The Bond of Hunters, a story by John Jeanneney

The Bond of Hunters

by John Jeanneney, copyright 1998

 Max was an old wirehaired dachshund  whose gray grizzled coat matched my own head. Neither of us could escape the truth that the hills were getting steeper, but for both of us finding wounded deer for hunters in the fall was the adventure which bound us together and around which we organized our lives.  We jogged regularly, linked by a short leash as we built and measured our strengths for the fall season when we would search once more together on the long leash as blood trackers. On our sedate runs along country roads, I eyed and Max smelled the wildlife in the green fields. The woodchucks, sitting up like sentinels near their dens were one of our diversions from the boredom of the road. We would charge the ramparts of their earthworks, arrive puffing and panting only to find that our quarry had dropped down and out of sight. Max was too big to enter, adrenalines at ebb we would return to the road.  Still, the surge of the  chase assured us that the old team was still alive and ready to take on the next wooly mammoth or great cave bear which blocked our path.

            Near the start of our morning jogs we sometimes stopped in the yard of my neighbor Arnold to stretch stiff muscles. Arnold had complained of an enormous gourmand woodchuck, old and gray as ourselves, but much fatter. This woodchuck was ravaging Arnold's garden and mocking all defensive efforts. Plunge holes were his temporary escape but he never stayed near the lawn and gardens to await serious retaliations. His favorite tactical retreat was through a  culvert under the road and into the  wide green field beyond.

            Max and I were returning from one of our three mile loops past the green field approaching Arnold's and there was the gourmand chuck, huge and self-satisfied. I held Max up so that he could see above the wall of unmowed grass at the road's edge and then unsnapped the leash. We launched our charge and sped the fifty yards. Sped? Well, anyway we scrambled just as fast as we could, two old boys as carnivores converging, the fat prey fleeing....all in slow motion...so slow, so desperate...straining, the distance closing, closing... flat out. We had him! Right at the edge of the woods, a faltering stride from his den under the old maple. Max grabbed first and rolled him. I took the tail hold, quickly swung our prey in hard orbit to the tree. It was over.

  I thought for both of us of good lives, well-lived and of quick death. 

    John with Max and one of many deer that they have recovered.

A tracking dachshund Gerti finds her buddy Oscar when he gets into trouble

Last weekend brought this interesting e-mail from Chris Barr from Indiana, and the story will put a smile on your face. Chris owns Gerti , who is going to be four years old in April (Gwen von Moosbach-Zuzelek, a daughter of Billy and Gilda)). He also has a younger adopted black and tan shorthaired dachshund Oscar.

 

Chris writes:

 

I hope your new year is off to a great start!

 

Gerti and I made the February edition of The Gadabout. Page 6. In the January issue they reported on the large buck taken by Todd Wallace. It was a liver shot and Gerti and I tracked it 10 hours after the hit. .52 Miles. The author of the article wanted to do a quick article about Gerti for the next edition. Follow the link: http://www.thegadabout.com/

I have to tell you a quick story. Yesterday Gerti, Oscar and I were on a run. As you know, when off leash Gerti wears a GPS collar as she’s always on “the hunt”. Oscar is really good about staying within eyesight and he checks in frequently, so I’ve never equipped him with one. Well Gerti had just run a rabbit under an old barn and lost it. We started out across an open field and I started to call for Oscar. I realized that it had been about 5 minutes since I’d seen him. I continued to call thinking I’d see him any second. I was starting to get pretty concerned at this point. I was calling Oscar pretty feverishly when Gerti came around. I looked at her and said, “where’s Oscar?”. She looked at me like she knew exactly what I’d said. Very firmly I said, “Gerti find Oscar”. The command “find it” is what I always use when putting her on a deer or rabbit. Well she spun on a dime and ran on a sprint across the open field about 150 yards to the barn where she’d lost the rabbit. I followed her across the field and into the barn. There was Oscar in an old corn crib. Somehow he’d gotten into the crib, but it was about a 3 foot jump to the ground and he didn’t want to make it so he just stayed there. Gerti knew he was there the whole time. I had not seen Oscar when Gerti was running the rabbit. The last I’d seen him he was not near the barn so I did not expect him to be there.

So I’ll add that to her resume…”tracks black and tan adopted dachshunds”

Take care,

Chris and Gerti…….and Oscar.

