Boudreaux the hunter pup

Our camping trip was wonderful, as it always is. We love camping. And it has become somewhat of a tradition to go camping for Allison's birthday. The other tradition is what I fix for her for dinner: cut up hotdogs mixed into Velveeta Shells and Cheese.

Our trip this time was to Minneopa State Park outside of Mankato. We had never been there and it is a nice little park. It is a little odd in that it is split in two. One part has waterfalls and the other has the campground and prairie trails.

We first went to the waterfalls area and were quite impressed. It is a two level affair with the smaller upper falls about 30-50 feet upstream of the lower falls. There was a trail that led down right next to the lower falls. It was neat to look up at and behind the falls. We heard a man later talking about the fact that when the water is lower you can walk behind it.

After the falls we headed to our campsite. It was just what you'd expect from a state park camp site. Though this one had plenty of shade and a nice flat pad for our tent to sit on. After setting up the tent and getting situated we headed off for a little hike to an old mill that was on park grounds. It was pretty neat and hiking through prairie land was very different than our normal hiking through woods.

From there we headed back to our campsite to enjoy Allison's gourmet birthday dinner, which I mentioned above.

Our after-dinner activity was Allison's favorite game: Dominion. One of her birthday presents (which I must admit was slightly self-serving) was the latest expansion called Hinterlands, so she wanted to break it out and play on her birthday. She soundly defeated me two games in a row. We stopped when the bugs started biting worse and Boudreaux started barking at us for not playing with him.

So I started up a fire and the family gathered round. Allison and I made ourselves some s'mores and before long we called it a night. Thankfully Boudreaux was tired from all the day's hiking and excitement and he went right to sleep curled up in a little ball at one end of the tent.

He woke us up pretty early and I got up to feed him and take him on a little bathroom excursion. Then he was content to go back to bed for a couple hours, which we all needed. Breakfast was bacon and eggs over the campfire in our cast iron skillet. Quite tasty indeed. Allison had the brilliant idea of toasting some bread on the grate that the skillet was on.

Then it was off for another hike. This one leading right out of the campground and down to where the Minneopa Creek (which the waterfalls were a part of) met up with the Minnesota River on its way to Mankato. It was a pleasant hike through some woods. Boudreaux had a fun time splashing around in the water at the mouth of the stream. Then we headed back...

Down at river level there was a lot of ground cover in the sparse forest made of a large leafy shrub. Boudreaux liked to poke his head into the leaves, sniff around, and then bound ahead to the next smell. Well, he finally got a whiff of something good.

A one spot he stopped like normal, sniffed, and bounded further into the undergrowth. His leash was one of those that retracts automatically. It was very convenient for most of the walk where he was going out and coming back and going out and coming back. I never had to worry about the actual rope part of the leash. Well, when he rushed forward and I heard a rustling of leaves and saw a patch of brown something I wished I had a nice tight leash to yank him back with.

Boudreaux and something were tussling in the brush. At first I had no idea what it was. And then the panicked bleating started. In hindsight the sound was something between a cow and a lamb.

"BAAAA! BAAAA!"

At this point I still didn't know what I was listening to. Mainly I was hoping that it wasn't something with sharp teeth that my dog was going to be injured by.

We were both yelling for him to come back to us but there was no denying him. Instincts had taken over. I was pulling him out by the rope itself and when he was finally free of the brush we saw what he had in his jaws. A fawn. A spotted baby deer. Bambi. I couldn't tell exactly where he had it held by, but the thing definitely was breathing and screaming.

"BAAAA! BAAAA!"

I was grabbing him by the scruff of the neck and pulling on the rope but there was no getting him to let go. Whether he had it in one grip the whole time or it had shifted, Boudreaux had the fawn by the two front legs.

The fawn was kicking and screaming. Screaming and kicking. Trying to pull away. Allison's nursing instincts kicked in and she grabbed the fawn's legs, trying to hold it in place to keep it from pulling away from Boudreaux's teeth and getting cut badly. I jammed my fingers into the corner of Boudreaux's mouth to try and wedge it open. It felt like a vice. Oh, and did I mention:

"BAAAA! BAAAA!"

Boudreaux was in full on hunter mode. I was starting to worry about what in the heck I was going to do with a dead deer in the middle of this trail. I was imagining myself going to the park office to tell the ranger that my dog had killed a fawn that was now lying on the path to the Minnesota River. Allison told me later that she was already planning to take Boudreaux back to the car and was worried about what I was going to do with the carcass. I was even more worried that the deer wasn't going to be dead after we got Boudreaux off of it and that we would have a live but maimed baby deer lying on the path and suffering.  Let's just say that no one was happy except Boudreaux.

"BAAAA! BAAAA!"

Finally, I got my fingers far enough inside Boudreaux's mouth that the fawn was able to wriggle itself out. I was holding on to Boudreaux as tightly as as I could and the deer, that poor, scared, little, baby deer got up and started running off.  Still bleating...

"BAAAA! BAAAA!"

I don't know if you can imagine my relief.

As it bounced off into the woods I thought, "Stupid deer! Why didn't it just run off when we first started approaching?" and then "Poor baby deer, it must have just been scared and froze." and then "Where in the heck was it's mother? It was definitely less than a year old." and finally "Well, if it didn't know to be afraid of noises, it will sure know now. I hope it learned a valuable lesson today."

After that excitement we took one more small hike and also went to look at the falls again. We saw some good sized carp jumping up out of the water below the falls. Then we finally headed for home.