Dogs and frontloaders?

Spikebuck said:

I've taken a number of squirrels with my Black Lab and Golden Retriever.

The dogs already got me two squirrels out of a tree. Kaiah, my Golden, seems to think there's one more up there...if there was, I never saw it.

Bella is a rescue Black Lab. Her previous owner, who abandoned her at the vet office after she was hit by a car, had her professionally trained as an upland bird dog, so when she works the woods for squirrels she goes back and forth just like a good bird dog would cover a field. She is a hunter through and through and almost never stops looking for the next game.

Kaiah, on the other hand, is fond of taking a break from time to time:

Nothing like a day in the woods chasing squirrels with your best friends!

If Kaiah can't find game, she'll settle for an old deer leg!

Or maybe a deer antler.

On one hunt, Bella learned a hard lesson about tangling with a raccoon. I was able to get them separated and the raccoon paid the ultimate price.

Yep, nothing like being in the field with your dogs!

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Hawk78 said:

I love to deer hunt with our 6 beagles and my black powder shotgun. And this year, I will be hunting with my new double barrel one.

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Enfield58 said:

I have had quite a few beagles and all, except one, were never gun shy. One particular dog would lay by my feet whenever I would target practice, regardless of the gun. He never flinched and at times, acted more bored than anything else.

I had one beagle that was extremely gun shy but cured that. I tethered him to my belt and every time I shot a .22LR pistol, he would try to run away. He couldn't escape because of the leash tethered to my belt.

Every time, I fired a shot, I gave him a small piece of meat or cheese from my coat pocket. This took about a day to cure him of being gun shy.

Now here was the problem with that dog. I could cure him of gun shyness but not being afraid of rabbits. Yes, you read that correctly. He was afraid of rabbits.

The dog was a year old when he was given to me. I often wondered if I offended the gentleman who gave me the dog or if I was a victim of a practical joke.

Anyway, I got the dog retrained to the point when he would come when called and wasn't afraid of a gun shot. At this juncture, I wanted to see if he would chase rabbits and took him for a walk with two other beagles; another one year old male and a puppy.

The dog with the nervous disposition, stayed beside me while the two other dogs were on a rise of ground that flattened out at the top in front of me.

Mr. Nervous was three feet to my right and three feet to the front of my feet. He looked up the slope and wondered what the other two dogs were chasing and barking at.

After several minutes of canine serenading, a rabbit charged down the hill with both afterburners lit. He hit about mach 2.0 when he saw me and made a sharp turn to his left (my right) like an UFO being chased by an F-14.

When he made the left turn, he ran head-on into the beagle that I'd cured of gun shyness. Bugs Bunny and the beagle tumbled over the ground for a couple of yards and obviously bewildered. The other two dogs stopped and watched the clumsiness and didn't know what to do.

Bugs and the other dog parted ways with the other dogs finally deciding to resume the chase. Mr. Nervous lit his afterburners, yelping all the way to the kennel and didn't come out of the dog house the rest of the day.

I didn't have the heart or courage to give him to another hounds-man for fear of getting a bad name in the county. He went to a good home where he could sit by the fireside in winter.

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