Joe Walters and Chris Barr with Gerti

 

Happy 2nd Birthday to Rilla and her siblings!

I am way behind with posting, but last weekend when I was attending dachshund field trials in Batavia, NY, I got really sick. This weekend I was scheduled to judge trials in Maryland but I was not up to it so I am staying home.  I am not the only one affected, some people's bronchitis is much worse, but in the last six days I have not done much.

Anyway, a lot of material waiting for posting is not time-sensitive but this post is. Yesterday, on May 25, it was a second birthday for our R-litter (Joeri by Gilda), and Stan Kite sent a really nice update on Rilla. The story is long, so this is a shorter version. Thank you Stan!

I'll start back on the last week of November, 2011. I had laid a blood trail the day before, weaving in and out of the hedgerows of my neighbor's alfalfa fields, and took Rilla out to run it in the morning. Right from the beginning, something was wrong--she had absolutely no interest in tracking. This was the first time I'd ever seen behavior like this from her. No matter what I tried, she just preferred to walk along right next to my legs or sit down!

I called Darren Doran to vent some frustration, and he asked me if she was in heat. I knew it was close to that time, but wasn't sure...lo and behold, a few days later, Dec 5, we found drops of blood on the tile floor. Her mind and body were not focused on tracking, and now I knew why.

We are now getting close to her next heat, but last weekend we had a great track in our swampy, briar-filled woods...(She did fine, but I got so tangled up in briars, I lost a tracking shoe and didn't even know it at first) LOL. We will see if her interest is again temporarily derailed at heat time!

After the heat ran its course, we did two 24 hr lines, one after a hard rain, and she did phenomenally. On one line, I dragged a rabbit carcass perpendicular to the line in 3 different spots just before we ran it. When she turned at those points to investigate the rabbit scent, I just calmly told her "no" and directed her back to the track. I plan to continue this every so often to remind her of the business at hand.

Next, about 60 days after the blood drops we discovered, came another false pregnancy episode. It was pretty intense. She stayed in her wire crate with one of Vonnie's slippers, only wanting to leave to eat and relieve herself. Her weight increased also, up to 22 lbs. She had been staying between 20 and 20.5. She wouldn't even leave the crate to come to bed with us, which she normally loves! I even put her in the bed one night, and she tried to jump off, so we let her stay in the crate. After about 2 weeks, it started to subside, so we took the slipper away, and over the next few days, all symptoms disappeared. She returned to her former self, and actually seemed to want to make up for lost time--she was extra playful and happy!

**This brings up a question--do bitches who experience false pregnancies tend to keep on doing that after every heat?** (Stan, the answer is yes)

I had cut her food back, and she actually got down to 19 lbs, and is now hovering between 19.5 and 20.

Now I want to comment on the vocalizations of Miss Rilla.  Long story short, she makes more types of sounds than I've ever heard from a dog. She has her mean growl, play growl, mean changing to happy growl, various purring type noises, sighs, squeels, etc. It's really funny and I am still learning them all. One really neat one is in the middle of the night, when I come back to bed after a bathroom trip. I always feel to see where she is, and she gives the strangest noise, a semi-tapering off purr, which seems to mean "I'm right here, and I'm content, so please don't lay on me"! LOL It's the only time I hear her make that particular noise, and it cracks me up.

Speaking of her sleeping habits, one we really get a kick out of is this. When I first put her in bed, she immediately burrows under the covers, going down to around our knees. The funny part is, a lot of times, near morning, she comes out just enough to put her head on Vonnie's pillow. When I roll over, I see this little innocent face looking at me, just like a small child laying there. It's so cute!!

One Sunday in March, Bunk (our older son) and I were in our woods re-posting our property line and checking the fence. Rilla was along, and she usually stays pretty close. Just in case though, I had her e-collar on, with bell attached. We were about half way finished, when Rilla started a steady, chopping, guttural bark that I've never heard before. It was very rhythmic, and not real loud. I said "She's barking "tree'd", like a coonhound". She was only about 10 yds away, but I couldn't see her through the brush. Sure enough, she was peering into a hollow stump, and inside was a raccoon. I quickly scooped her up, and away we went. She seemed to have lost interest, but then went right back there. I ran to her again to see her jump back quickly; the coon must have taken a swipe at her. I could not call her off, so I gave her a quick hit on the e-collar. She came right to me then. I do not want a 20 lb dog that thinks it can tangle with 15-20 lb raccoons; don't think that would be pretty.

