We had our first groundhog hunt yesterday! Kaiser was schooling because we don’t have groundhogs where we are so he had never seen one before. I was so proud when my boy started barking at the one we had dug to!
The drive to West Virginia was about 4 and half hours through the fog and mountains, we made it there around 8:30AM. I met up with the hunting party and after breakfast we headed out to the farm. The first dog to go out was Deacon, a jack russell terrier who earned his lifetime award on this hunt. He checked hole after hole as we walked along a fence until striking on a hole that was sitting on a hill. He worked underground for a long time and it was time to dig down to him. As two people dug I stayed in front of an exit hole with my shovel in the mouth to prevent the quarry from bolting, which we found out was a groundhog. After they dug Deacon out it was time for schooling the new pups, Kai went first. He checked it out for a while then opened up at the groundhog, and i couldn’t be prouder. He let out a few barks then backed out of the hole, he mostly just thought about what the situation was- but boy did he want to grab that groundhog. We let another dog school then we filled back the hole, and the groundhog bolted as we were filling.
The next set was under a fallen tree, Ezra and Ellie two jack russell terriers were tasked with finding our next quarry and boy did they! Ezra took off into a hole under the tree and his owner was sure that he had grabbed on to the quarry after a while of not hearing from him. Ezra ended up opening up and we started digging! I got the opportunity to dig as well and it was fun. The quarry on this set was another groundhog, a big female. The time to school the youngsters was here again and Kai took to it! He mainly watched us dig and even started digging himself at one point. He got right up the groundhog and grabbed it by the tail, he was bent on taking it out of the hole himself. We ended up dispatching that one and I’m using part of the pelt to make a collar with to commemorate my boy’s first hunt.
That trip was amazing and i couldn’t have asked for a better group to go with. Or a better dog.
