"Von Moosbach-Zuzelek" puppies' first tracking season: Uncas (Moose) and Urho (Mongo)

In 2013 we had only one litter of puppies, which was out of FC Sky von Moosbach-Zuzelek and FC Mielikki Raptor. Both parents are young dogs themselves. Sky comes from several generations of our own breeding that produced a family of very accomplished blood trackers. Mielikki comes from Nordic bloodlines and has a very nice pedigree, but when you do an outcross as we did in this case, you always take some chances. Sometimes you win a lottery, and sometimes you don't.

The "U" litter was born on May 10, 2013 so these pups are just 5.5 months old. All of them have showed a lot of promise when we worked with them at a very early age. We are happy to see that this potential has been getting realized in the field and the pups are already helping hunters.

The four pictures below show Moose (registered name Uncas von Moosbach-Zuzelek) owned by Adam H. from PA. Since blood tracking dogs are illegal in PA Adam who lives close to Maryland border, tracks in that state.


September 24: Another find for a young Moose who looks really tiny in this picture. Adam H., Moose's owner, says: Last night I received a call around 7:30 from a buddy who shot a buck but had no blood! Moose and I drove down to Maryland and met him. After speaking with him I was pretty sure it was a probably a one lung/liver hit. The deer was angled towards him. I sat Moose down at the hit site and roughly 125 yards later (with no blood) Moose found the buck!! 


October 7: Adam  wrote yesterday: Good evening John and Jolanta, I just wanted to let you know that tonight Moose made his 3rd recovery of the year! The hunter hit the big old doe far front but had pretty good blood. She did zig zag several times through a standing cornfield! After about 150 yards he found her  He's the real deal  Thanks again you guys for an awesome little guy!


October 13: Adam wrote: "Good morning folks! Well, my boy did it again last night! This makes 4! I received a call last night from a buddy whose buddy hit a buck but didn't have much blood. Moose and I got to the hit site around 10:30. After approximately 125 yards Moose found him. With the deer angling away it appeared the arrow clipped the lungs and lodged into the brisket! (No exit hole)

Yesterday Moose has taught Adam a valuable lesson:

Good afternoon John and Jolanta,
Well I learned a very valuable lesson the other day - too bad it was the hard way!  I was down in Maryland doing some hunting on Monday evening and shot this buck. The shot felt and looked great! The buck was shot broadside at 19 yards and tore away after the arrow zipped through him! I eased out and gave the buck about 2.5-3 hours! I took my neighbor and Moose back down at around 9 pm to do the recovery. With ease Moose tracked the buck about 80 yards to a large puddle of blood and then he made a left down a ravine traveling about 150 yards with NO blood. I was certain with the shot I made he was off the track (since there was no more sign) - so I picked him up and brought him back to the hit site! He again made a left and I allowed him to travel even further this time but again there was no sign so again I brought him to the hit site.  This time he went straight from the blood out the ridge about 75 yards. As we crested down the ridge I heard a deer bust out of the thicket! I was sure we just jumped the deer so I picked Moose up and we left- I decided to come back in the a.m. so I could see better. The next morning I started him at the puddle where he again went left this time I just left him go - we went roughly 225 yards to a dead buck that had been ripped to shreds from coyotes.! The entire left side of the deer was eaten clean :( 

Hard lesson learned. I will now let Moose go for as long as he wants to go - trusting him completely!!!! I was so upset with myself BUT I swear to you Moose looked at me after he chewed on him for a little almost to say I TOLD YOU SO - you jack***! Haha. Thanks again for my boy! He's everything to me ;)
Adam

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Moose's brother Mongo (Urho von Moosbach-Zuzelek)  is owned by John Sakelaris and is a tracking dog at Vermejo Park Ranch in New Mexico.

 

 

The hunter in the picture wrote:

 

John,
I am more than happy to write a letter commending the tracking dog and the dog’s owner. Mongo was outstanding. I have worked with other deer in the past as we track many a wounded Whitetail at our place and I think Mongo can hold his own with any of the other dogs. I think it is a great service to the ranch to have a dog like that and we certainly appreciate his capabilities.

 

And John wrote to us:

 

I want to thank you again for the dog, he is fantastic. I have had big game hounds for the last 15 years and most of them barely know day from night until about 3 years old. Only then do they really come into their own and start to “think”. Mongo at 4 months shows incredible intelligence and problem solving ability. We just got back this morning from an all day and most of the night track where we went up and over 2 ridges with a whole lot in between. Several times I thought Mongo was not on track be he would prove us wrong when we would find blood. This last find was a real test and any blood tracking dog owner would be proud, not to mention one of a pup 5 months old. He is worn out today but still wants to go again." 

