I am somewhat remiss for having left out this portion of Killer’s tale, please forgive my remissiveness. 
We mustn’t dismiss this tragic tale of woe without regaling and beguiling you with one more of our misadventures with my faithful ‘coon hound, “Killer” otherwise, A.K.A. “Ol’ Pisser.”

Oh yes, I feel somewhat obligated to honor a fellow, or is it that, fellowette? follower of the hounds in a bygone era.  Cherylp, I salute you!  And lest some nice folks get their shorts twisted in a knot ’cause we are discussing hunting wee beasties it should be noted that it happened over fifty years ago in my case an’ I don’t hunt ‘em anymore, now I protects ‘em.

On with our tale.

Dootsie Bobo, A.K.A. Alvin and I were wasting our time following Killer through the woods one dark night pursuing some phantom ‘coon shortly before I foisted him off on a poor, deluded, moonstruck, half inebriated ‘coon hunter we found wandering in the woods.

On that particular night killer had devised an entertaining game called, “let the dog see just how many electric fences, immense thorny black raspberry patches, dead falls, swampy areas, farm ponds and other obstacles he can lead his idiot human through before said human places his boot gently and with great zeal on a portion of said dog’s tender anatomy!”

With that brief preamble let us get on with our tale.

Killer, true to form was lost.  We had called, yelled, whistled, coerced, begged, beseeched, cussed a little, muttered, threatened, and prayed for killer’s safe return so that we could send him to the great happy, wherever it is that worthless dogs go when they are afflicted with a slight case of lead poisoning, all to no avail.

We were standing there in a pouring rain that was aspiring to break Noah’s flood record.  Our comfort zones had flown away two hours before.  No self respecting comfort zone would be caught dead out in such weather.

We had paused in the midst of a particularly vile bit of volatile and debasing slander to Killer’s doubtful ancestry when far off in the distance we heard a very distinct and long, drawn out, very faint, “Awoooo!”

We both perked up.  Killer was on a trail!

One thing that must be said in our favor, Dootsie Bobo and I were optimists.

Led on by an occasional “Awoooo!”  We clawed our way through about ten miles of brambles, barbed wire fences, and the denser portions of the Amazon jungle until we could distinctly hear Killer.

Now and then a frantic yelp told us that killer could see his prey but then mysteriously his howls became quite faint.  The only way this could be explained was that he had either chased the ‘coon into a hollow tree or possibly a hole in the ground.  That was the only thing that could possibly explain his muffled howls.

Hmmm, little did we know?
Suddenly bursting into a clearing where we expected to find our faithful Killer we were met by?  Nothing!

We stood there listening intently.  Zilch, Nada.

Our lights were doused to conserve the batteries.  Dootsie Bobo, always one to sit when the opportunity offered itself walked over to what he thought was a large log and sat down and promptly vanished with a blood curdling scream.  

The air was quite suddenly full of very sharp, flying expletives and if you have ever been struck by a sharp, flying expletive you can fully understand the danger I found myself in.

I turned on my flashlight to see a most strange sight.  Dootsie Bobo’s legs were waving in the air.  His entire body was on the other side of the log which was not a log but a slightly deceased cow that had died of some mysterious bovine disease about a week before to judge by the smell which was now becoming quite obvious what with my faithful sidekick writhing around in a massive pile of putrid cow guts.

Suddenly, from the innards of said cow beast erupted Killer!  He had pursued a pair of gourmet ‘possums to their bovine smorgasbord and was inside the cow trying to evict them from their penthouse apartment when we had stumbled upon said moo cow.

That night and only that night Killer showed his affection by jumping on us repeatedly, insisting that we join the feast in the cow carcass.

I don’t know who smelled worst that night, killer because he had been inside the cow or Dootsie Bobo because he had been rolling in rotten cow guts.

And now you understand why, a few nights later, we were so sad to say farewell to my double pedigreed, Plott/ Walker ‘coon hound, Killer, A.K.A. ‘Ol Pisser.

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