Nose-To-Nose -- February 7, 2011

Ali’s been too busy reviewing Rally-O courses for the APDT to write a Bing blog right now, although she’d probably want to tell readers of his ability to get along with the two new Guinea Pigs living in her office just a few feet from his crate. Or how forgiving he is of Cyan’s clumsiness. Or how he’s on an additional medication. Or how he’s gaining a little weight. But mostly he’s been a pretty good dog, leading an uneventful life.

However , there was an incident back in late October that I promised I’d write a blog about, so here’s my opportunity.

It was late Saturday afternoon, and Bing and I went out for a walk on the trails along the abandoned slate quarries near Emerald, PA. We left Acacia at home to walk with Ali because she can really slow us down. Acacia always lags behind, she’s practically deaf so we can’t let her get lost, she doesn’t like to walk on difficult surfaces, and lately the time she takes to stop and sniff is interminable. When she does come along, I have to keep one eye forward and one eye backward.

Without Acacia, Bing and I can move faster, cover new ground, take difficult trails, and generally be a little more adventurous as was the case on this afternoon. Over the last couple of years we’d been around three sides of one of the big mine hole many times. But we’d never tried to find a connecting trail along the fourth side of this rectangular hole-in-the-ground. Because it was the end of October, a lot of the brush had died back and it was easy to work our way up the embankment to find a narrow path along the back of the quarry. When we reached the top I looked down the steep slope to the water below to marvel at the idea that many men with limited machinery spent their lives pulling blackboard slate out of these impossible crevasses.

I turned to my right and the late afternoon sun was filtering through the spindly trees directly in front of me to reveal Bing looking down into a ditch on the side of the embankment opposite the quarry. Just then a 9-point buck raised himself out of the ditch to come nose-to-nose with Bing – no further than a foot apart. My first thought was that this could be really, really bad for Bing. All the big buck had to do was swing his antlers to cause a lot of damage. Bing was probably as amazed as I that after a few seconds the deer backed down, walked laboriously away about 60 feet, and laid down. The one thing I could see clearly in the silhouette of the buck as he faced Bing was a small amount of dark liquid coming from his mouth and continuing down the front of his neck. Because it was almost a month prior to “deer season”, it probably hadn’t been shot by a high caliber bullet. It was archery season, and since I didn’t seen any signs of an arrow or other wound, I though the deer might have been shot by a small crossbow arrow. Since he didn’t have a limp I assumed he hadn’t been hit by a vehicle. One thing I was pretty sure of: this animal was going to suffer for a time before it died.

I don’t know why Bing came back to me or how I got him back on leash. I do remember that once he was back on leash, he strained to get to where the buck was bedded down. As we worked our way west to the trail that runs near the power lines, I thought I’d better take a picture or two of the lay of the land and the angle of the sun using my cell phone.

We made it back to the van without incident. On the way home I called Ali to tell her what happened. And I also called a friend of mine who has experience as a hunter using bow and arrow and guns. I asked him if on Sunday morning he would go back to the spot where Bing and I came across the deer and put it out of its misery if it were still there.

I figured there were three possible scenarios.
1. The buck would be there (or very nearby) and have died overnight. Bing would help us find it.
2. The buck was stronger than I thought and could leave the vicinity, never to be found.
3. The buck was suffering badly, was still there (or nearby), and we could finish it off.

Whether option three was actually legal was uncertain, but since the location was almost two miles from the nearest access point, it was unlikely there’d be any repercussions.

Sunday morning just before 9:00 AM, my friend (with two different pistols), Bing, and I set out to see if the deer was still there.

And it was. As the three of us came noisily over the rise near where we’d left the deer the evening before, we spotted him still lying down. My friend approached the deer as Bing and I stayed behind on the embankment. I didn’t want my friend to be concerned over our whereabouts in case the deer got up and made the task more difficult. But that exactly what happened.

As my friend approached, the deer got up, ran about 50 yards, and bedded down again. He put one shot in its head, but it got up and ran another couple hundred yards further and out of my sight. After what seemed like another 10 minutes, Bing and I heard another two shots. Finally my friend returned. The three of us left with the deer remaining behind.

My friend said that even after he’d put the third bullet in the poor animal, it got up once again, ran a short distance, laid down and died.

We came back to the house and discussed the chain of events with Ali. My friend an I agreed that the deer was not just sick and it had not been hit by a car, but was likely shot by some other hunter who could not track it down to finish it off.

All in all, Bing was a great help in our efforts. He showed that he really is very motivated and attentive, and one of the best friends you could take with you on a hike.

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