Chloe from Wisconsin recovers her first buck

Today we received this nice story from Jeff Stahl from Wisconsin. He owns "Chloe" whose registered name is Emmy von Moosbach-Zuzelek. Chloe was born on February 28, 2008 and is a daughter of Billy and Gilda. Congratulations to Jeff and Chloe!

A first for Emmy and Emmy

Last evening “Chloe” had her second chance to recover a deer. An exciting evening for two Emmys. My sister-in-law, Emmy shot her first deer with a bow and my pup Emmy “Chloe” recovered her first archery kill.

I received the call around 6:00 p.m. that my sister-in-law hit a nice buck. Emmy and her friend Randy tracked the deer for a little over 100 yards where they lost blood and felt they could use some help. After a short discussion of arrow placement, blood color and amount, angle of penetration and a good feeling the deer was mortally hit, I packed up and headed to the scene. We found a good amount of blood which Chloe was able to use as a starting point and from there things got better with time. At first Chloe ran frantically around the woods checking out every smell other than what she was suppose to be looking for. After about 10 minutes she calmed herself and started tracking slowly, checking every trail thoroughly until she was confident she had the correct trail.

Once she settled down, she followed the visible blood trail 100 yards until we came to our first check. No blood and no sign of which way the deer went. Chloe began weaving back and forth and again picked up the trail which didn’t have any visible blood for quite a ways. At one point she became very excited and starting pulling barking and wanted to move faster, I picked her up, calmed her down, placed her back on the blood trail and she immediately starting following the trail again. After about approx. 400 yard track we came over a large hill and down into an area with a small pond. I was focusing on Chloe and her actions and didn’t notice what was in the pond until I heard my sister-in-law yell, “there it is, my deer!” Her very first archery kill, 8 point 17 5/8 spread whitetail lay dead in pond.

We were all very excited for both Emmy’s but I was relieved that my pup had recovered her first deer. All the time of training, stinky deer legs around the house and anticipation of the phone ringing was well worth the wait. It was great to see the determination Chloe had to find the deer. I truly believe she wouldn’t have quit until we found the deer.

Chloe’s first track was successful to a point, she was trailing a doe which the hunter said “should only be 75 yards down the trail dead.” Began trailing small blood trail approx 100 yards and lost blood. Chloe wanted to go left, but hunter said he knew the deer went to the right. Had no luck finding blood in the direction the hunter wanted to look, began Chloe down the trail (no blood) she wanted to go down originally but had to call off the track for a family emergency. Long story short, hunter didn’t think the deer would go the way Chloe wanted because there was a river that way and “a wounded deer wouldn’t try to swim a river.” The next day they found the deer about 50 yards from where we stopped the track, deer was laying in the river. The hunter couldn’t believe the deer went that direction, still wasn’t sure it was his deer! I like John’s comment about always trust the dog, not the hunter! Best of luck to you all.

Jeff