Deep South Dispatch: Armadillo Hating Dog

On a recent raccoon hunting trip, the Old Flesh and Blood had a new experience. Those are rarer these days after more than fifty years of hunting in the same locale. He was trying out a new dog, but the rascal wanted to chase after armadillos.

 

 Pesticus Ironcladicus

Now thirty years ago there were no armadillos in the Lowcountry of South Carolina  so as long as your coon hound didn't run rabbits or deer you were in pretty good shape. The Old Flesh and Blood tried to discourage the armadillo chaser after the first hunt. They turned the brace of hounds loose a second time and once again this one dog took-off after an armored possum. They could hear him barking into a hole from the trucks and they slogged into the woods to retrieve the misguided canine.

The armadillo hole was set in the slope of an old drag-line ditch used to drain the low land for pines. When the hunters arrived and surveyed the scene they wanted to take the dog back to the truck, but emboldened by the arrival of the hunters the dog started digging into the hole himself. By the time the hunters could cross the ditch the dog had enlarged the opening and gone into the burrow.
They called after him. On he dug!
They tried to reach in and pull him out.  On he dug!
They put their ears to ground to measure his progress (for he kept barking the whole time).  On he dug!

The dog couldn't turn around in that narrow tunnel of course. After walking off twelve feet from the burrow entrance to the sound of the barks and realizing that only a backhoe could dig that far and deep through the roots and stumps, they gave the armadillo-hatin' dog up for dead.

"I hated to leave him, but there was nothing to do," said the Old Flesh and Blood.

A week later the dirty and decidedly skinnier dog came trotting up to the tractor diver cutting firelines on the plantation.  How did he get out?
"I guess he dug," said the Old Flesh and Blood.

Embarrassed about your lack of expertise on coon hunting? Try this for a quick education.