Adventures in Caving and the Great Hound Rescue II
Title: Adventures in Caving and the Great Hound Rescue, Part II
Medium: Multi-media; true story with pictures
Author: Riverbella
Summary: This part has gone to the dogs!
Note to tk: You just never know.
Part II: The Great Hound Rescue
In rural areas of Kentucky, there are many people who like to hunt-squirrel, coon, fox, deer, you name it. To tell you the truth, I am not a fan of hunting (except demon-hunting, of course!). But it is an old tradition and for some people it is even part of their livelihood.
A lot of hunting is done at night. People work during the day and relax by taking to the woods at night. The technique for this sort of hunting is pretty simple. The only thing you absolutely have to have is a good hunting hound.
In England, fox hounds were bred for the chase, for sniffing out foxes in their lairs and chasing them into the open, where the hunters took after them on horseback. In the hills of the American South, however, it is quite different. Hunters release the dogs to run their prey and follow after them on foot. For some hunters it isn’t even about the kill-it’s just about chasing around in the dark with a flashlight and a rifle following the baying hounds.
Most of the hounds bred in the rural South are descendants of English foxhounds. They come in many varieties and are often called coonhounds as coon is popular prey. Here are some pictures of hunting hounds, including foxhounds and coondogs:
Hunting Dogs
A hunter releases his dogs to start running the prey.
Blue Tick Hound
A Blue Tick hound, named for the scattered blue-grey spots on his coat.
Black and Tan Hound
Another variety of hunting hound, also descended from English foxhounds.
One of the most distinctive things about hounds is their voices, which need to carry a long way. Like to hear what they sound like? Here is a video of a couple of hounds on a coon hunt after they have “treed” a raccoon.
During our caving days, Sam and I met other cavers, some local and some from a “Grotto,” which is what a caving club is called, from Ohio. Most cavers are nice folks and are happy to share information on caves and caving technique. On the day of the hound rescue, my husband and I, along with a friend named Rick who also worked for the local paper, had planned a caving trip to Wind Cave. At the same time, one of the Ohio cavers and a local farmer and artist who lived in Wind Cave Hollow planned an expedition there as well. We were the first to reach the cave that day.
The entrance to Wind Cave is a low-roofed tunnel where you have to crawl for several hundred yards before it opens out into the first big cavern. The three of us reached the cavern, and that’s when we first heard the noises.
You know the sort of hollow, echoing sound you make when you speak or sing through a paper towel roll? Well, this sounded a little like that. Of course, it wasn’t voices. It was a kind of eerie whining sound. For a minute there, I didn’t know what it was, and I was a little freaked out because it sounded close by. (It’s a good thing I didn’t know anything about Wendigoes, then, isn’t it?)
Then my husband said, “Those are dogs.”
But where were they? We couldn’t see them anywhere. We started looking in all the nooks and crannies all around the edges of the big cavern. We climbed up piles of rock to peer up into cracks and we ducked into low tunnels, but we couldn’t find the hounds. We could sure hear them, though, and they could hear us, too, because every time one of us said anything, they would bark or whimper some more. Because there was so much of an echo in the cavern, it was hard to tell exactly where the noise was coming from, but after a lot of poking around, we finally decided the dog’s voices were reaching us down a narrow shaft high up on the wall in a corner of the cavern. We shown our flashlights up there, but it was much too narrow to climb and we still couldn’t see anything.
Finally, we decided to go back out of the cave. When we left the cave, we ran into the Ohio caver, Bob, and the local man, Mike. We told them what we heard, and pretty soon we could all hear it again, from outside the cave this time. Bob had been mapping Wind Cave that summer and knew it pretty well. He said he knew where there was another opening into the cave up on the hill above the main entrance. If the dogs had been running in the dark, they might have fallen into that opening, which was basically a narrow sinkhole.
He was right. The sinkhole dropped 30 feet down into the ground from the hillside. Because of the undergrowth all around it, you really couldn’t see it until you were practically on top of it. It did connect to the cave through that crack we found, but the crack was so narrow, nobody could have gotten either into or out of the cave through it.
Standing at the bottom looking up at us were two hunting dogs.
We didn’t have any way of knowing how long they had been in the hole, but we knew we needed to get them out. They had probably been okay for water. It had rained a fair amount recently and water would have run into the hole. But they would not have had anything to eat at all.
We knew right away that someone was going to have to go down after them. I mean, you can’t exactly drop a rope and tell a dog to tie it around his waist! It wasn’t that long a drop and Bob, at least, was used to climbing and rappelling in vertical caves, but there was another danger. If the dogs were scared and hungry, they might easily attack anyone who touched them just out of fear. We had the caving gear, though, so we were all dressed in heavy clothes and had gloves and boots on. That would be some protection.
