Not another dog gone rescue story, Pardon me if I'm repeating myself but I'm getting old. Geez, I don't know what it is about Kentucky coon hounds but they'll chase a raccoon to just about anywhere. I helped rescue two coon hounds that had chased a raccoon into a cave in Adair County. It was a tight miserable hole with a cold stream running out. Turns out that the hounds, Joker and Chomper had been in the cave for about a week days before we got the call. Since I was in the cave rescue team, we figured we had to go out and rescue our fellow cavers - whether man or dog. We entered the cave expecting to find two dead dogs as a coon can drown a dog in water. After crawling in the stream for about 1,000 feet, we came across two large dogs on a ledge over the water - about face high. They had been curled up on the ledge and were glad to see us. However, we couldn't convince the dogs to jump in the water. The room in front of the ledge contained a pool of water about 4 foot deep. Just large enough for 3 people to sit and not be in reach of the business end of the dogs. (We were a little apprehensive as we had heard that if you spend more than 3 days in total darkness, you would go insane, and since most coon hounds are already insane, after three days, they would be down right biting crazy). Since we couldn't convince good ole Joker and Choper to jump into the cold water on their own, one of the bright guys with me decided that maybe they were hungry and would be more cooperative if we fed them something. (who would have thought after 4 days on the ledge, they would have been hungry). So he pulls out a can of tuna fish and opens it up. Now there were three cavers and two hungry dogs in a relatively small room with one can of tuna. Needless to say, there was one heck of a dog fight on the ledge. All I saw was teeth, tails, fur, and asses rolling around on the ledge. I managed to get against one of the walls hoping the dogs wouldn't like the taste of my wet suit. I thought for sure that my handy dandy plastic bag in my hardhat would literally become a handy dandy bag for my friends hand as the dogs tried to eat the tuna fish, the can, and his arm. However, he was pretty quick and didn't lose a finger. After what seemed like and hour but was probably more like 5 minutes, the dogs calmed down. We ended up using a piece of tubular webbing and tying it around their collars and pulling them into the water. Once the got wet, they followed (swam) on out of the cave and didn't appear the worse for wear. The owner was glad to see them and told us they were worth $500 a piece. He also wanted to know if we had caught the coon as he said it was worth $30 if the dogs hadn't chewed it up too bad.
________________________________ From: jerryat...@aol.com [mailto:jerryat...@aol.com] Sent: Tue 1/29/2008 9:37 PM To: Texascavers@texascavers.com Subject: [Texascavers] Dog trapped in cave found safe : Dog, Trapped In Cave, Found Safe And Sound Russell County, Kentucky. A Russell County dog's owner says he's lucky today. His coon hound, Homer, apparently fell into a sink hole which then led to a cave this weekend. The dog wasn't seen for several days, but was wearing a GPS collar when he disappeared. Some cavers made it within 50 yards of Homer but said it was just too dangerous to go any further inside the cave. They were hoping Homer would find another way out of the cave and he did! A searcher spotted him and Homer was reunited with his owner on Monday afternoon. http://www.wkyt.com/home/headlines/14484097.html "This is a story about a man named Jed, Poor mountaineer, barely kept his family fed. One day, he was hunting with his hound, When the stupid old dog just fell into the ground." "Well the first thing you know, the cavers they were there, Said, 'Homer is a goner, stay away from there'. But the dog was part troglobyte, didn't need to see, Just followed a cave cricket, and soon he was free." ________________________________ Start the year off right. Easy ways to stay in shape <http://body.aol.com/fitness/winter-exercise?NCID=aolcmp00300000002489> in the new year.
