group of models with flannel shirts and creased pants, and they were real relaxed. Millenial, high tech hunters, or gamesmen. Nothing like the group of deerhunters I saw December a year ago in Friendship, that came in a big "church" van, then spread out into the woods. I jokingly asked the older gentleman on Hawkins Bridge Rd. not to shoot me by accident and he told me, in equally friendly way that "I've never shot anyone in 81 years." He then invited me to take a picture of any deer they shot.
Bob Birdsall's book 'People of the Pines' had some fox hounder's featured in it. The book had folks running around getting the featured folks autographs, much like a high school graduation book. I have my copy 
I came across many fox hounds and hunters in the pines over the years. I also met coon hunters and one fellow that was hunting with a hawk.I fox hunted mounted for more than a decade with our base at the Assunpink WMA. We just chased and listened to the hounds.
On HC HF Road 2009.
On HC HF Road 2009.
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