Bear Grease - Ep. 115: THIS COUNTRY LIFE - Squirrel Dogs

Episode Date: June 2, 2023

A man only gets so many dogs in his life, and picking the right ones is important. Whatever breed of squirrel-treeing, tail-wagging outdoor accomplice you've got your eye on, Brent's gonna tell you the tricks he uses to find the very best pups. On the fence about getting a squirrel dog of your own? Brent's got a couple stories up that might just sway you.  Connect with Brent and MeatEater MeatEater on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and Youtube Shop Bear Grease MerchSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

First Lights fieldwear collection is made for the work that happens long before opening day and continues when the season ends. Products built for early mornings, full days in real use. Hard wearing where they need to be versatile where it matters. No shortcuts. Just gear designed for the work that earns the season. Built to perform, built to last. Check out. First Light's new fieldwear gear at firstlight.

Welcome to This Country Life. I'm your host, Brent Reeves. From Coon Hunting to Trotlining and just general country living, I want you to stay a while as I share my stories and country skills that will help you beat the system. This Country Life is proudly presented as part of Meat Eaters Podcast Network, bringing you the best outdoor podcast the Airways have to offer. All right, friends, pull you up a chair or drop that tailgate. I think I got a thing or two to teach you.

Squirrel dogs. This week, it's all about the squirrel haters. You know what I'm talking about, squirrel dogs. We're going to talk about what a squirrel dog is and how one is trained and the value of having a good one. And a good one, mm-mm-mm, it's just like money in the bank. You never know how important they are until they show you. And with that in mind, I'm going to tell you a story.

We had a little mountain cur named Prissy that was mostly white with a light brown colored hair on her ears and around her eyes. She was a feisty little ball of energy and had two speeds, stop and go. She was a young dog and a little over a year old at the time of this story, and I was young and two, and I couldn't have been more than ten or so. It was late on a fall afternoon when I talked my dad into saddling up buck, his big buckskin horse, that was the spitting image of the one Marshall Dillon rode on gunsmoke so I could go squirrel hunting behind the house for a hour or so before dark. Never heard of gun smoke?

It's one of the longest running TV shows ever, and it was set in Dodge City, Kansas in the 1870s when dodging bullets, tumbleweeds, and stampede and cattle was what them folks called Tuesday. That show ran for 20 years ending in 1975 and followed the adventures of U.S. Marshal, Matt Dillon, all-around good guy and shooter of outlaws. He was a bachelor and showed favor to Miss Kitty Russell,

the kind-hearted owner of the Long Branch Saloon, boss of Sam the bartender, and all the saloon gals of sport and morality that worked there. The Long Branch was an actual saloon during that time, and you can visit the real one now in Dodd City, just like my dad and I did in July of 2001. We were on a journey through Cowboy Country just seeing the sights and found ourselves walking through those swinging doors of the Long Branch at 9 o'clock in the morning.

A lady in period close of the time welcomed us in from the trail and showed us to a green felt covered table. She asked us if she could get us something to drink. My dad said he'd have a cup of coffee and I said, well, just make it too. As she turned to walk off, she said, now, Cowboys, we are a full service saloon. I said, y'all serve beer? She said, yes, and hard liquor. I said, well, bring me a mug of beer.

My dad had the craziest look on his face, and he said, son, it's 9 o'clock in the morning. I said, I know, but how many folks from New Edinburgh or Arkansas do you think ever had a beer in the Long Branch Saloon? Without hesitation, he looked back at her and said, bring me one too. Anyway, me, Prissy and Buck, head off behind the house for a quick hunt and Prissy tree two real quick, and I killed both of them with my 22. She then took off and treated a pretty good ways away, and it took me a little bit to get to her. When I did, I slid down off Buck and walked up to the tree in time to see that squirrel start running through the treetops with Prissy and me in hot pursuit. It seemed like we went forever when that squirrel finally made it to its ding.

