Speaker 1: Welcome to This Country Life. I'm your host, Brent Rieves
Speaker 1: from coon hunting to trot lining and just general country living.
Speaker 1: I want you to stay a while as I share
Speaker 1: my stories and the country skills that will help you
Speaker 1: beat the system. This Country Life is proudly presented as
Speaker 1: part of Meat Eaters Podcast Network, bringing you the best
Speaker 1: outdoor podcast.
Speaker 2: The airways have to offer.
Speaker 1: All right, friends, pull you up a chair or drop
Speaker 1: that tailgate.
Speaker 2: I think I got a thing or two, and teach.
Speaker 1: You squirrel dogs. This week it's all about the squirrel haters.
Speaker 1: You know what I'm talking about. Squirrel dogs. We're going
Speaker 1: to talk about what a squirrel dog is and how
Speaker 1: one is trained, and the value of having a good
Speaker 1: one and a good one. It's just like money in
Speaker 1: the bank. You never know how important they are until
Speaker 1: they show you. And with that in mind, I'm going
Speaker 1: to tell you a story. We had a little mountain
Speaker 1: cur named Prissy that was mostly white with a light
Speaker 1: brown colored hair on her ears and around her eyes.
Speaker 1: She was a feisty little ball of energy and had
Speaker 1: two speeds, stop and go. She was a young dog
Speaker 1: and a little over a year old at the time
Speaker 1: of this story. And I was young and too and
Speaker 1: I couldn't have been more than ten or so. It
Speaker 1: was laid on a fall afternoon when I talked to
Speaker 1: my dad into saddling up Buck, his big buckskin horse
Speaker 1: that was the spitting image of the one Marshall Dillon
Speaker 1: road on gun Smoke, so I could go squirrel hunting
Speaker 1: behind the house for hour or so before dark. I'm
Speaker 1: small story. James aren't outsizs. Matt Dollon never heard of
Speaker 1: gun Smoke. It's one of the longest running TV shows
Speaker 1: ever and it was set in Dodge City, Kansas in
Speaker 1: the eighteen seventies when dodging bullets, tumbleweeds, and stampede and
Speaker 1: cattle was what them folks call Tuesday. That show ran
Speaker 1: for twenty years, ending in nineteen seventy five, and followed
Speaker 1: the adventures of us Marshall Matt Dillon, all around good
Speaker 1: guy and shooter of outlaws. He was a bachelor and
Speaker 1: showed favor to Miss Kitty Russell, the con hearted owner
Speaker 1: of the Long Branch Saloon, bost of Sam the Bartender,
Speaker 1: and all the saloon gals of sport morality that worked there.
Speaker 1: The Long Branch was an actual saloon during that time,
Speaker 1: and you can visit the real one now in Dodge City,
Speaker 1: just like my dad and I did in July two
Speaker 1: thousand and one. We were on a journey through Cowboy Country,
Speaker 1: just seeing the sights, and found ourselves walking through those
Speaker 1: swinging doors of the Long Branch at nine o'clock in
Speaker 1: the morning. A lady in period clothes of the time
Speaker 1: welcomed us in from the trail and showed us to
Speaker 1: a green felt covered table. She asked us if she
Speaker 1: could get us something to drink. My dad said he'd
Speaker 1: have a cup of coffee, and I said, we'll just
Speaker 1: make it too. As she turned to walk off, she said,
Speaker 1: the Cowboys, we are a full service saloon. I said,
Speaker 1: y'all serve beer. She said yes, and hard liquor. I said, well,
Speaker 1: bring me a mug of beer. My dad had the
Speaker 1: craziest look on his face and he said, son, it's
Speaker 1: nine o'clock in the morning. I said, I know, but
Speaker 1: how many folks from New Edinburgh, Arkansas do you think
Speaker 1: ever had a beer in a Long Branch saloon? Without hesitation?
Speaker 1: He looked back at her and said, bring me one too. Anyway,
Speaker 1: me prissy and buck head off behind the house for
Speaker 1: a quick hunt, and pressy tree too real quick, and
Speaker 1: I killed both of them with my twenty two. She
Speaker 1: then took off and treated a pretty good way's away,
Speaker 1: and it took me a little bit to get to her.
