DoubleCK
New member
When I was a kid Dad traded for a well bred, Black & Tan weaner pup (Pistol) at a night hunt or water race somewhere. Pistol grew up running around the place getting whipped by everything from the made coonhounds and beagles to my sister's Siamese Cat, Ginger. Ginger, like the "nowheresville cat" was a legend around those parts. She had Pistol's extra long, silky ears bleeding most of the time.
Pistol barely survived it all and finally grew up to be big, beautiful and strong and became terrible about fighting other dogs (hmmm).
I remember as a kid, more than a few times, having a chain on Pistol and a chain on another dog both engaged in a full blown to the death dog fight. My Mom would end up on the end of one chain, me on the other and my sister (all of us yelling/screaming/crying) blasting them with the garden hose that was always strung out to fill the water buckets. Pretty traumatic as I recall. Of course in those days if any one or God forbid two of those hounds got out of the pens it was a "National Emergency"
Of course Dad was normally off working when these things happened, But I do remember many a similar scenario on the creek. Pistol would finally leave the lantern just to bale into what was supposed to be a good ole coon fight/kill and pick a dog fight with one of the dogs that had trailed and treed or bayed the prey. And he was serious and became very good at it. I think a coon or two even escaped due to the distraction of the mighty Pistol.
In retrospect perhaps the fundamental mistake in the whole Pistol deal was that as a little puppy Pistol was designated as my sister's dog. Of course that was a way to justify another promising prospect in the pack. In any case this made the culling that should have occurred more difficult.
In those days we had heard/read about electric training collars. Not sure if anyone we knew owned or had even seen one. But purchasing one was not even on the radar. I often think of the time when Dad, keenly interested in curing Pistol of his many ills, used an extension cord, parts from a livestock hotshot and miscellaneous items out of the bolt bin to build the cure. I won't go into the results, just use your imagination to conjure up; the worst and then double it.
However I suppose some may have had a strange feeling of satisfaction as Pistol, on the end of a chain laced with the extension cord crawled in at the com'ere command.
My sis and I never really knew where Pistol disappeared to. And to my recollection no one ever asked.