Bigfooting With Your Pup

[Drew]

Don't do it in Michigan's Upper Peninsula, your hounds are potential food for the wolves.

 

http://www.uppermichiganssource.com/news/story.aspx?id=939140#.UsW_lfSIDlU

[Guest]

Yes he is Zen.  He doesn't post often but I'll shoot him an email or phone call today & tell him about this thread.

 

Coonbo is my brother in all but blood, one of those incredible people you will run into while monkee chasing.  Every time I watch that show were the foursome doesn't find bigfoot I have to chuckle as a couple of the bros I grew to know over the years know more about the critter and have had more Class As than the TV group combined.  Coonbo is one of those folks who do not seek the limelight or cash, but who was chasing monkees with a purpose & success long before the leader of that group was involved in the field.  I suspect there are a good number of these older chasers in the field but they tend to be very private...

 

BTW, IMO take your dog out with you but keep it on lead.  With luck it will settle down when it gets used to boogers, then it will become your detector & early warning system.  Bo was simply incredible at this, but those are Coonbo's stories to tell if he wishes to share them...

[Guest]

Ndt theyre not monkeys man. They dont have tails for one.

[Guest mariner]

Don't do it in Michigan's Upper Peninsula, your hounds are potential food for the wolves.

 

http://www.uppermichiganssource.com/news/story.aspx?id=939140#.UsW_lfSIDlU

 

This is exactly what I was alluding to. Not saying one dog isn't as good a searcher as another, just that physical size and temprement do count in the  canine world. A single wolf could/would take down a beagle in a blink of an eye. It might be ok if you were carrying weapons of some sort (rifle or pistol etc.).

I know I would feel much safer with a larger breed dog with me as I don't own a gun, so bear spray/baseball bat would be what I would have.

[MIB]

I'm not a dog person.   Dogs cause me stress.   Still, if you like dogs and have one that is well behaved (most dog owners are in denial about just how badly their dogs behave) I see no reason not to take it along if it is on-leash.  The dog only has to get my attention / wake me up by barking, I'll take care of the rest.   I do carry a gun.   I've used it before, I'll use it again. 

 

Outside, standing up, with elbow room, it's effective, but bear spray isn't worth a darn if you're zipped inside a tent.  All you can do with it is disable yourself making it easier for the bear, wolf, etc.   It's also pretty hard to swing a bat inside a tent.

 

Anyways, I've seen reports of BFs responding violently to dogs.  I've also seen a few reports (mostly from habituation settings) where they seem to get along just fine.   There's no guaranteed right answer to the original question. 

 

MIB

[Guest zenmonkey]

awesome hopefully he pops up and can teach us a thing or two!   Like I said my plan was of course leash her....but my wife sold her no nvm

[Guest JiggyPotamus]

I don't have any personal experience taking any of my dogs into the woods looking for bigfoot, but I would think that if it is something you want to do, then you should do it as frequently as possible. Dogs seem to learn by repetition, and I think that either you could teach your dog what you are trying to do, or maybe it will eventually "get it" on its own. Well, maybe it won't understand exactly what is going on, but it could learn to be still and quiet when the need arises, etc.

[JanV]

awesome hopefully he pops up and can teach us a thing or two!   Like I said my plan was of course leash her....but my wife sold her no nvm

Sold her no nvm? Not certain what you are saying..

[Guest zenmonkey]

meant my wife sold her so* never mind. I had planned to take her out with me but i was gone for a few days at work and my wife sold her so ya...

[Guest]

Wow, was it smelly or something? Beagles can be pretty stinky. Pretty cold thing to do.

[Guest zenmonkey]

well originally my wife bought her when she was about 8 weeks old. I wanted nothing to do with her we had new carpet new mattresses last thing we needed was a puppy but noooooo she wouldn't listen to me. after a while she realized how much work a puppy was and wanted nothing to do with her. We had a friend who has an older beagle who won't last much longer and he wanted another one so she had talked about giving her to him. I then fell in love with her and wanted to work with her. she was like 99.999999% potty trained but if she smelled a spot she had peed on as a tiny pup shed pee and well that was on my wives side of the brand new memory foam mattress lol and well I guess she did it again while I was gone and she got rid of her. Im gonna miss that dog lol

[Guest]

Are you kidding me zen? She wanted a puppy, but then figured out that its actually a bit of work raising a puppy, so she changed her mind and got rid of her, because she peed on the carpet ? Im sorry man but thats pathetic and cold hearted. I dont mean any disrespect i just cant stand when people get a dog but then dont want to put in any work so they get rid of it. Sorry if i came off offensive, atleast the dogs in a home now where someone will take time to raise it.