and disappeared. Now I'd been running and chasing that squirrel, looking up the whole time, circling trees and pulling vines when that race ended at the den tree. I couldn't tell how I got there or which way it was back to where I dropped the reins on my horse. It was cloudy, starting to get dark, and I thought I was fixing to have to spend the night in the woods. Prissy was standing on a big old stump, looking right at me with her tail wagging and panting with excitement and waiting to see what was next. For all I knew, camping was next. At least since the dad came and found me,

but I didn't want to be rescued. I always wanted to show him that I could make it in the woods and do anything that he could do and all the things that he'd been teaching me my whole life. I was going to be embarrassed if he had to come find me, but I was starting to get a little cold and a lot scared. I didn't know what else to do, so I looked prissy dead in the eyes

and told her to go find Buck. And I said it twice and on the second command, she took off like she was late for work in a direction I was confident wasn't remotely close to the direction of where Buck was. I instantly regretted my decision of telling her to leave, especially since she was going to be my only source of heat for the night. And if I managed to lose Buck and Prissy on the same day,

if I did make it out alive, my butt wasn't going to hold chucks after Dad got through with me. About 100 yards away, Prissy commenced the tree. It was really getting close to dark now, so as fast and as safely as I could go, toting my rifle and fighting through the bushes and briars, I headed in a bee line straight to where she was barking. I busted out of that little thicket, ten yards away from her, and there she stood in the fading light on a big old log right beside Buck,

barking away to let me know where to go. I loved her and petted her up, put my rifle, in the scabbard, climbed up on that monster of a horse and gave him a little spur, and he turned and walked straight back to the barn where Dad was waiting on him. I'd ask her to tree squirrels, and she did. I'd ask her to find my horse, and she did. Not only did she find him, but she also told me out loud where to come find him and her. She did all that on her own. She was a heck of a dog, and that's just how that happened. Squirrel dogs, where are you going to get one? Facebook, Jenny Craig's list?

No, you can't find a dog there, but I'm going to tell you where and how to find one. Find a place where coffee and biscuits are sold. Now, I ain't talking about under the golden arches. I'm talking about that spot where the floor creeks when you walk in and the waitress calls you sugar and the old men gather. Talk to the waitress. Ask her who she hears that's a squirrel dog man.

She's bound to have heard a name or two from all the tales she's overheard. while topping off coffee cups where the old folks hold court every morning. If she gives you a name, tip heavy and slip out the door and drive to the next spot and do the same thing again. And repeat it until you get the same name twice. When you do, that's your man. That's the cat that knows this business well enough that other folks know it to. Now, seriously, if you personally don't know anybody, just Google it.

I did and I found a ton of very useful information and names I recognized as being long-time leaders in the squirrel dog business. Talk to the breeders, talk to his clients. There's lots of stuff on the inner webs about squirrel dogs, but there's no substitute for putting your eyeballs in person on the pup you're considering. If you're going to do it from scratch with no leads or suggestions from friends or hunting buddies, take your time and do your homework. If it works out like at order to,

you're adding a family member that you get to choose, unlike that crazy old Uncle Frank that you just got by default. Before I found my coon hound whaling, I looked for six months, and I talked to a whole bunch of folks about dogs, pedigrees and just about everything you can imagine. I put in the time and the research, and I got lucky. Lots of folks will go through several dogs

before they find one that suits them. I was blessed with bringing home a coonhound that turned into a coon dog. And there's a big difference in coonhound and coon dog, just like there is between a man that fishes and a fisherman. Whalen was born a tree and walker coonhound. His ability to learn and to sniff out old tricky rickie raccoon consistently time and time again is how he earned the title coon dog. The same applies to any dog that has a specific purpose.

bird dogs, squirrel dogs, hog dogs, cow dogs, on and on. Last spring, Clay Newcomb and I collaborated with Jason Phelps at Phelps game calls in building each of our own favorite turkey diaphragms called prime cuts. Now, I'm going to tell you, I love mine because it's easy to use. I'm not going to go, I'm not going to win a turkey calling contest. It's just not going to happen. But when I run this call, I get the sounds that gobblers are looking for. I have a great turkey hunting track record.

if you go listen to real turkeys out in the woods, they're not going to win calling contests, right? That's who I listen to. I can make those sounds on my cut. I also hunt with Phelps's cut, and I hunt with Clay's cut because they're all three great cuts. Check out Prime Cuts at Phelpsgamecalls.com. I think you'll be glad you did,

and you'll find out that the Steve Ronella cut is an easy-to-use cut for beginning callers who just want to start making good. turkey noises and getting action. So we got an idea on how to look for a squirrel dog. What kind are you looking for? Kerr, fiesced, hound, terrier? The room you have to keep one will tell you that, along with how much walking you want to do. But you're looking for a dog that's got some smarts and the drive to get out and find a squirrel. Bigger dogs usually range farther than the little ones closer. I've seen everything in the world tree.

