It was 10 months ago that my first Redbone Coonhound "Red" and my dad's female "ShaShawnie" had there first litter of redbone pups. I was so happy when she had them day after day I would go out to that old trailer we kept them in that that was heated so they wouldn't freeze when the heavy snow came. Day after day I would check up on her to see how she and her pups were doing. Finally one day I went down there and one had died, then the next day I went down there again to see if anymore had died and 1 had. So me and dad just thought they were to cold or something was wrong so we decided to put an heated lamp in there to keep them warm.
As a 2 months went by they looked like the best redbone pups I had ever seen in my life(even though I'm only 13.) So then came the time to put them out in their own pen and time to sell them. I knew I could only keep one and then my dad was going to keep one. One of my dad's really good friends came over to look at the pups and he took 2 females only 2 I had left. So when we had put them out in the pen I picked the one pup that I liked the best. Dad picked his out and we were all set just had about 4 more to sell.
Everyday I would go down to play with those pups and one day as I was looking into there pen I seen that one pup was dead. So dad came and took it out and gave them everything they needed they looked just like healthy pups to me. The next day when I went down there I found 2 more pups had died and one of them was the pup I had picked out I didn't think this would ever happen to me exspecially me. So I kept a special eye on them since I had lost the best lookin' pup of the litter and also my dog. The next day I went out and there was the other dog dead and you'll all guess what it was porvo. Yup, it had swept out every dog except for my dad's pup. He had it but not that bad as all bad as the rest of them did.
My dad knew I was sad because I was really excited about having one of my dog's pups. So my dad did the thing any "real" father would do and he gave me his pup.I named him "Lucky" because he was the only one out of the whole litter except for those 2 females that survived. It was the best thing he ever gave me except for my dog Red.
Months and days went by and when he was 5 months old and my dad and I started training him. I think he was born an coondog cause he acted like he knew everything and you didn't have to show him how to do anything. When he was 6 months old he treed his first coon. We would take him over to Jim
Remilong's house cause he always had a caged coon there and he would bark at that like he was a 5 year old coondog.
I still have Lucky he's 10 months old now and still doing a heck of a job. Dad passed away September 22, 2000. He taught me a lot about coonhunting and he gave me one heck of a coondog. So I dedicate this story to "Andrew Harold Dooley" the one who has shown me everything there is to know about coonhunting and gave me one heck of a coonhound.
We miss you and love you dad.
