Coon dog in training

Barack (formerly known as Mr. Brown) is growing and learning quickly. Largely from observing his father and Uncle Ajax, at 13 weeks he has learned to come, sit, lie down, hop into and out of the car on command, stop and sit and street corners, release things in his mouth on command, fetch objects at a distance, jump and take on command and occasionally stay despite a tail that tries to wag him into orbit. And he has probably learned a number of other things that I’ve forgotten or don’t know about yet.

As it is our intention to hunt with him, it’s important to expose him to game at an early age. He has taken a great interest in a few birds that he has found in the woods or that Ajax has caught, but he hasn’t really had much to do with mammals yet. So when I saw two raccoons and a ferret freshly killed on my way to shooting practice for my hunting course, I pulled over quickly and collected them. Barack found the raccoon quite interesting.

Now what do I do with THIS thing?

Since a raccoon is a bit heavy for retrieving and this one was no longer very fresh after spending the day in a hot car without air conditioning, I removed the tail to use for string-and-pole training. Barack grabbed the tail and defended it against Ajax, who was also eager to have the tail. Fortunately there were two raccoons, so each got a tail.

Mine! All MINE!!!

Here’s a picture of Barack triumphant after catching the tail on the string:

Gotcha!