Bob had rope in his car, handy for any cave climbing he might want to do. He got the rope and rigged up a sling. Sam, Rick and Mike lowered him into the pit. My job was to hold a flashlight so they could see down into the sinkhole. At the bottom he rigged up another sling with the rope and an old pair of jeans that would hold the dogs for the journey to the surface.
It was pretty nerve-wracking watching the caver being slowly lowered into the hole, especially when he got closer to the dogs. But to our surprise, they immediately started wagging their tails and licking Bob. They trusted humans and seemed to know we were trying to help. The caver got the first dog into the sling and supported it from below as long as he could while the other guys pulled him up. We held onto the first dog and petted it and talked to it while we lowered the sling and brought the other dog up. Then we pulled Bob back out of the sinkhole. All in all, it took almost an hour.
The hounds were very skinny and seemed weak. One was male and one was female. Luckily, they had collars with their owner’s name and phone number on them. We took the dogs back to our 4-wheel recreational vehicle (an early incarnation of the much more luxurious SUV’s of today) drove to a farm nearby that was owned by a couple Sam and I knew and asked to use their phone. (Yes, this was also in the days before cell phones were invented.) When Sam got hold of the owner, he was amazed. He had lost those dogs almost two weeks before!
Twelve days before he and a friend had been fox hunting in the woods of Wind Cave Hollow. (He said they didn't kill any foxes; he just liked the chase!) The dogs never came back from the all-night hunt. He went to look for them, but had no luck finding them. He was really excited that we found them and as soon as he hung up, he drove over in his truck with his dog carriers in the back to pick them up. The female hound was named Tina, and he had only had her a little while. The male, Jim, had been with him longer.
The dogs were going to need special care to bring them back to full health again, but their owner had a lot of dogs and knew what to do. He was sure they were going to be fine and he was really happy to see them again. The dogs clearly felt the same way. All in all, it was a happy reunion.
Well, as you can imagine with two newspaper reporters involved, the story was printed up in the paper where Sam and Rick worked the next week. The Somerset Commonwealth Journal for June 26, 1978. (Yes, that was a long time ago!) That was a very doggy week in Somerset, because that same day another story was printed about a Saint Bernard who jumped out of a second story window onto an awning and had to be rescued. It turned out she had puppies in the room she jumped from. Maybe she just needed a break!
Sam and I went on to many other adventures caving before we moved away from Somerset, but nothing ever topped the day of the Great Hound Rescue.
I'll leave you with a few more cool cave pictures. Feel better soon!
Cave Curtains
An Underground Lake
"Pushing" Cave - Does it Go?
The Wishing Well - Mammoth Cave
Medium: Multi-media; true story with pictures
Author: Riverbella
Summary: This part has gone to the dogs!
Note to tk: You just never know.
Part II: The Great Hound Rescue
In rural areas of Kentucky, there are many people who like to hunt-squirrel, coon, fox, deer, you name it. To tell you the truth, I am not a fan of hunting (except demon-hunting, of course!). But it is an old tradition and for some people it is even part of their livelihood.
A lot of hunting is done at night. People work during the day and relax by taking to the woods at night. The technique for this sort of hunting is pretty simple. The only thing you absolutely have to have is a good hunting hound.
In England, fox hounds were bred for the chase, for sniffing out foxes in their lairs and chasing them into the open, where the hunters took after them on horseback. In the hills of the American South, however, it is quite different. Hunters release the dogs to run their prey and follow after them on foot. For some hunters it isn’t even about the kill-it’s just about chasing around in the dark with a flashlight and a rifle following the baying hounds.
Most of the hounds bred in the rural South are descendants of English foxhounds. They come in many varieties and are often called coonhounds as coon is popular prey. Here are some pictures of hunting hounds, including foxhounds and coondogs:
Hunting Dogs
A hunter releases his dogs to start running the prey.
Blue Tick Hound
A Blue Tick hound, named for the scattered blue-grey spots on his coat.
Black and Tan Hound
Another variety of hunting hound, also descended from English foxhounds.
One of the most distinctive things about hounds is their voices, which need to carry a long way. Like to hear what they sound like? Here is a video of a couple of hounds on a coon hunt after they have “treed” a raccoon.
Click to viewDuring our caving days, Sam and I met other cavers, some local and some from a “Grotto,” which is what a caving club is called, from Ohio. Most cavers are nice folks and are happy to share information on caves and caving technique. On the day of the hound rescue, my husband and I, along with a friend named Rick who also worked for the local paper, had planned a caving trip to Wind Cave. At the same time, one of the Ohio cavers and a local farmer and artist who lived in Wind Cave Hollow planned an expedition there as well. We were the first to reach the cave that day.
The entrance to Wind Cave is a low-roofed tunnel where you have to crawl for several hundred yards before it opens out into the first big cavern. The three of us reached the cavern, and that’s when we first heard the noises.
