When I brought Ray home from the vets office I bred a female to him before I put the cone back on him and put him away. He chewed the cone off right away. Bred another female to him a couple weeks later.

Friday morning driving up to the farm again with the truck loaded with dogs, a hell of a fight broke out in the back. I had a bunch of females in heat in the cab, all the males were in the dog box. I pulled over on a busy road, dropped the tailgate, opened the box and grabbed Ray by the back legs and managed to pull him out without getting bitten and without any dogs getting out on the highway. Ray was able to get one last good bite on July before the fight ended.

Didn’t have anywhere else to put him so Ray made the rest of the trip sitting up front with me in the driver’s seat, face covered in blood and a happy grin, looking out at all the cars we passed.

I hunted Ray hard this spring, fixing the sound of that loud pretty bawl mouth in my brain, filing it away with all the others than have gone on ahead of him. Once on hard packed old snow he got off by himself and ran the same rabbit for hours without any kind of mistake.

I’ll be looking and sorting through all these puppies for one like him. Ray is buried up on the hill now.