Growing up, we didn’t have XBoxes or iPads so we did outdoor stuff. If we were hanging out at the house too long one of my folks would say “go outside and find something to do or I’ll find something for ya” and that usually meant manual labor so we usually left… In a hurry!
We had a dog named Muskey. He was ½ Australian shepherd and ½ border collie. He was the smartest dog I’ve ever seen, even to this day.
Muskey was my pal when I was a kid and he went wherever I went. He kept me safe from rattle snakes and we kept each other entertained for hours.
We were also hunting buddies. We chased anything and everything that moved from grasshoppers to lizards.
One time Muskey and I were chasing cotton tail rabbits there by a pile of aluminum irrigation pipe.
That cotton tail ran into one of the pipes and Old Muskey ran and stuck his head in one end and I ran around and stuck my head in the other. We had that rabbit trapped. But now what were we going to do?
Well, I an idea! I found a piece of old board and I propped it up against the end of that pipe with a rock. I told Muskey to keep that rabbit in there while I went and looked for a gunnysack.
(I talked to that dog all the time and he would look at me like he understood every word.)
I knew the rabbit was still in there because I could hear Muskey bark at him every so often.
When I came back, Old Muskey hadn’t moved – his head was still in that pipe and my board was still propped against the other end. So I pulled that board off and I slipped that gunnysack over the end and tied it on with a piece of bailing wire. Now all I had to do was to go to the other end and raise up that pipe and that rabbit would slide down into the sack and BINGO! We’d have a rabbit! My plan was perfect!
I went to the other end of that pipe and started raising it up. I finally got it up high enough that I started hearing sliding down pipe, and pretty soon that sack had our critter in it. I dropped that pipe and told Old Muskey “git ‘em!”
And he did.
Well, I soon learned from the smell that it wasn’t a rabbit, but a skunk.
Seems Muskey and I miscalculated which pipe that rabbit went into.
I took off running (Momma didn’t raise a fool), but Old Muskey had a different Momma than I did, and he stayed on the hunt a little too long.
He wasn’t a fool either, it just took him a little longer to decide when it was time give up on the hunt and run. Old Muskey rolled in the dirt snortin’ and blowin’ for the rest of the afternoon.
Next time Old Muskey and I went rabbit hunting at the pipe pile we took flashlight with us.
Every kid needs to have adventures and a good dog to have them with.