Through the years, I've been envious of people who always seemed to take their dogs everywhere with them. I just never had the right dog to do that, but guess what? I DO NOW! She goes everywhere we can possibly take her safely. She is my constant companion, whether working in the yard, driving in the truck, on our Polaris, golf cart, whatever--we take her anywhere we can; she's very well-behaved in other people's environments, and she gets along with most other dogs. Even when all the "people" in my family are somewhere else, I'm never alone any more! Rilla and I are a team! We have a tremendous bond. I'm constantly amazed at how she reacts to my tone of voice, and little things I say to her. She KNOWS me! If I say "this way" she knows to turn and go the way I'm going. If I tell her "over here" she knows I want her to come to me and look there, whether for scent or rabbits.

Speaking of rabbits--we avoid saying that word in the house, because she perks up, starts looking, and expects to be turned loose for the chase! She has been running rabbits almost every evening for a month or so behind our house. We seem to have a good crop, although I couldn't trap even ONE for Sherry's farm back in Feb (my total was NINE squirrels, a groundhog and a opossum). She really has a passion for running them, and opens freely on sight and hot scent, and you know I love to hear her song! Sometimes she amazes me with her accuracy, and sometimes, if she can't find the track, she runs it backwards to the start...she hasn't done that in a few weeks though. When she sees a rabbit or squirrel when she's looking out the window, she goes nuts. Funny thing is, we have turkeys in the yard a lot also, and they just don't excite her. She just looks at them with no reaction. This morning there were 13 or 14 out there; she saw them, but didn't make a sound. Funny! Last evening we were outside, and there were 4 turkeys less than 50 yds from us...she didn't even move toward them. Squirrel, rabbit or groundhog--forget it--she's off like a shot! She tracks blood with a much more business-like approach, but pulls hard when the line seems straight and easy.

Another thing we find hilarious: For some reason, it took me a long time to teach her to "roll over" for a treat. Other commands were no problem, but with that one I always had to help her roll, then treat. One day a few months ago, I was just starting to tell her to roll over, and before I could say the words, she rolled over so fast it shocked me. I laughed out loud as she sat right up for her treat. Well, since then, no words need to be spoken. If I just hold out the treat, she rolls over; sometimes so fast only her butt is touching the floor! When I don't have a treat, she sits, lays down, etc with no problem, but when she sees the treat held out, over she goes! Even though she is not technically obeying a command, it's too cute to correct! I take her to the barber with me, and the barber gives her treats--when I told her to just hold the treat out and watch, see got laughing so hard, she wanted Rilla to do it over and over. I think it made her day!

When Vonnie goes on her break at work, she usually gives me a quick call....just a habit to check in and say "I love you"...we just do that sort of thing. Anyway, she told me she also feels like giving Rilla a call to tell her she loves her, too! How priceless is that? LOL

At the end of deer season, we made about 50 lbs of raw food from deer meat scraps, and we also put livers and hearts in the mix, probably about 15% or so. It was very satisfying to me to make her food, she loves it and seems to do well on it. We still feed a mix of raw and dry twice a day.

To say she's captured our hearts seems like a cliche, but it's sooo true. Vonnie and I are extremely close to her, and it couldn't have come at a better time as our boys don't spend much time with us old farts these days! She does still growl sometimes, but much less. If we give her a type of rawhide chew that lasts a while, she gets very possessive with it. She gets very edgy around Lee sometimes too, don't know if it's a pack mentality, jealousy, or what, but it's most noticeable with him. Other times she licks all over him, wagging her tail. He's not here much compared to Vonnie and I, so that may be part of it also.

Well, I'm sure that's MORE than enough Rilla info for now, but I haven't wrote you about her for a while, so I figured I'd give you a BUNCH today! Believe me, we have been doing a lot, just not taking the time to write about it. Hope you and John, along with your pups, are doing great. I enjoy your pix and updates on the blog and Facebook. One pic in attachment is her scanning the yard for rabbits, other one is her looking none-too-happy about wearing a goofy birthday hat!

Happy Memorial Weekend!

Stan

Elton, Elli's brother, was a hard-to-part-with puppy

Recently we heard from Jim J. whose eleven-year-old Elton is a litter mate to Elli. As you know Elli passed in January due to congestive heart failure.

