As I approached the tree, I saw the varmint and he appeared extremely concerned with the attention Waylon was giving him. The squirrel was on the right side of the tree and hiding from Waylon that was on the left side of the tree and standing on his hind legs with his front paws on the tree. His excitement was also expressed through his barking that gave no reprieve. With all of this commotion, and the squirrel's focus squarely on Waylon, I don't think it ever saw me. I raised my gun, but a bead on the tree rat, and squeezed the trigger. Thankfully, I think the little guy was dead before he hit the ground. While I understand that when I hunt, I am trying to kill something but I take no joy in watching an animal suffer.
Waylon and I both saw the squirrel hit the ground and while I was excited to harvest an animal that I was hunting, I was also curious what Waylon was going to do now that he could get to the squirrel. This was not the first time that Waylon had encountered a squirrel, but he was about to get closer to one than he had ever been. If I had a nickel for every squirrel that I have seen Waylon chase, I would need a full size van to haul my nickels around. He had never caught one so I was interested to see how he was going to treat the furry little thing now that it wasn't going anywhere.
For a moment, he picked the squirrel up and gave it a shake. It wasn't as violent as I have seen him play with his toys, but he wanted to be certain it was dead. He then dropped it on the ground and gave it a few licks. After that, he was done. I was hoping that he would bring it to me or do something amazing, but I had to settle for him standing my the squirrel until I picked the squirrel up. I guess that's better than just running off to find the next squirrel.
Waylon spent the rest of the day with a little more motivation and even barked at a few trees that didn't seem to have anything in them other than leaves. While we only left with one squirrel, just as importantly, we walked away with a good story. Sure, Waylon is a German Shorthaired Pointer that is typically used by hunters to locate and flush birds like pheasant and quail, but my dog came with an extra setting apparently. He's also a squirrel dog which is pretty cool! That's fine with me because I'm pretty sure we have more squirrels on our property than quail.
