Bizarre Mystery of Mummified Coon Dog Solved after 40 years?

Trapped inside a hollow tree trunk, nature’s cruelest coffin, a hunting dog manically clawed for a sliver of space and desperately fought for life. The greater the hound’s effort; the greater the tree’s grip. Wedged in a wooden vise, the dog spent its last breaths within the heights of the trunk, final whimpers unheeded, and died as a permanent part of the oak—mummified in motion.

Lost in the canopy, almost 30’ above the floor of heavy northeast Alabama woods, the hound remained lodged in the trunk for roughly twenty years, hidden from the searching eyes of a forlorn master, but also shielded from predators, insects, and the elements. In 1980, a logging crew entered the hilly ground, toppled the oak, and chanced upon the stunningly well-preserved canine. Macabre to some, poignant to others, and fascinating to all, the story of the coon dog’s demise, discovery, display—and possible origin—is too bizarre for fiction.

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-WiscoDave