"Hello John and Jolanta,

I just found out from looking at your web site that Elli passed away. Just wanted express how saddened and sorry we are for your loss. Reading the blog about Elli and seeing the pictures of both Ellie and Elton and Erik brings back a flood of good memories, and of course emotions.

Elton is doing well, he is slowing down now but he still wants to go out and do all the things he always has done. Interesting that you mentioned Elli as your "personal companion, constant presence". That certainly describes Elton, He doesn't want to take his eyes off me for fear  I might go somewhere without him, like the next room! He has always been this way, but is even more clingy now that he is older.  Here are some pictures of Elton 6-26-2011, he had been enjoying chasing Snowshoe Rabbits, and it was raining so his coat is a little wet."

Elton last year, when he was ten years old.

I remember Elton very well as a young puppy as I had a very hard time parting with him. Actually when Elton was six months old I asked my two friends who are also breeders for advice. The letters are edited to keep this post shorter than otherwise it would be.

Jolanta wrote:

I am writing this to you two because I know I can count on some good insights from you. You have bred enough to be able to relate to my dilemma and maybe you could give me your perspective.

Once in a while a special puppy comes along - the pup does not have to be the best looking or most promising pup at all. But you can feel this special bond, which is so rare. Do you go through something like this? At present I have a 6-month-old male, Elton, who is this "special puppy".  He is a confident and proud male, gentle with others, affectionate, with a very engaging personality. It is hard to articulate why, but he is very special to me. But...and there are many buts. He is a male and we have already four males and was not planning to keep another one. I know that we don't have much use for him in my breeding program - he will be on a big side, he is smooth etc etc. . We have already decided to keep Elton's sister Elli, whose conformation is very good. On the other side - he is a precocious hunter and will make a very good blood tracker. He started running rabbits and he opens up. He has a tremendous hunting drive.

Now my dilemma. A fabulous home came along where he would have a great life. His potential new owner wrote: "I have been bowhunting  for about twenty years. I have used dogs to find hard to trail Elk. Any dog I have is a house dog and part of the family. And we love the outdoors, hunting and fishing, we live in the country". Elton would be an only dog. He would have 4 fenced-in acres to get exercise. He would track and retrieve, he would be used for what he was bred for. He would get more attention that I could could give him.

Yet, I find it almost impossible to let him go. Do you go through this kind of dilemmas? How do you deal with it? One drawback of being a breeder is that one has to keep many dogs. I miss this special relationship with individual dogs. We are basically down to 12 dogs and I know we should not be keeping Elton. But I am afraid that I will have regrets for a long time to come if I let him go.

Do you have any insights?

Elton at six months

Friend #1 responded:

I understand your dilemma all too well! When it comes to my dogs, I far too often wear my heart on my sleeve! Yes, as breeders we must look to the dogs that will add to our breeding programs, and we must unfortunately always keep an eye to our numbers and what we can "do right by". However, I feel that ultimately these dogs are our companions, and when all the hunts have been hunted, and all the titles have been won, it is the special bond that we feel with those special dogs that is good for our soul. It isn't enough to have our dogs do well at the tasks we undertake, whether it is hunting, field trialing or other competitions, but rather to have that "ultimate pleasure" that we share with just a few dogs, although we respect and love them all.

Good homes are precious to come by. But so are those special dogs that you connect with on another level from the others - those dogs that are true companions with a reciprocal bond to you.

The home looking for a tracking dog will wait another few months for a puppy that you feel less of a connection with. Or another perfect home will come along when you have a dog that needs it. Sometimes I think we too often ignore our gut instincts and try to apply too much logic to our choices. Sometimes our heart knows the reason for choices our brain just can't put a finger on! Two of the dogs that I "couldn't live without" are neutered males who never contributed anything to my breeding program. I would rather give you my left arm than to part with either one of those two neutered males. They have given me a great deal of satisfaction in their field work, but beyond that they are PART of me. We understand each other, work well together, respect each other, and as emotional as it sounds, we nurture each other. It is a give and take relationship different than I have with most of my other dogs.

Don't miss the opportunity to let this special bond grow. While you may have other dogs now or in the future, they might just be dogs - but this one will be different than any of them if you have that "connection".

Friend #2:

Tough decision. It is so hard when your head fights with your heart. I have been there.

