Dan McDonough wrote: She was however, extreamly smart and she even thought she could talk. She wasn't quite smart enough to know that you couldn't understand her the way you would another human though but she would talk to you in the same way we might talk after a particularly exciting hunt....It was a special batch of dogs that I'm still hunting but I still have not seen another quite as advanced as Rachel. She was really something.
It is weird how much I miss that dog. As you said, I only had her 2 1/2 years, but was hunting hard during that time. When my heart starts hurting for the dogs, I am usually thinking of her.
One of my favorite memories of her she was trashing on a bear. I don't hunt bear but on top of that, this was Minnesota and illegal to run bear. I did not have a shocker on her and kept missing her at every crossing and could not get close enough to hear her good or call her. Then she crossed a road into an area I had never been. There was water in the ditch and that bear had done a good job of watering that road where he crossed, her wet tracks were a ways to the downwind side. I had a map and this section did not have a road for five miles on any side. It was a river running through a massive swamp and it was getting dark. I kept ringing that area trying to get a signal on her. With triangulation I could tell she had stalled right smack in the middle of that swamp. She did not move for a couple hours and I was thinking the worst. I DID NOT want to go in that hole at night with nothing but a couple little AA flashlights. But I was not going to wait till morning, in case she was still alive.
Some of you maybe have never hunted swamp country. You are blessed.
Last summer I was trying to pull weeds at my folks place. This one plant would push up through the ground here, and then way over there. You would pull one, and the root would lead you over to where the other had pushed up through the earth. I think that is how hell is. It is under ground but there are these places where it pushes up to the surface. Those places are called swamps and I was headed into the nastiest one I have ever been in. The hard part was you could never tell where the river channel was. I could probably write a small book on just trying to get back into the middle of this thing to get my dog that was probably already dead.
I had to take the tracking unit, so the major challenge was trying to keep that thing high enough to keep it dry. There were moments when I did not feel very strong or very macho. There were moments when I would have given anything to just be out of there. Then I could lay on the road in the fetal position, cry like a baby, and just hope my dog had been given a merciful death. But going back to the truck would have been just as hard as going forward, and I still had the hope of hearing her treed.
And, finally, I did hear her. And what a tremedous releif! She sounded just like she sounded the first time she ever treed a coon. She was just a little fart running loose around the tent. I was sleeping peacefully with my two kids, and she woke me up on one of her adventures with the local critters. I could tell she was treed but it was more like booger barking. Her voice was quivering in fear. She was saying, "I got you...but please don't come any closer to me." It made me laugh real hard when I got to where I could see her. Then she saw me and all of a sudden got real brave like she was real tough. She was much too small to be fooling with coon and I was just glad he did not turn on her.
There it was again: "I got you but please don't come any closer to me." I thought about the first time I had heard that and it made me smile. That was my first smile of the night. And as much as I would have liked to go all the way to her, I did not. In fact I was thinking suicide might be my only option. I did not want to go forward and I did not want to go back. I called her. And as Dan knows, when I call, my dogs come no matter what. They don't need shock collars for that.
I could sure have used a little company right about then, so I was pretty pumped about seeing her again. She could not hear me when she was barking, but finally she silenced and listened, and then I knew she was on her way. That felt pretty good.
Well she showed up, and the party was on. She mounted me with her feet on my chest. She looked into my eyes for a few seconds. Then she started in. Just like Dan said, she could talk. She talked and talked and talked. When she said something funny, I laughed. In fact, I laughed even when it wasn't funny. I might have even cried but I would not tell you if I did. I don't know how long she would have went on, but after a few minutes I interrupted her. If she could talk with an inside voice I could have lasted longer. As it was, my ears were hurting. I said we can talk about it some more later on, but we gotta start thinking about how to get out of here. I told her I was proud of her and even if it was trash, I expected her to trash skillfully, and she had done a good job. I do not have even the slightest memory of leaving that place. Probably that defense mechanism that wont let you remember too much trauma. I just know I am not there any more. Thank you Jesus!
Dang it Dan. I wish she was not dead, but yet I am glad she is. Now she can be perfect, and before, she never could be. I miss her bad sometimes.
