Blake was completely deaf by his 13th season, but he still had more desire to hunt than any other partner ever. And it took it dead seriously; there was no joking around when we were after a squirrel.
I only hunted squirrel with him, but never made a big deal about Treeing some other critter. He treed fox and gray squirrels, possums, coons, buzzards, and turkeys. He once treed a bobcat that bailed out of the tree when I approached and it led them on a long chase that went out of hearing.
But I think he hated kitty cats worst of all. There are several stories of cats that did not fare well after leaving the safety of the tree. Real bad decision.
Here is Blake on one of his final hunts. He put 5 coons up a single tree and we recovered them all.
Blake and Joe caught this Yahoo, but I made them turn him loose. They aren't that rare in our area, but I didn't wanna be on TV.
At age 13, I was dreading the day when I'd have to make a decision about what to do with him. He took care of the problem for me. I let him out of the pen right at dark one day and he never came home. I suspect he died as he lived - violently. He probably tried to tackle some critter bigger than him and finally lost. RIP, Blake.
I've heard it said that every man deserves to own one good dog in his life. If true, I've had mine.
