Hi,

I really miss the farm and my companions but the work was wearing on me fast. One needs to know when to stop some things. Horses require a lot of work, unless you just want pasture ornaments. But that was not for me. The heelers were added enjoyment and were fun to have. Day to day I would always have some sort of surprise. As I said earlier, Moe was playful with her mom Khyia and I am sure that is what kept her active thus extending her life. The love between those two was great and Moe suffered when her mom died. I too suffered the lose but having Moe helped a lot. She started following me to the barn for chores and would do this rain, snow or whenever I made my way to the barn. She did not like to ride in the van unless I forced her. But I only did that for vet visits for shots. So she may have associated the van with pain from the shots.

Farm dogs are totally different from inside pets. Moe would hunt everywhere on the property and wished to share her treasures by leaving them by the garage door. Really upset my wife since she would leave early for her job just before me getting out for my chores. I would hear her yelling to get out here! I would find the dogs treasures as close to the garage door as possible. My wife was a farm girl growing up, I would tell her that this was a normal for the heelers. She would just say 'Our dogs wouldn't do this'. And my response was, 'You did not have heelers, get over it'.

My neighbor had too many cats, most were feral and would linger over to my barn and that was a big mistake. The heelers would not tolerate the intruders. So I would dispose of the kills in the trash in a plastic bag. My garbage drivers tolerated the actions after I told them the situation.

In town we have squirrels and rabbits that are in our yard. Drive Casey the yorkie crazy since he tries to chase them. Casey is less that 6 lbs dripping wet and I wonder what would happen if he ever caught something. Squirrels can be very dangerous if caught and if the dogs doesn't know how to protect their self. As a young hunter myself, I learned early to slit the squirrel's throat to bleed out. I've seen more than one that wasn't dead that the hunter thought was dead and placed inside their jacket kill pocket only to have it come out very angry.

This reminds me of the time my dad decided to train our black lab 'Satan' to coon hunt. My dad's buddies had coon hounds so we tagged along with Satan and the coon hounds. The coon dogs picked up a trail and off went Satan. Coon dogs treed a coon and were leaping at the tree as they normally would. Satan sat watching their actions then all of a sudden the lab ran a dead run right up the tree to the lower fork. He sat there and did not know what to do next. One of my uncles told the coon dog owners to secure their dogs. He climbed the tree to retrieve 'Satan' and he did not want to get torn up by the coon dogs.

We next shot the coon with a 22 and the coon never dropped. That same uncle climbed the tree again up to the hung coon. He cautiously moved out on the limb to dislodge the coon. The damn coon wasn't dead, just clawed up my uncles leg and they both came out of the tree into the coon dogs snarling my uncle was lucky to get out unscathed.
The coon was one big beast and gave the dogs a fight. Some dogs had to be stitched up but finally one dog got the coons throat and thus killing it. We had a fight getting the dead coon from the dogs. Not a pretty sight. Coon's skin/coat was damaged and not worth stripping thus dry out or stretching. Meat was OK but used as feed. BTW, Satan's coon days were over. That was one smart dog and not afraid.

This was supposed to be short comment.
Sorry!