In today’s episode, I interview my good hunting buddy Charlie Merrifield. Since I spend a lot of time with Charlie, I forgot to cover the basics like where he’s from and all that, so let me take a second to fill you in on some background. Charlie grew up in Northern California in a family that raised and ran sled dogs, but now lives in Salem, OR, and is an avid hunter of the raccoon with his 3-pack of dogs, which you’ll get to know in the episode. 

If you listened to the first episode of the podcast with my cousin Josh, you heard from Charlie then, and you’ll likely hear from him in the future, but I wanted to spend an hour with him as part of the Portrait of a Houndsman series to get to know him, his dogs, his motivations for hunting, what it’s like to live with hunting dogs in the house, and much, much more. 

In this episode we cover: 

* Trying to rabbit hunt with a bluetick/walker cross … welcomed with open arms but it just wasn’t going to work

* What is a Stephen’s Cur … 

* Psychotic foxhounds out of coyote hounds with which to coon hunt …

* A yellow lab with a real skinny long head … or at least that’s what it looks like

* A breeder who could care less about the good but bring on the bad … improving lines one pup at a time …

* The need for someone to school me on dog registration …

* Benefits of getting a started dog as your first dog …

* Striving for solo time with each dog …

* Living with hounds in the house … it just takes more time and attention …

* Dangers in the household for a canine …

* Handler-side interpretations … decoding all the information …

* The real reason why Charlie dogs live in the house …

* Lost keys saved by hip boots …

* Revenge of the zombie raccoon …

Thanks for listening, if you enjoyed, please leave a rating and review and share it with any hound-running friends you may have.

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Until next time,

Niklas

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