Speaker 1: When I did, I slid down off buck and walked
Speaker 1: up to the tree in time to see that squirrel
Speaker 1: start running through the treetops. With Prissy and Meat in
Speaker 1: hot pursuit. It seemed like we went forever when that
Speaker 1: squirrel finally made it to its den and disappeared. Now
Speaker 1: I'd been running and chasing that squirrel, looking up the
Speaker 1: whole time, circling trees and pulling vines. When that race
Speaker 1: ended at the den tree, I couldn't tell how I
Speaker 1: got there or which way it was back to where
Speaker 1: I dropped the reins on my horse. It was cloudy,
Speaker 1: starting to get dark, and I thought I was fixing
Speaker 1: to have to spend the night in the woods. Prissy
Speaker 1: was standing on a big old stump, looking right at
Speaker 1: me with her tail waggon and panting with excitement and
Speaker 1: waiting to see what was next. For all I knew
Speaker 1: camping was next, at least since the dad came and
Speaker 1: found me. But I didn't want to be rescued. I
Speaker 1: always wanted to show him that I could make it
Speaker 1: in the woods and do anything that he could do,
Speaker 1: and all the things that he'd been teaching me my
Speaker 1: whole life. I was going to be embarrassed if he
Speaker 1: had to come find me. But I was starting to
Speaker 1: get a little cold and a lot scared. I didn't
Speaker 1: know what else to do, so I looked pretty dead
Speaker 1: in the eyes and told her to go find Buck.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 1: I said it twice, and on the second command, she
Speaker 1: took off like she was late for work, in a
Speaker 1: direction I was confident wasn't remotely close to the.
Speaker 2: Direction of where Buck was.
Speaker 1: I instantly regretted my decision of telling her to leave,
Speaker 1: especially since she was going to be my only source
Speaker 1: of heat for the night. And if I managed to
Speaker 1: lose Buck and Prissy on the same day, if I
Speaker 1: did make it out alive, my butt wasn't going.
Speaker 2: To hold chucks.
Speaker 1: After Dad got through with me, about one hundred yards away,
Speaker 1: Prissy commenced a tread. It was really getting close to
Speaker 1: dark now, so it's as fast and as safely as
Speaker 1: I could go, Towing my rifle and fighting through the
Speaker 1: bushes and briars. I headed in a bee line straight
Speaker 1: to where she was barking. I busted out of that
Speaker 1: little thicket ten yards away from her, and there she stood,
Speaker 1: in the fading light on a big old log, right
Speaker 1: beside buck, barking away to let me know where to go.
Speaker 1: I loved her and petted her up, put my rifle
Speaker 1: in the scabbard, climbed up on that monster of a
Speaker 1: horse and gave him a little spur, and he turned
Speaker 1: and walked straight back to the barn where Dad was
Speaker 1: waiting on me. I'd asked her to tree squirrels, and
Speaker 1: she did. I'd ask her to find my horse, and
Speaker 1: she did. Not only did she find him, but she
Speaker 1: also told me out loud where to come find him.
Speaker 1: And her she did all that on her own. She
Speaker 1: was the heck of a dog. And that's just how
Speaker 1: that happened. Squirrel dogs, Where you gonna get one? Facebook,
Speaker 1: Jenny Craigslist, No you can't. You can't find a dog there,
Speaker 1: But I'm gonna tell you where and how to find one.
Speaker 1: Find a place where coffee and biscuits are sold. Now,
Speaker 1: I ain't talking about under the Golden arches. I'm talking
Speaker 1: about that spot where the floor creaks when you walk
Speaker 1: in and the waitress calls you sugar, and the old
Speaker 1: men gather.
Speaker 2: Talk to the waitress, ask.
Speaker 1: Her who she hears that's a squirrel dog man. She's
Speaker 1: bound to have heard the name or two from all
Speaker 1: the tails she's overheard while topping off coffee cups where
Speaker 1: the old folks hold cord every morning. If she gives
Speaker 1: you a name, tip heavy and slip out the door
Speaker 1: and drive to the next spot and do the same
Speaker 1: thing again, and repeat it until you get the same
Speaker 1: name twice. When you do, that's your man. That's the
Speaker 1: cat that knows this business well enough that other folks
Speaker 1: know it too. Now, seriously, if you personally don't know anybody,
Speaker 1: just google it. I did, and I found a ton
Speaker 1: of very useful information and names I recognized as being
Speaker 1: longtime leaders in the squirrel dog business. Talk to the breeders,
Speaker 1: talk to his clients. There's lots of stuff on the
Speaker 1: innerwebs about squirrel but there's no substitute for putting your
Speaker 1: eyeballs in person on the pup you're considering. If you're
Speaker 1: gonna do it from scratch with no leads or suggestions
Speaker 1: from friends or hunting buddies, take your time and do
Speaker 1: your homework. If it works out like it or to,
Speaker 1: you're adding a family memory that you get to choose,
Speaker 1: unlike that crazy old Uncle Frank that you just got
Speaker 1: by default. Before I found my coonhound Whaling, I looked
Speaker 1: for six months and I talked to a whole bunch
Speaker 1: of folks about dogs, pedigrees, and just about everything you
Speaker 1: can imagine. I put in the time and the research,
Speaker 1: and I got lucky. Lots of folks will go through
Speaker 1: several dogs before they find one that suits them. I
Speaker 1: was blessed with bringing home a coonhound that turned into
Speaker 1: a coon dog. Now there's a big difference in coonhound
Speaker 1: a coon dog, just like there is between a man
Speaker 1: that fishes and a fisherman. Whaling was born a tree
Speaker 1: and walker Coonhoun. His ability to learn and to sniff
Speaker 1: out old tricky ricky raccoon consistently time and time again
Speaker 1: is how he earned the title coon dog. The same
Speaker 1: applies to any dog that has a specific purpose. Bird dogs,
Speaker 1: squirrel dogs, hogdogs, cow dogs, on and on. So we
Speaker 1: got an idea on how to look for a squirrel dog.