A four-moth-old dachshund "Mongo" (aka Urho) recovers his first "real" mule buck

Urho von Moosbach-Zuzelek, a puppy from our "U" litter that was born on May 10, is owned by John Sakelaris who works at Vermejo Park Ranch in New Mexico. John has two sons and they call the pup "Mongo". On September 5 I received a very exciting message that Mongo was successful the first time out and recovered a very nice mule buck for the hunter in the picture. We could not be happier to hear the news. Congratulations to Mongo, Perry and John!

Perry with his pup Mongo.

Tracking wounded elk and deer in New Mexico: Nadja's first season with a new owner

Recently we received an e-mail from John Sakelaris, who purchased Nadja (Nettie von Moosbach-Zuzelek) from Jeff Richardson.  He wrote about his first tracks with Nadja at Vermejo Ranch in New Mexico. "I thought you would enjoy the photo attached. Nadja and I have been successful in finding 1 elk and 1 deer out of 7 tracks. The ones we were unable to find were elk and to Nadja'a defense questionable in their severity/blood trail (archery wounds). The elk we did find was a great learning experience as the track went over 3 miles and took us 2 days to work out. I really learned allot on this track as well as the ones we did not find. Nadja is doing well and I really really like her pleasant personality. She stays is the house and gets lots of attention from my wife and kids as well as staying with me in my office or in the truck during the hunts."

 

John Sakelaris with Nadja and an elk they recovered.

A clever way of transporting Nadja.

 Nadja will have to adjust to tracking wounded elk, which poses some challenges. John wrote: "The elk we could not find mostly ran out of blood line but she continued to trail like she knew what she was doing but just following an elk trail. Elk are herd animals and there may have been 20-50 or more which went down the same trail that morning as the wounded one so I imagine she is overwhelmed by the scent and just keeps going leaving the blood and following the scent.

I was able to confirm this several times by finding blood in the other direction and in one case the dead animal itself. Even the one we did find she left several times on "elk highways" full of scent abandoning the search for blood and following the stronger scent. We successful by being able to visually confirm blood at key times and putting her back on track. I am worried that she will keep doing this and not concentrate on blood. I am worried because I cannot trust her when I see no blood for confirmation. Again to her defense, deer are not like this and that is her experience.

Also, we are in the rut so the scent of a rutting bull is at times so strong you and I can almost follow it. We go into rifle season now and the rut is ending so hopefully this will be less of an issue as a wounded bull now will likely be by himself or with one or two others his age and not rutted up with the cows"
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Tracking wounded elk with Ziggy in New Mexico

It was great to hear from Jim Baker, who has been tracking wounded elk in New Mexico. He is an owner of "Ziggy" (Elka von Moosbach-Zuzelek), who was born February 28, 2008. Ziggy is a daughter of Billy and Gilda.

In Jim's own words:
"I describe how she did this year as phenomenal. At first I did not trust her on some of the first couple of times we went out. She was just going so fast and then I remembered from your book. If in doubt, trust your dog, so I did. She was called 12-14 times. Several of them were never to be found, high back shots and the elk was down, then gone. She found 5 of 8 possible. Some of the others I determined that the elk would probably live for at least few days or forever. After 2-3 miles with no real blood, and they got back with other elk.

The last one she found was at least 3 miles and 24 hours after the initial wound. I first realized I could trust her when we had gone 2-3 miles and I pulled her from the track as the bull got with other elk. We were just walking down a road that coincidentally the elk apparently came back on. She started getting excited and I looked down and there was a drop of blood about twice as big as a pinhead. I couldn't believe it. So after that wherever she wanted to go I was running behind her as best I could.

Here are a few photos."

Update on Ziggy who tracks wounded elk in New Mexico

Today we got a nice e-mail with the picture from Jim Baker, who tracks wounded elk and deer with Ziggy (Eika von Moosbach-Zuzelek) on a 600,00 acre ranch in New Mexico. Ziggy is one year old now, and she is out of our Billy and Gilda. This is what Jim said:

Just an update on Ziggy. I put about a 1/2 mile trail down Thursday at 3 pm and put her on it Sat at 9 am after 2-3 inches of snow. She didn't go perfectly, but only missed one 90 degree for a couple of minutes. She then crossed several overnight elk tracks in the snow and tried following. I corrected her and got her on line again. This happened twice. She then came acros 3 more sets of overnight elk tracks and checked each one and came back to follow the laid down line. I take her on a laid down track every 1-2 weeks and she solves them much quicker than I can lay them out. She is doing great as far as I can tell and is really a character. A couple of the photos didn't turn out too good, but she has an elk leg that I leave at the end of the trail and she carries it back to the truck very proud.

The below picture shows Ziggy at 13 weeks when she was still with us.