Close Encounter of the Unpleasant Kind (or No Guts No Glory, Part 2)

Yesterday while walking with Blackie I was blithely singing along with my Ipod, just enjoying the cold but beautiful morning.  As I passed Dog Pond Hill I came upon something that made me scream, and that brought Blackie, who had taken a detour down the hill, immediately to my side.  What we found was a large, bloody mound of deer guts.  The day before had been the last day of gun season.  Apparently some lucky hunter got his final deer for the year.  And that lucky hunter decided to gut his kill right in the middle of my trail.  He left not only the complete insides of the deer but also his rubber gloves and some bloody paper towels.  This is really a violation of what little hunting etiquette exists.  Assuming it was one of our neighbors this is especially irksome - had he dragged the deer maybe 50 feet he would have been on his own land.  Had he even dragged it 20 feet the disgusting pile would have been down the hill and out of sight, out of mind.  Once Blackie realized my scream was not a call for help, he decided to investigate the remains. Fortunately Blackie is the good dog and when told, he left the pile behind and continued our walk.  Lucy, sweet but definitely not the good dog of the two, was much harder to convince when it was her turn to walk.  If there was any alternative I would have taken a different route with Lucy but this year the field trails are the only option.  So getting Lucy to move on made for a less than enjoyable 2nd walk of the day.  The only blessing was the freezing weather - less to smell and therefore less appealing.  Today the pile was completely frozen so both Blackie and Lucy left the gut pile with little reprimand.  I can only hope that the coyotes take care of this problem before there's a thaw.