Speaker 1: What kind are you looking for? Cur feist hound, terrier
Speaker 1: the room you have to keep one will tell you that,
Speaker 1: along with how much walking you want to do. But
Speaker 1: you're looking for a dog that's got some smarts and
Speaker 1: the drive to get out and find a squirrel. Bigger
Speaker 1: dogs usually range farther than the little ones closer. I've
Speaker 1: seen everything in the world tree a squirrel.
Speaker 2: Here's an example.
Speaker 1: Remember my old cow dog Luke that I accompanied on
Speaker 1: that trip to the vet when my truck was shedding parts,
Speaker 1: going and coming like a I talked about in episode four. Well,
Speaker 1: he was supposed to have been a cow dog, but
Speaker 1: he tree squirrels too, But it wasn't his main purpose.
Speaker 2: And I'll tell you why in just a minute.
Speaker 1: Luke could tree enough to keep you from starving slapt
Speaker 1: to death if you could shoot worth anything. But he
Speaker 1: wasn't a patch to the most famous bobtailed cur that
Speaker 1: ever drew a breath, Peanut. Peanut was a mountain cur.
Speaker 1: He had a yellow blanket back, four white socks, a
Speaker 1: small peanut shaped patch of yellow on his head. But
Speaker 1: he was also my daddy's favorite son. Just kidding, not really,
Speaker 1: but let's get back on track. There's basically two kinds
Speaker 1: of dogs that tree squirrels, the ones that do it
Speaker 1: by sight and the ones that do it by smell.
Speaker 1: Now bear with me and pay attention just about any
Speaker 1: old fruit through ankle biting, yippity yapping dog will run
Speaker 1: a squirrel up a tree when they see it. That
Speaker 1: don't make him a squirrel dog. That's just a dog
Speaker 1: hunting squirrels. Remember there's a difference. And that's what more
Speaker 1: or less Lou was doing. They're just out there minding
Speaker 1: their own business. When they catch some movement and squirrel,
Speaker 1: they take off in pursuit and run nut joker up
Speaker 1: a tree. Sometimes they bark, most times they don't. They're
Speaker 1: just out there jumping up and down and looking back
Speaker 1: at you for help or praise for them for saving
Speaker 1: your life by running that rabid creature up a tree.
Speaker 1: Those dogs are just using their eyes. What you want
Speaker 1: is one that'll do both tracking dogs or scind dogs
Speaker 1: will use sight to a certain degree, but they're mostly
Speaker 1: using their nose to find where squirrel's been on the ground.
Speaker 1: That was peanut in a nutshell? See what I did there.
Speaker 1: When those dogs are hunting, they look like a MetalMan
Speaker 1: in a shooting gallery, just running back and forth in
Speaker 1: every witch away, But there's a method to their madness.
Speaker 1: When they smell one, they'll follow that scind it left
Speaker 1: and determine which tree it's gone up and start treeing.
Speaker 2: Tree.
Speaker 1: It means the dog is usually reared up with his
Speaker 1: front paws on the tree and barking to let you
Speaker 1: know where he is and that he's found a squirrel.
Speaker 1: It's important that he barks in a good loud bark
Speaker 1: that you can hear. Sometimes the barking will cause the
Speaker 1: squirrel to take off through the treetops to escape, and
Speaker 1: that's when a good dog will use his sight to
Speaker 1: follow them from tree to tree as the squirrel tries
Speaker 1: to get to the safety of his nest or his den,
Speaker 1: just like Chrissy did. I grew up hunting squirrels from horses,
Speaker 1: and I'd try to be the first one to the tree,
Speaker 1: jump off my horse and stand opposite of the direction
Speaker 1: my dad would be riding up on and getting ready.
