Animals: Climbing Coon Dog

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To the rule that dogs can't climb trees, photographs which filtered into metropolitan circulation last week furnished proof of a startling exception. At Clyde, Kans.— 200 mi. down the Republican River from the scene of the historic Indian ambush currently depicted in The Plainsman— were run late in February the sixth annual Republican Valley Coon Hound Field Trials. Goal of the free-for-all race was a tree in which a live raccoon was tied high and safe. First to reach the tree was a 4-year-old redbone coon hound named Rudd. The race was over but Rudd did not know it. Up the slightly slanting tree trunk he clambered some 18 ft., clung there until a ladder intended for the coon was used to retrieve him (see cut). Amazed coon-hunters, who had often seen their dogs scramble a few feet up a tree and somersault back, swore they had never seen anything like that climbing coon dog Rudd.