Posted on 11/16/2005 7:10:29 PM PST by SJackson
Trapped for 16 days down a 70-foot sinkhole, a dog named Buck will live to hunt another day.
The two-and-half year-old Mountain Cur was rescued yesterday in Townsend by rangers from the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Advertisement
Backcountry hikers had reported hearing the dog Monday but couldn't reach him.
Ranger Rick Brown says the dog was emaciated and bruised but able to walk when he was lifted to the surface in a makeshift harness. He's now recovering at a veterinarian's office.
The owner says he lost track of the dog while hunting raccoons 16 days ago, and is very happy to have Buck back.
The park doesn't plan to send him a bill.
Says Smokies spokesman Bob Miller: "Sometimes you have to be a good neighbor, and rescuing a dog falls into that category."
Ping.
Good men lose good hounds all the time... That's why so many of them equip 'em with tracking collars nowadays. A friend in Arizona used to hunt with hounds and would sometimes not find his hounds till someone called him.
We had a little hound wander into camp one night... She had a tracking collar and her phone number on, so we called him and said we'd feed and keep her for the night. It was late, and she was just glad to be somewhere.
Poor little baby, I glad he was saved.
Yea Ranger Rick!
me too. What is a Mountain Cur?
He's cute. Glad the one they rescued will be OK. Sweet dogs just touch the soul.
...Good men lose good hounds all the time...
In the days before electronics, we used to leave a jacket or blanket and a snack where we started from and come back the next day to find them sleeping on the coat. Sometimes you had to come back a couple times, but we usually got them back.
We had mostly (Blackmouth) Curs and Blue Ticks for hunting coon, not the pretty boy Black and Tans you see in the showring.
A hound like that will run all night and fight like a demon when he catches his quarry, which is usually something pretty tough and ugly too.
He probably has a fine temperment, but you don't know his disposition. I wouldn't get too close to a Cur until he drops his ears and lowers his tail a bit.
But that's just me.
Okay, having lived in this area for some time in the past, I must ask to ask the question: what was this dog doing in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park?
Poaching much?
I'll give him the benefit of the doubt and allow the possibility that the dog may have run across park borders on its own...
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