[Guest zenmonkey]

Nope I've been saying it all this time. She wouldn't listen. I've always had labs once you get a pet it's a commitment til the end. But honestly we don't have the time or lifestyle to have a pup but she wouldn't listen to me. But she did go to a good home

[Guest]

Good

[Guest Coonbo]

Yes he is Zen.  He doesn't post often but I'll shoot him an email or phone call today & tell him about this thread.

 

Coonbo is my brother in all but blood, one of those incredible people you will run into while monkee chasing.  Every time I watch that show were the foursome doesn't find bigfoot I have to chuckle as a couple of the bros I grew to know over the years know more about the critter and have had more Class As than the TV group combined.  Coonbo is one of those folks who do not seek the limelight or cash, but who was chasing monkees with a purpose & success long before the leader of that group was involved in the field.  I suspect there are a good number of these older chasers in the field but they tend to be very private...

 

BTW, IMO take your dog out with you but keep it on lead.  With luck it will settle down when it gets used to boogers, then it will become your detector & early warning system.  Bo was simply incredible at this, but those are Coonbo's stories to tell if he wishes to share them.

 

 

 

Brother NDT:  Thanks for the kind words.  And Bo probably thanks you too.  I believe his spirit is still with us.  He was a Booger-dog par excellence.  Yes, Bo knew boogers.  And in my ignorance, I almost lost him a couple of times to boogers.

 

My buddy Bo:

 

 

This is Bo in the woods with me in NE Mississippi back around the late 90's. We were by ourselves.  He's sitting beside a structure or marker I believe was made by BF.  It consisted of a green sapling bent over and its top pegged to the ground by a dead limb that didn't come off of any of the trees nearby:

 

 

This next pic shows Bo in booger territory on the back of our farm in Alabama on April 14, 2001.  This massive tree-bow appeared during the very night after my brother bush-hogged that fire break the afternoon of April 13, 2001.  The tree is a hickory that was 9" in diameter, and there had been NO overnight storm or wind.  We went back in there the next morning to cut some downed trees off the north end of the fire break and found this. 

 

This is an important picture germane to this thread in that it shows Bo at his "safe haven": my truck.  If you are going to take your dog "boogering" and he/she is allow off-leash, that dog absolutely MUST have a "safe haven" to retreat to if there are BF in the area and he feels threatened.  Your dog must come when called and "load up" instantly on command.  Bo would hop into the back seat of the truck if a door was open, or if not, he would jump up onto the toolbox where he could keep an eye on things.  If we were away from the truck and he was off-leash and we got into boogers, he would come to me and whine.  If I didn't take the hint and back out of there, he would abandon me and go to the truck.  He would give me plenty of ample warning, but sometimes I didn't "get it" or didn't want to leave just then, so he would abandon my butt.

 

 

Another shot at the same location 10 months later.  That's my buddy Bear and my son under the same bowed tree.  We tried to get Bo to pose with them, but he was having nothing of it.  There were boogers about and he was headed to the truck which was just behind me and the camera.  BTW, that tree just happens to be pointing straight towards a large cave less than 75 yards away that we are sure that BF use at times.

 

 

Bo sticking close to the truck, at another Mississippi location.  No boogers in immediate vicinity, but they had been there not long before.  He knew they weren't too far away.  We were by ourselves again, as we very often were.  A good "booger dog" is an invaluable asset if you do much field research by yourself:

 

 

These next two pics are important.  Bo checking out wads of dog fur hung in a cattle panel in south Missouri where two dogs had been brutally killed and one horribly maimed by BF. 

 

 

At same investigation as above.  Note Bo on leash and on alert.  He knew when we were in booger country.  We were quite a distance from the truck and I didn't want him to get separated from us.  Note bark pulled off and big fingernail mark on black cherry tree to the right of Keith's head.  This is just down the hill from dog kill site.  The dogs killed were a large lab/German Shepherd mix and a badass Belgian Malinois.  The dog maimed was a German Shepherd.  They were all prolific barkers.  Boogers do NOT like barking/yapping dogs.  Noisy dogs do not last long off-leash in BF country.  We believe a BF was collecting black cherry sap "jelly balls" along that fence line, and the dogs were barking and raising heII at it, and the BF finally got tired of it and shut them up.

 

 

Bo, on our very first trip into a certain area of Indian mounds, by ourselves again, as was usual in 95% of our research.  Note his ears already at "half staff", and note the small mound out in the field off the end of his nose.  I should have paid closer attention to him.  About 30 minutes later, and 200 yards away, we ended up being surround by at least eight angry and aggressive boogers that scared the bejeebers out of us.  Bo, knowing that boogers like to belly crawl up on you and will crawl up under your truck, retreated to the roof of the truck rather than trying to hide under it.