Speaker 1: More times than not, when he got there, the squirrel
Speaker 1: would jump back around on my side of the tree
Speaker 1: and I'd shoot him out now here, I am talking
Speaker 1: about shooting squirrels, and we ain't got our dog trains yet,
Speaker 1: So how do we train one well, the easiest way
Speaker 1: is to start out with a dog that it's bred
Speaker 1: to do that sort of thing, and the most popular
Speaker 1: breeds where I'm from are curved and fists or a
Speaker 1: mixture of both. Now you like a hunter's please save
Speaker 1: you hate mail. You've got a proven squirrel dog, even
Speaker 1: though it looks like it ought to be pulling a
Speaker 1: slid in Alaska rather than tree and squirrels in the
Speaker 1: river bottoms, which reminds me of a story. So thanks
Speaker 1: Jack London looking squirrel dog for reminding me. I was
Speaker 1: in Alaska filming a hunt one time, and the folks
Speaker 1: we were staying with at our flying camp had a
Speaker 1: big old Golden Retriever that were always.
Speaker 2: Running around outside barking.
Speaker 1: It was my first time up there, and I was
Speaker 1: expecting to get monkey stumped by a moose or et
Speaker 1: by a bear at every turn. That dog wasn't helping
Speaker 1: me relax by barking constantly. I asked the pilot what
Speaker 1: that dog was barking at, and he said, he's outside
Speaker 1: tree and squirrels.
Speaker 2: The devil, you say.
Speaker 1: My fears of winding up in wolfscat were immediately gone.
Speaker 1: I borrowed as twenty two, went outside and commenced to
Speaker 1: working on them squirrels. I proudly hold the record in
Speaker 1: the Riz family of being the only want to shoot
Speaker 1: a treed squirrel north of the forty ninth parallel. Put
Speaker 1: that in your pipe and smoke at reeves. Is back
Speaker 1: to training. I promise a puppy from a proven family
Speaker 1: of squirrel dogs is a good head start. They're usually
Speaker 1: not cheap, and that can be downright expensive for one
Speaker 1: that's one hundred percent finished and fully trained. But we're
Speaker 1: talking about a young dog and the first thing you
Speaker 1: want to do is to have him mind in you.
Speaker 1: You don't want to cut him loose without the ability
Speaker 1: to call him back.
Speaker 2: That is no boino.
Speaker 1: You also don't want one that's gun shy if you
Speaker 1: can't keep him around when when the shooting starts, that
Speaker 1: one squirrel or trip ain't gonna be enough to feed nobody.
Speaker 1: And let's face it, hunting squirrels is fun, but eating
Speaker 1: squirrels is funner. There's a million YouTube lessons and countless
Speaker 1: articles on how to keep your dog from being gun shy.
Speaker 1: Most of them teach introducing ever increasing noises over a
Speaker 1: period of time. While that pupp is eating and his
Speaker 1: attention is focused away on a good thing like food,
Speaker 1: which is a good way to train me. As a
Speaker 1: matter of fact, our very own Tony Peterson wrote an
Speaker 1: excellent article called how to Introduce your Puppet the Gunfire
Speaker 1: back in twenty nineteen. You can find it on the
Speaker 1: media the website. While doing a little research on material
Speaker 1: to tell you all about, I found that article almost
Speaker 1: a step by step method of what my dad taught
Speaker 1: me to do with our dogs. Tony, you on me
Speaker 1: twenty bucks. Now we've got our pupp he ain't gun shy. Now,
Speaker 1: so let's hit the woods. Squirrels like acorns, fruit and
Speaker 1: the berries that grow in the hardwood timber, and that's
Speaker 1: where we need to be. Now, hold on a minute.
Speaker 1: Squirrel food that reminds me of a story. I promised
Speaker 1: we're going to talk about training, but you got to
Speaker 1: hear this story. I saw a squirrel eat a fried
Speaker 1: squirrel one time when I was a uniform officer at
Speaker 1: the state Capitol and the little rock I had taken
Speaker 1: my grub to work that was left over from the
Speaker 1: supper of the night before. I was on patrol and
Speaker 1: parked out of the way parking lot behind the state
Speaker 1: Capital to eat my dinner. Those city squirrels up there
Speaker 1: are bold. They ain't scared of nothing. I was sitting there,
Speaker 1: chowing down on the hind leg of a gray squirrel
Speaker 1: and watching alive one a few feet away from my
Speaker 1: patrol car gnawing on a hick or not. We were
Speaker 1: taking turns giving one another stinky. And when I finished
Speaker 1: that leg, I chunked it at that up of the squirrel,
Speaker 1: just to let him know I come from a distinguished
Speaker 1: family of squirrel killers. That dude dodged it like a ninja.
