My Puppies :)

This blog is just for you, Professor Wright!

I previously wrote about coon-hunting, but now I'll write about our precious coon dogs! My family has three dogs. They are all mountain curs. This is actually the breed of dog that Old Yeller was in the book Old Yeller.   Before we got our three current dogs, we had a mutt named Whiskey and a beagle named Chocolate. Chocolate was hit by a car only a few years after we got him, and Whiskey, who was 17, was run over by a trailer about a year after we got our first mountain cur. Mountain curs are excellent treeing dogs and come in three main colors: yellow, white, and brindle. They are also known for their distinctive bobbed tails.

Kujo

We got our first cur in the summer of 2001 and my brothers named him Kujo after the killer dog in Steven Speilberg's horror film Cujo. Kujo is a yellow cur. Because he is the oldest of our dogs, he fits into the "old and wise" category. He is the best coon dog our family has ever had, but unfortunately his age is catching up to him, and  he has a heart murmur and recently developed thyroid problems.

Gunner

Our second mountain cur, Gunner, came to us a year and a half after we got Kujo. The breeder who we got Kujo from asked us if we wanted the white puppy. He had these weird swollen looking ankles in his front legs and one of his feet was angled inward slightly. The breeder wasn't sure if he would develop properly or not, but said we could have him for free if we would take him. With much begging from my siblings and I, our parents gave in, and Gunner was ours! His ankles still bulge (you can sort of see it in the picture if you at the leg on the left of the picture) but he isn't affected by it at all. Gunner is an endless ball of energy and very strong, but not exactly the brightest crayon in the box. If I were to label him, he would be the strong-but-stupid-jock.

Rebel (on the left) and Bell (on the right)

In late 2007, we got our third dog. The breeder offered us a deal. If we raised our puppy and another puppy from the litter together for the first year, we could keep our puppy for free. The breeder chose a female, Bell, and we chose a male who we named Rebel because of his unique brindle coloring. We raised the puppies together, teaching them the basics of being a coon dog, and after a year, we gave Bell back to the Breeder and kept Rebel. Rebel is still fairly young, so he is still pretty new at coon hunting, but he is showing great promise!