I mentioned in an earlier story about my Grandpa Riddle raising hound dogs and how he loved to go fox hunting. Every now and then he would bring home a new dog or sometimes one of the females gave birth to a litter. He kept around five or six dogs at a time in a kennel in the back yard. My poor Grandmother disliked those dogs because they had so many fleas and she didn't like them riding in the car when he took them on fox hunts. "Our nice car" she'd say, and "you'd better clean it out before church on Sunday!"
I was never allowed to play with any of the pups as he reminded me they were not pets. They were raised for a specific purpose and that purpose was to chase and kill foxes. I'll probably start getting letters from the humane society now, but it was not my idea--it was the "sport" of the older men in town to train their hounds to hunt down some defenseless little fox.
From time to time I would go with Grandpa to the mountain to call the dogs on Saturday mornings. He had a "blowing horn" from a hollowed-out steer's horn and taped at the small end to form the mouthpiece. Each hunter had a unique way of blowing their horns that only their dogs recognized. When my cousins would visit, we would take turns and put forth our best attempts to make it sound like Grandpa did, but to no avail. When I went with him sometimes on Saturday mornings to call the dogs, I was amazed by how loudly he could blow that little horn! It could be heard for miles and those hound dogs came running right to him.
I asked Grandpa one fall day if he would take me fox hunting with him some Friday night. He agreed I could go so we loaded up the car with dogs, a thermos of coffee, some biscuits and left-over bacon to eat, and we headed out around dusk. The hunters had a certain campsite where they gathered, and I think this particular one was in a cornfield because I remember laying with my head on Grandpa's lap across some bumpy rows of cornstalks or some sort of plant that had been harvested. The men had shotguns which I thought they took along to hunt with, but that's not the way it was at all. I remember saying, "when do we leave to hunt?" Grandpa said something like "well, this is it" as he was untying the anxious dogs,who knew what was in store for them, but I didn't know what was in store for me.
Fox hunting in Oklahoma in the 50's was a "little different" than it was in England where the rich landowners donned their pretty red jackets, saddled their finest horses, led out by their sleekest hounds into the fields for the "merry old chase". In Oklahoma, you built a fire, sat around it, drank coffee, chewed and spit tobacco, and listened to your dogs run. You could hear the dogs take off running after the men untied their ropes. Their barking was normal at first, but it wouldn't be long until the dogs found their quarry and were in fast pursuit of that little red fox! Well, "here comes the excitement now" the men would say. They could make out the frenzied barks of their own hounds, ole' Sadie, Duke, Lulu or Sam, the same way the dogs made out their master's voices and horns. Grandpa knew when Sadie or Duke treed the fox by the sound of their barking, but the men never went to the aid of the poor fox nor went to hunt with their hounds. The "hunters" merely listened the sound of their dogs barking in hot pursuit from back at the campsite and seemed to enjoy every minute of it!
I don't know how long we stayed, but it was probably around midnight by the time we got home. Grandpa
carried me back to car while I was sleeping and put me to bed when we got home. And that, kids, is my first and only fox hunting adventure!
Posted on Sunday, April 3, 2011
No comments:
Post a Comment