THE COON DOG EULOGY



Eulogy written by William W. Ramsey

Introduction by Bradley W. Ramsey





A group of solemn men, dressed in black mourning coats and hip boots, wearing carbide lamps on their heads stood beside a mound of soil and a freshly dug hole. A hunting horn sounded and the bay of hounds filled the air. Four similarly dressed men walked slowly toward the gathered crowd, a small wooden box carried between them



When the box was lowered into the ground one of the men spoke the following.



Let not your hearts be troubled,

for in his master’s swamp are many den trees.

If it were not so, I would have told you.

He has gone to prepare a place for you

and where he has gone Ole Red will go also.

Dogs, they say, do not have souls.

They only have hide and bones.

But I believe there is a coon dog heaven

and Red is gone were the good coon dogs go.

Anybody that coon hunts has to believe in God.

If you have known the music of coon hounds on a trail

and heard the excitement in their voices when they strike,

and seen their eagerness and determination when they tree,

if you have seen their courage and bravery

in a tough fight with an old boar coon,

if you have heard their anguished cries and howls,

if you have seen the ugly gashes

and bleeding wounds

and witnessed their resolve to never quit,

you know there has to be a God to make an animal like that.

And a God that that would make a coon dog

won’t forget him when he is gone.

There is a coon dog heaven and Ole Red is there.

And every night he runs

and the den trees are there in the old swamp

and the old hunter’s moon hangs low in the west

and the coons don’t go up no slick barked trees

and the carbide don’t run out

and there ain’t no bull nettle and saw briars

and old master always knocks the coon out

and lets Ole Red grab him and give him a good shake;

and then he gets a pat on the head

and climbs back into the kennel in the back of the pick-up truck

and goes home and sleeps all day.

‘Cause he knows in coon dog heaven he can hunt again

when the sun goes down and the tree frogs holler.

May the bones of Ole Red rest in peace,

through the mercy of God

and may the coon hunters light perpetually shine upon him.



AMEN