This little story came as a simple report of a young Patterdale that made her owner proud.
A few questions & answers later and we had a good little story.
The story of Bailey's 1st Big Groundhog as told by her owner's brother, Clint...
Hey
Tim,
My
brother Connor is starting to get some bragging rights on his little
Bailey girl, (obtained from Kyel Hill of Erie Pa.)
The story of Bailey's 1st big groundhog goes
like this;
Background: Bailey and Dixie are pretty much room mates and we frequently let them out
for a bathroom break and to run around a bit. It seems a family of
groundhogs was somewhere near by. A couple days before this episode they'd caught a young groundhog and killed it near
a hole. (pictured here)
The next day Bailey came back to the house dragging another small
groundhog, details unknown.
So,
on the day in question Dixie came back to the house but not Bailey. We all went out looking and yelling for her. After about 15 minutes
we began to worry. In a quiet moment we heard her barking but it
sounded far away. Working our way towards the barking we came upon a
den and the barking was coming from down in there!
Now
we began to worry even more because, 1-of how long she's been in
there and, 2-it's very hot out and, 3-this is the first time she's
been in a den (that we know of.)
She
wouldn't come out to us and there was a lot of fighting noise down in
there, some of it not sounding so good for Bailey. So we ran to
the house for digging tools and got to work. Did I say it was hot
out? Well, it was hot as hell!
When
we had dug deep enough to open their location Bailey was locked up with a
BIG groundhog! It was a big sow and probably the mother of the
youngsters they'd been picking off recently. We finally got the
shovel between them and pulled Bailey out. Then we shot the groundhog
and let Bailey go back in and claim her victory.
Clint & Crew pause for a photo op.
You can see by the ground in front of these guys that it was no small matter to dig to the scene of the action. I can see 3 holes, at least
2 of which were made with shovels.
When your dog is in the ground with a groundhog you've gotta put your back into it as you get to the scene to help your dog.
Left to Right: Clint, Colt (w/ a big groundhog) and
Connor holding his little Bailey dog.
BTW, Colt is the guy that has Grizz (of growing reputation) who's a brother (from a 2nd litter) to the now world-famous Roxie bitch.
These guys and their dogs are a no-foolin crew of earthworkin' verminators!
|  |
We
think she did really well under difficult circumstances. Bailey will
be 1-yr old on 18 July 2016. Not bad for a yearling! We were able to
get a couple pictures to send to ya.
Good
dog, Bailey!
