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Hunting Dogs Can Spend Eternity At The Coon Dog Cemetery

RENEE MONTAGNE, HOST:

On Labor Day there's a group of people who gather in an Ala. cemetery to honor the hard work of man's best friend. In this encore presentation, NPR's Debbie Elliott takes us to a remote hillside where only the finest of coon dogs are laid to rest.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED BROADCAST)

DEBBIE ELLIOTT, BYLINE: You think you're surely lost, winding down the lush country roads outside of Cherokee, Ala., hardly passing another car. And then, a hand-painted sign with a red arrow points to the coon dog cemetery. Local hunter Franky Hatton is waiting with his bluetick hound, Cletus.

FRANKY HATTON: I've had the same bloodline pretty much for - ever since I was little boy. See, all my ancestors was hunters. We've hunted pretty much all our life, which daddy said he kept us in the woods to keep us out of trouble.

ELLIOTT: Raccoon hunting is a night sport. The dogs are put out near a creek bed or a corn patch at dusk and the hunters wait and listen.

HATTON: When he settles down and goes to chopping steady, that's when you know he's treed.

ELLIOTT: Meaning he's chased a raccoon up a tree and is barking up after it - not distracted by a squirrel or armadillo but zeroed in on a coon. It's a skill that takes years of training and a deep relationship between hunter and coon dog. The kind of relationship that would make you want to bury your companion in a special spot.

HATTON: Key Underwood started this place when he buried old Troop. And there's old Troop right there.

ELLIOTT: Troop is legendary in these parts - known to track a coon from cold tracks. He was trained by a whiskey-maker in these hills known to hide the occasional still. Underwood marked his grave with an old chimney stone chiseled with a hammer and screwdriver.

HATTON: You see he's been buried September 4, 1937. And this was Key Underwood's favorite spot to hunt. So when Troop passed away, he brought him here and buried him.

ELLIOTT: Now there are more than 300 dogs buried with Troop including Lulabelle, Preacher, Squeak, Bear and Dr. Doom. All certified breeds, Hatton says, who have met high standards.

HATTON: You have to have three references that have to contact us and have actually witnessed the dog tree a coon by his self.

ELLIOTT: Not with another dog.

HATTON: Not with another dog. All by his self. Where he can prove that he done it on his own and he didn't have any help.

ELLIOTT: The graves are lined up on the crest of a shady hill, the newer ones marked with traditional headstones, the older ones carved from wood or handmade from whatever materials were on hand - sticks tied together in a cross with a dog collar, a broiler plate from an old stove. Under a rustic picnic pavilion, a binder serves as guestbook, logging the thousands of visitors a year who stop at the coon dog cemetery. Among them are Carol and Bob Pearson of Greenville, Ky.

CAROL PEARSON: We'd never seen anything like this. Never.

BOB PEARSON: It's unusual, and we're rural people anyway, and I used to coon hunt so it means a lot to me.

ELLIOTT: The peaceful hillside is also a gathering spot for local hunters. Franky Hatton says he's been coming here since he was a toddler, listening to the old-timers tell their stories.

HATTON: And the first thing they'll start out with - you remember that night? And then they'll start in, especially if it was a night they beat you and outdone you, they'll remind you of it.

ELLIOTT: Hatton has two champion dogs buried here, Blue Flash and Flash Jr., grandfather and great-grandfather to his current hound, Cletus. Will he be buried here?

HATTON: It all depends on how good he does.

ELLIOTT: And what kind of stories Franky Hatton can tell of his nights in the north Alabama woods coon hunting with Cletus.

Debbie Elliott, NPR News. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.

NPR National Correspondent Debbie Elliott can be heard telling stories from her native South. She covers the latest news and politics, and is attuned to the region's rich culture and history.

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