Speaker 1: Then he picked it up and started chewing on it.
Speaker 1: The last time I saw him, he was running across
Speaker 1: that parking lot towing that leg in his mouth like
Speaker 1: a black lab with green head. Squirrels are savages, No
Speaker 1: wonder dogs hate them anyway. Keep turning that dog loose
Speaker 1: where the squirrels live, and eventually, if he's got the
Speaker 1: drive and the natural ability, they're going across paths and
Speaker 1: he'll start seeing the light of his purpose and the
Speaker 1: reason you brought.
Speaker 2: Him and cut him loop to begin with.
Speaker 1: Hunting your pup with a proven tree dog will help
Speaker 1: even more. It speeds up the process. When they can
Speaker 1: see a dog operate and learn from the example that
Speaker 1: a tree dog is given, it is absolutely invaluable. Now,
Speaker 1: dogs ain't that smart? You say, they can't reason? You
Speaker 1: better sit down for this one Pardoner, My brother Tim
Speaker 1: and I were home from duck camp and squirrel hunting
Speaker 1: behind his house.
Speaker 2: One morning.
Speaker 1: We were walking through the bottoms with his squirrel dog, Susy.
Speaker 1: His old lab Zach was in told just for the
Speaker 1: fun of it, and we killed a few squirrels. By
Speaker 1: the time we got down to the bow, Susy had
Speaker 1: made a big circle and was walking up with us
Speaker 1: and Zack to a high bank looking down on the water.
Speaker 1: A pair of wood ducks blew out of there, and
Speaker 1: instinctively we both threw up our shotguns and fired at
Speaker 1: the same kind, killing both of them. It was the
Speaker 1: thing of beauty, a squirrel hunting miracle. We were high
Speaker 1: five and last, and when Tim sent Zack out to
Speaker 1: retrieve the ducks, Susy stood right there where she had
Speaker 1: been all along, watching for the first time as Zach
Speaker 1: demonstrated his purpose in life. He was crawling up the
Speaker 1: bank with that first duck. When kuld chug she hit
Speaker 1: the water swam out and retrieved the other one, just
Speaker 1: like she saw him do. Not only that, when she
Speaker 1: dropped that duck at Tim's feet, she wraared up on
Speaker 1: a big cypress we were standing beside and treated a
Speaker 1: squirrel and we got him too. And she did that
Speaker 1: solely on her own, by watching what Zack had done
Speaker 1: and reasoning that she could do it too, and she did.
Speaker 1: Everyone knows about Pavlov and his slobbering dogs, but it
Speaker 1: was Susie ringing mine and Tim's bell that day. Now,
Speaker 1: taking care of a dog is a big responsibility. I
Speaker 1: was taught by my dad and I've continued that lesson
Speaker 1: with my kids. And if my dad was gonna feed
Speaker 1: one a dog of any kind, they were going to
Speaker 1: earn their victas in the woods.
Speaker 2: I'm the same way.
Speaker 1: My wife and youngest daughter not so much exhibit a.
Speaker 1: Rosie the jack Russell terrorist, as I referred to her.
Speaker 1: That's currently staring at me while I'm talking to y'all.
Speaker 1: That's all she does is follow me around, hate whaling
Speaker 1: and stare at me. She's been staring at me for
Speaker 1: twelve years. She reminds me better than any of my
Speaker 1: youngest and I hope that nerve wracking heifer stares at
Speaker 1: me for another twelve kind of got used to her. Now.
Speaker 1: That's a pretty condensed version of squirrel dogs, according to Brent,
Speaker 1: and I didn't even cover the duel purpose and the
Speaker 1: importance they play in the family. Peanut and Susie, they
Speaker 1: weren't just dogs, they were family. Peanut lived for about
Speaker 1: twelve years, and when he died, we didn't have enough
Speaker 1: shovels to dig a hole big enough for all the
Speaker 1: folks that wanted to go with him. The good ones
Speaker 1: are special and their memories will make you happy.
Speaker 2: Friend.
Speaker 1: I appreciate y'all listening so much. I hope you'll come
Speaker 1: back next week. If you enjoyed it, share it with
Speaker 1: a friend. If you didn't share it with an enemy,
Speaker 1: that'll show them this is Brent Reeves.
Speaker 2: Sign it off. Y'all be careful.