a squirrel. Here's an example. Remember my old cow dog Luke that I accompanied on that trip to the vet when my truck was shedding parts going and coming like I talked about in episode four? Well, he was supposed to have been a cow dog, but he'd tree squirrels too. But it wasn't his main purpose, and I'll tell you why in just a minute. Luke could tree enough to keep you from starving slap to death if you could shoot worth anything. But he wasn't a patch to the most famous bobtailed cur that ever drew a breath. Peanut. Peanut was a mountain cur. He had a yellow blanket back, four white socks,

a small peanut-shaped patch of yellow on his head, but he was also my daddy's favorite son. Just kidding. Not really. But let's get back on track. There's basically two kinds of dogs that tree squirrels, the ones that do it by sight and the ones that do it by smell. Now bear with me and pay attention.

Just about any old fru-frew ankle-biting yippity yapping dog will run a squirrel up a tree when they see it. That don't make him a squirrel dog. That's just a dog hunting squirrels. Remember, there's a difference. And that's what more or less Luke was doing. They're just out there minding their own business when they catch some movement and squirrel!

They take off in pursuit and run that joker up a tree. Sometimes they bark. Most times they don't. They're just out there jumping up and down and looking back at you for help or praise for them for saving your life by running that rabid creature up at tree. Those dogs are just using their eyes. What you want is one that'll do both. Tracking dogs or scent dogs will use sight to a certain degree, but they're mostly using

their nose to find where a squirrel's bent on the ground. That was peanut in a nutshell. See what I did there? When those dogs are hunting, they look like a metal man in a shooting gallery, just running back and forth in every witch away, but there's a method to their madness. When they smell one, they'll follow that scent at left and determine which tree it's gone up and start treeing. Tria means the dog is usually rared up with his front paws on the tree and barking to let you know where he is and that he's found a squirrel. It's important that he barks and a good loud bark that you can hear. Sometimes the barking will cause the squirrel to take off through the treetops to escape and that's when a good dog will use his sight to follow them from tree to tree as a little. The squirrel tries to get to the safety of his nest or his den, just like Chrissy did.

I grew up hunting squirrels from horses, and I'd try to be the first one to the tree, jump off my horse, and stand opposite of the direction my dad would be riding up on and getting ready. More times than not, when he got there, the squirrel would jump back around on my side of the tree, and I'd shoot him out. Now, here I am talking about shooting squirrels, and we even got our dog trained yet. So how do we train one? Well, the easiest way is to start out with a dog that's bred to do that sort of thing, and the most popular breeds where I'm from are curds and fies or a mixture of both.

Now, you like a hunters, please save you hate mail. You've got a proven squirrel dog, even though it looks like it ought to be pulling a sled in Alaska rather than tree and squirrels in the river bottoms, which reminds me of a story. So thanks, Jack London-looking squirrel dog, for reminding me. I was in Alaska, filming a hunt one time, and the folks we were staying with at our fly-in camp had a big old golden retriever that was always running around outside barking. It was my first time up there, and I was expecting to get monkey stomp by a moose or et by a bear at every turn.

That dog wasn't helping me relax by barking constantly. I asked the pilot what that dog was barking at, and he said he's outside tree and squirrels. The devil, you say. My fears of winding up in Wolf's Gat were immediately gone. I borrowed his 22, went outside, and it commenced to working on them squirrels. I proudly hold the record in the Reeves family of being the only one to shoot a treeed squirrel north of the 49th parallel. Put that in your pipe and smoke at Reeveses.

Back to training. I promise. A puppy from a proven family of squirrel dogs is a good head start. They're usually not cheap and that can be downright expensive for one that's 100% finished and fully trained. But we're talking about a young dog and the first thing you want to do is to have him mind in you. You don't want to cut him loose without the ability to call him back. That is no bueno. You also don't want one that's gun shy.

If you can't keep him around when the shooting starts, that one squirrel for trip ain't going to be enough to feed nobody. And let's face it, hunting squirrels, is fun, but eating squirrels is funner. There's a million YouTube lessons and countless articles on how to keep your dog from being gun shy. Most of them teach introducing ever-increasing noises over a period of time while that pup is eating and his attention is focused away on a good thing like food, which is a good way to train me, as a matter of fact.

