A new blood tracking team in the Capital Region, NY

We wrote about Eli Clement last summer when he was training his mini longhaired puppy Shyla. Eli passed a DEC exam for his tracking license, and this is his first tracking season. We got some good news from Eli!

His first find was a bobcat that he shot himself:

The 15lb Bobcat was shot at 25 yds and it ran 40' disappearing into very heavy wild rose. I knew the shot was good from the arrow. The blood trail was fairly good, but being color blind I was not able to follow it completely. So I got Shyla, our longhaired mini dachshund. She was not put off by the predator blood smell. She followed it along then into the heavy brush, taking almost all the clothes line into it. When she stopped pulling line I shone my light into the bush until I could see her. She was sitting and licking the ground. 3' above her head was the dead cat where it had climbed/perished into the huge rose bush. I was relieved she had not encountered a wounded cat!

Eli's second recovery was of his own doe:

The doe was shot at 4:15 pm. I thought my shot a little high. I got a fellow hunter to aid me in tracking. We found the arrow with blood on it. But no blood at the hit sight and none in the area. So I got Shyla. She found the first blood quickly on an over-turned leaf, 15' from the hit site. Then she tracked the general area clearly following the deer for 100 yds.

She seemingly lost the trail after this. She then crossed a road into a swamp. There she found the trailing quite easy, and even my color blind eye could pick out blood when ever Shyla stopped to sniff grass or leaves or brush. After 1/2 a mile she led me to the dead doe. Her first deer! She was all over it, tugging and happy as ever. A great start to her tracking season indeed. The arrow had passed through one lung and the liver.

And then another e-mail arrived with this wonderful picture:

Eli Clement is holding Shyla, a mini longhair.

Shyla has found another buck! The deer was shot at about 4:30pm. The hunter was unsure of the exact shot placement, but thought it has hit vitals from the blood on the arrow. So we gave the buck time. Four hours later I went out with Shyla. She was on the blood trail quickly; 400yds and we found the deer, in an opposite direction from where the hunter had though the animal had run. Chris the hunter was overjoyed, his first buck ever and first deer of the season.
　
　

Congratulations to Eli and Shyla!