You know the sort of hollow, echoing sound you make when you speak or sing through a paper towel roll? Well, this sounded a little like that. Of course, it wasn’t voices. It was a kind of eerie whining sound. For a minute there, I didn’t know what it was, and I was a little freaked out because it sounded close by. (It’s a good thing I didn’t know anything about Wendigoes, then, isn’t it?)
Then my husband said, “Those are dogs.”
But where were they? We couldn’t see them anywhere. We started looking in all the nooks and crannies all around the edges of the big cavern. We climbed up piles of rock to peer up into cracks and we ducked into low tunnels, but we couldn’t find the hounds. We could sure hear them, though, and they could hear us, too, because every time one of us said anything, they would bark or whimper some more. Because there was so much of an echo in the cavern, it was hard to tell exactly where the noise was coming from, but after a lot of poking around, we finally decided the dog’s voices were reaching us down a narrow shaft high up on the wall in a corner of the cavern. We shown our flashlights up there, but it was much too narrow to climb and we still couldn’t see anything.
Finally, we decided to go back out of the cave. When we left the cave, we ran into the Ohio caver, Bob, and the local man, Mike. We told them what we heard, and pretty soon we could all hear it again, from outside the cave this time. Bob had been mapping Wind Cave that summer and knew it pretty well. He said he knew where there was another opening into the cave up on the hill above the main entrance. If the dogs had been running in the dark, they might have fallen into that opening, which was basically a narrow sinkhole.
He was right. The sinkhole dropped 30 feet down into the ground from the hillside. Because of the undergrowth all around it, you really couldn’t see it until you were practically on top of it. It did connect to the cave through that crack we found, but the crack was so narrow, nobody could have gotten either into or out of the cave through it.
Standing at the bottom looking up at us were two hunting dogs.
We didn’t have any way of knowing how long they had been in the hole, but we knew we needed to get them out. They had probably been okay for water. It had rained a fair amount recently and water would have run into the hole. But they would not have had anything to eat at all.
We knew right away that someone was going to have to go down after them. I mean, you can’t exactly drop a rope and tell a dog to tie it around his waist! It wasn’t that long a drop and Bob, at least, was used to climbing and rappelling in vertical caves, but there was another danger. If the dogs were scared and hungry, they might easily attack anyone who touched them just out of fear. We had the caving gear, though, so we were all dressed in heavy clothes and had gloves and boots on. That would be some protection.
Bob had rope in his car, handy for any cave climbing he might want to do. He got the rope and rigged up a sling. Sam, Rick and Mike lowered him into the pit. My job was to hold a flashlight so they could see down into the sinkhole. At the bottom he rigged up another sling with the rope and an old pair of jeans that would hold the dogs for the journey to the surface.
It was pretty nerve-wracking watching the caver being slowly lowered into the hole, especially when he got closer to the dogs. But to our surprise, they immediately started wagging their tails and licking Bob. They trusted humans and seemed to know we were trying to help. The caver got the first dog into the sling and supported it from below as long as he could while the other guys pulled him up. We held onto the first dog and petted it and talked to it while we lowered the sling and brought the other dog up. Then we pulled Bob back out of the sinkhole. All in all, it took almost an hour.
The hounds were very skinny and seemed weak. One was male and one was female. Luckily, they had collars with their owner’s name and phone number on them. We took the dogs back to our 4-wheel recreational vehicle (an early incarnation of the much more luxurious SUV’s of today) drove to a farm nearby that was owned by a couple Sam and I knew and asked to use their phone. (Yes, this was also in the days before cell phones were invented.) When Sam got hold of the owner, he was amazed. He had lost those dogs almost two weeks before!
Twelve days before he and a friend had been fox hunting in the woods of Wind Cave Hollow. (He said they didn't kill any foxes; he just liked the chase!) The dogs never came back from the all-night hunt. He went to look for them, but had no luck finding them. He was really excited that we found them and as soon as he hung up, he drove over in his truck with his dog carriers in the back to pick them up. The female hound was named Tina, and he had only had her a little while. The male, Jim, had been with him longer.
The dogs were going to need special care to bring them back to full health again, but their owner had a lot of dogs and knew what to do. He was sure they were going to be fine and he was really happy to see them again. The dogs clearly felt the same way. All in all, it was a happy reunion.
Well, as you can imagine with two newspaper reporters involved, the story was printed up in the paper where Sam and Rick worked the next week. The Somerset Commonwealth Journal for June 26, 1978. (Yes, that was a long time ago!) That was a very doggy week in Somerset, because that same day another story was printed about a Saint Bernard who jumped out of a second story window onto an awning and had to be rescued. It turned out she had puppies in the room she jumped from. Maybe she just needed a break!
Sam and I went on to many other adventures caving before we moved away from Somerset, but nothing ever topped the day of the Great Hound Rescue.
I'll leave you with a few more cool cave pictures. Feel better soon!
Cave Curtains
An Underground Lake
"Pushing" Cave - Does it Go?
The Wishing Well - Mammoth Cave