A week ago we received a nice report from Darren Doran about another find for Theo. This e-mail underscores the importance of a handler's role in successful recovery. A big thank you to Darren for all the work he's been putting into Theo, who is just nine months old.
I got a call last night from Casey, a hunter I’ve tracked for
in the past. He had shot a doe, and was having a hard time locating any blood. He
had thought that he made a good shot, and it looked like the doe was lagging behind
the others as they ran. Originally we were going to track last night but Casey
had not been able to find any sign of a hit and not knowing what we had we
decided to try in the morning.
We met up at about 7 AM.We looked around a little bit and
didn’t find any sign. I started Theo at the area where the deer had been
standing at the shot. Theo went in the general direction the deer ran and I
followed. I didn’t see any blood and Theo kept drifting to the right. I asked
him "is that right?" and he lifted his head and changed direction. I was
picking him up to re start when Casey called out that he got blood.
I brought Theo to the blood spot and started there. We were
finding a spot of blood every now and then, and I knew Theo was right. Theo
tracked to the frozen creek and hesitated at the edge. He attempted to cross but
was somewhat unsure of how to do it. He then started tracking to the right along
the bank. I told Casey that I thought the deer had crossed and asked him to wait
at that spot. I let Theo go a ways and he ended up going the same way he
did on the first start. I picked him up and told Casey to cross and look for
blood. He found some right away on the other side and I waded across with Theo
and set him down. Theo immediately started to track and within 70 yards we found
the deer.
Unfortunately the coyotes found it first and most of the hind
end was eaten. The shot from a 20ga slug had hit the doe in the back of one lung
and through the liver. Most likely the deer was dead before Casey ever left the
woods last night. If we had tried last night we might have beat the coyotes and
gotten the whole deer.
1 comment:
Once again, nice work from a fine team!
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