Extraordinarily Ordinary Days

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282 – November/December, 2022

By Chris Robinson

Most days in the field with a dog are pretty ordinary. The dogs either find birds or critters or they don’t.  You either harvest the birds/critters or you don’t.  But now and then, the routine days afield elevate to something memorable.  It can be some special dog work, a particularly great shot or just a total special experience.

    For example, a lady I know has American Foxhounds and with a friend of hers, who she met while competing against her friend’s dogs at a show, rides at least once a week with the hounds from March to November if the weather isn’t too nasty. While riding with the hounds may not seem to be particularly unusual for someone with Foxhounds, she said living in a state where the license plate features a bucking bronco and riding a retired racehorse probably is. But, she said, once the ranchers got over their surprise at seeing thoroughbreds wearing English saddles in the trailer, they had been most willing to let her and her friend ride across their lands–even to the point of often directing them to areas where there might be either fox or coyotes for the dogs to chase.

      She recalled an ordinary day in the field with her Foxhounds that, because of the actions of the coyote they were chasing and the terrain, turned into something not so ordinary.  Here is her story: “The rancher directed us to a several-miles-long valley about two miles from his house. He said the resident coyotes found that area so attractive that when he put some of his cattle in the valley, he had to also put his guard llamas and a donkey out with them to help the cows protect their calves.

     “He wasn’t exaggerating the coyote presence in that area as the dogs hit scent almost as soon as we entered the valley. I don’t know how they managed to smell anything because the area was covered with bluebells, prairie smoke and yellow violets with a lot of clumps of prairie roses that were also in bloom. But, they managed to sort out coyote from prairie rose and the other flowers and the chase was on.

Click here to read the complete article
282 – November/December, 2022

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Posted by AnthonyA on Nov 22 2022. Filed under Current Articles, Featured. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. Both comments and pings are currently closed.