Our very own Tony Peterson wrote an excellent article called How to Introduce Your Puppet to Gunfire back in 2009. and you can find it on the meat eater website. While doing a little research on material to tell you all about, I found that article, almost a step-by-step method of what my dad taught me to do with our dogs. Tony, you owe me 20 bucks. Now we've got our pup.

He ain't gun-shy now, so let's hit the woods. Squirrels like acorns, fruit, and the berries that grow in the hardwood timber, and that's where we need to be. Now, hold on a minute, squirrel food. That reminds me of a story. I promise we're going to talk about training, but you got to hear this story. I saw a squirrel eat a fried squirrel one time. When I was a uniform officer at the state capital in Little Rock,

I had taken my grub to work that was left over from the supper the night before. I was on patrol and parked in an out-of-the-way parking lot behind the state capital to eat my dinner. Those city squirrels up there are bold. They ain't scared of nothing. I was sitting there chowling down on the hind leg of a gray squirrel and watching the line of a gray squirrel and watching a live one a few feet away from my patrol car gnawing on a hickory night. We were taking turns, giving one another stink guy, and when I finished that leg, I chunked it at that uppity squirrel just to let him know

I come from a distinguished family of squirrel killers. That dude dodged it like a ninja. Then he picked it up and started chewing on it. The last time I saw him, he was running across that parking lot, toting that leg in his mouth like a black lab with greenhead. Squirrels are savages. No wonder dogs have. them. Anyway, keep turning that dog loose where the squirrels live, and eventually, if he's got the

drive and the natural ability, they're going to cross paths, and he'll start seeing the light to his purpose and the reason you brought him and cut him loose to begin with. Hunting your pup with a proven tree dog will help even more. It speeds up the process. this. When they can see a dog operate and learn from the example that a tree dog is given, it is absolutely invaluable. Now, dogs ain't that smart, you say? They can't reason. You better sit down for this one, pardon him. My brother Tim and I were home from duck camp and squirrel hunting behind his house one morning. We were walking through the bottoms with his squirrel dog, Susie. His old lab, Zach, was in tow just for the fun of it, and we killed a few. We killed a few

squirrels by the time we got down to the vio. Susie had made a big circle and was walking up with us and Zach till a high bank looking down on the water. A pair of wood ducks blew out of there and instinctively we both threw up our shotguns and fired at the same time killing both of them. It was the thing of beauty. A squirrel hunting miracle. We were high-fiving and laughing when Tim sent Zach out to retrieve the ducks.

Susie stood right there where she had been all along, watching for the first. first time as Zach demonstrated his purpose in life. He was crawling up the bank with that first duck when Kachug. She hit the water, swam out, and retrieved the other one just like she saw him do. Not only that, when she dropped that duck at Tim's feet, she rared up on a big cypress. We were standing beside and treated a squirrel, and we got him too. She did that solely on her own by watching what Zach had done and reasoning that she could do it too. And she did.

Everyone knows about Pavlov and his sloboring dogs, but it was Susie ringing mine and Tim's bell that day. Now, taking care of a dog is a big responsibility. I was taught by my dad, and I've continued that lesson with my kids. And if my dad was going to feed one, a dog of any kind, they were going to earn their victals in the woods. I'm the same way. My wife and youngest daughter?

Not so much. Exhibit A, Rosie the Jack Russell terrorist, as I refer to her, that's currently staring at me while I'm talking to y'all. That's all she does is follow me around, hate wailing, and stare at me. She's been staring at me for 12 years. She reminds me better than any of my youngies, and I hope that nerve-wracking heifer stares at me for another 12. I kind of got used to her. Now, that's a pretty condensed version of squirrel dogs, according to Brent, and I do. didn't even cover the dual purpose and the importance they play in the family.

Peanut and Susie, they weren't just dogs. They were family. Peanut lived for about 12 years, and when he died, we didn't have enough shovels to dig a whole big enough for all the folks that wanted to go with him. The good ones are special, and their memories will make you happy forever. I appreciate y'all listening so much. I hope you'll come back next week. If you enjoyed it, share it with a friend.

If you didn't, share it with an enemy. That'll show them. This is Brent Reeves, sounding all. Y'all be careful. First Lights Fieldwear collection is made for the work that happens long before opening day and continues when the season ends. Products built for early mornings, full days in real use. Hard wearing where they need to be versatile where it matters.

No shortcuts. Just gear designed for. for the work that earns the season. Built to perform, built to last. Check out. First Light's new fieldware gear at firstlight.com.