Boomer and Hank Find a Badger

Youngsters sure know how to get in trouble, yep they do. I’m really glad I’m not a kid anymore; some of those lessons young whelps have to learn are just hard.

And the one Boomer and Hank learned is one I never had to learn, ever.  Maybe it helps that I have always been an outside dog with an important job to do.  I was born and raised a cow dog, I’ve seen lots of things over my years, and some lessons I just didn’t learn b.e.c.a.u.s.e. I used my ol head.

Well, we were all at the upper end, Mom-mom and Hank, me and Boomer and Mom and Dad.  We were setting the water for the day, no wait a minute for the first four hours of the day.  (That is why the little kids weren’t with us—6:00 in the morning is just way too early for those little mites).

Anyway, we were all up there, I was hanging around the ditch because I well, I like the water.  I like to bite at the bubbles in the water and I like to get in the water and splash about.  Boomer and Hank had trotted off to the pasture and then I saw them sniffing along moving into the brush on top of the hill.

Wait! I’ll let Boomer tell the story—

Well, you see, we were just sniffing along, well actually I was sniffing along, that is how I travel sniffing along seeing what is there and what has been there, Hank he likes to look about.  We work well together I’m the nose and he is the eyes.  Anyway, we were moving along when all of a sudden we came up on a flat, black sort of skunk-like animal.  Geez, neither Hank nor I had ever seen such an animal before.  It really didn’t look like anything normal.  Hank said it didn’t look like a skunk and he said it didn’t smell like a skunk.  I haven’t seen a skunk so I took Hank’s word for it.

Right off we both, decided the best thing to do was set up a bark….maybe Fuzzy would come over and tell us what this was and what to do about it.  We started barking as loud as we could WOOF! WOOF! WOOF! BARK! BARK! HOOOOOOOOOW!

Fuzzy didn’t come, neither did Mom or Dad.

We decided maybe we would stop barking and just go on down the hill and see what animal this was.  Throughout our furious barking the animal didn’t even move just kept on digging at whatever it was digging at.

“Shall we go find out what it is?” asked Hank.

I agreed and off we ran to the bottom of the hill and screeched to a stop right where the busy not-skunk was working.

“Hey You” Hank called “What are you and what are you doing?”

The not-skunk stopped his work and looked at us; suddenly he showed us his very sharp little white teeth and growled.

WHEW!  That was startling. Hank jumped back with a squeak and I backed up hurriedly because I was just about to put my nose on him and give a good sniff.

“I’m a badger” he growled.

Suddenly the badger turned around and took off running as fast as his legs could go.

We learned that Badgers can run real fast.

Both Hank and I filled our lungs with fresh air and gave the Badger a huge blast of barking.  I was hoping Fuzzy would hear and come, I forget that Fuzzy doesn’t hear very well, still I was hoping.

We broke into a trot, barking and baying as we followed.  Then the badger was gone.

Just gone.

I had to start sniffing and snuffling along until I caught his scent then I followed him to a hole in the ground.

Hank took over at that point, he started digging and pawing at the hole cause he wanted to see where the little guy lived.  Dirt was flying everywhere. Sometimes so thick I couldn’t even see Hank.

Suddenly the badger appeared and grabbed Hank’s ears with both of his paws and started pulling Hank’s head down toward his mouth.  That badger was so mad he was hissing (did you know badgers can hiss, well they can, and they can also get really mad.  REALLY MAD!).

That badger threw both Hank and I into Panic Overload, we both hit reverse and starting throwing up dirt in an effort to get away.  I looked back once and that flat little stubby legged monster was still coming after us.  We both yelped and ran all the way back to Fuzzy and our people. Scared the living tar out of both of us!

As we tore our way out of the sage and Chico brush  (Hank was leading the way) I decided that I wasn’t going to ever mess around with a badger ever again.  I was running so fast I ran right into Mom, she didn’t laugh either.  Dad said for Mom-mom and Mom to go up the hill and see what scared the dogs so bad.

When they got back they told Dad there was a rather big, mad badger up there digging out a hole so they figured us dogs must have stirred it up.

Thats when Fuzzy told me badgers don’t truck being messed with, ever.

I told Fuzzy I don’t think I have EVER seen anything with such LONG claws, Hank he just shivered and hung right by Mom-moms side until Mom-mom said: “Move. Hank!  I can’t even bend over to get a siphon tube.”

Yep, I’m glad there are some lessons I never had to learn.

Fuzzy

Changes in Delta County