*If* the new home is fabulous, put him there, Jolanta. You may cry over it for three days. You may experience some regret for a long time. But in the long run, as a breeder, and multiple dog owner, you will be glad you let him go.

*If* they are worthy, (this may require more investigation?), let Elton's new people enjoy and love him for his confidence, pride, gentleness, affection, engaging personality, and hunting ability. You will delight in their delight. What a privilege!

Perhaps a few years from now, you will have another such very special young dog. And he will be of smaller size and have a wire coat. And there will be no dilemma about where he will spend the rest of his life.    :  )
 

Elton enjoying outdoors

In the end John and I decided to let Jim have Elton. It was very, very hard to do. I missed that dog terribly. But in the long run it was a right decision in this particular case. Elton's gift to bond deeply benefited Jim and his family. And Elton's new home was a right and indeed fabulous home for him. Few months after Elton had left us Jim wrote:

"Hello, thought I would let you know how things are going with Elton. He is doing very well, really a joy to have around. Elton is very obedient, as I told you before he is trained to come to two short whistle blasts. He comes even if he is hot on a trail, which is just about anytime he is allowed to run. As you know his nose is to the ground constantly. I've been training him once a week or two to blood trail. The last one today was great. The trail was 16 hrs old about half a mile. I am still having to use cow blood with small amount of deer urine in it, part of a thawed out Elk hide at the end. Elton is slowing down quite allot, giving me a chance to check the trail. I only used a small amount of blood, maybe 3 oz. Drop every 10 yards or so. He had no trouble finding the hide, even though there was a small skiff of snow on the ground (fell during the night). Elton gets about a cup of dried elk scraps at the hide and he loves to tear at the hide."

If we could only breed all our dachshunds to have talent and personality like Elton!

Elton with the elk he recovered

When I look at Elton's pictures I marvel how much he reminds me of our Bernie (FC Darin von Moosbach-Zuzelek), who is his nephew. Interestingly, with Bernie we made a completely opposite decision. He was returned to us when he was a year and a half old, and we decided to hold on to him. A right and fabulous new home for Bernie never materialized. There were some opportunities to let Bernie go, but it never felt right, and at the last moment I would always change my mind. Well, Bernie is here to stay. He was neutered early and was never used in breeding, but he has a significant role.  He is an uncle to puppies and young dogs, plays with them and disciplines them. His presence has a stabilizing effect on the pack, even though he certainly is not a top dog. His joy of swimming and his antics in the pond remind me to stop and smell the roses. His voice on rabbits gives me goosebumps, and his smile (yes, he can smile) brightens my mood. Our bond runs deep.

So two different but very similar dogs, two different decisions and two positive outcomes. In both cases the dogs' responsiveness and ability to bond deeply with people was responsible for the success. So often dachshunds are characterized as hardheaded, stubborn, following their own agenda. Well, not all of them are like that - some are like Elton, Elli, Bernie, Paika and Sky, to name just some. These are the dogs with soft eyes that are focused on you.

Poppy's protective instincts: the nature of nurture

When I opened a recent e-mail from Derek Harris and viewed the pictures, my jaw dropped and I was in awe. The pictures were so beautiful! They show Poppy, who is our Paika's sister. Poppy was a late bloomer and she stayed with us longer than other puppies. She lives with Derek (wildlife biologist/hunting guide) in Texas, and she is quite a dog. This is what Derek wrote:

Dear John and Jolanta,

I wanted to write to just say hi and give ya’ll some updates on Poppy. She is definitely my best friend and we don’t do many things apart from each other.

I have attached some photos of her with the a calf that lost its mom about a month ago due to the severe drought we are facing. When I brought the calf home I knew Poppy could tell it was in bad condition. She instantly started licking it and looking over it. She actually didn’t come in the house for over 72 hours. I had to bring food and water outside to her. Any time the other dogs would come close Poppy would get in between the dogs and the calf and show her teeth and even bite the other dogs if they got too close. A couple weeks later when that calf was doing quite well another calf was brought to me that was in terrible shape. Instantly, Poppy took to it as well and would not let the now healthy calf or dogs near it either. And now she is protecting Rhea eggs (large bird like an emu) the exact same way.

We are lucky enough to live on a 40,000 acre ranch where she is exposed to several species of game every day. I have been feeding the deer alfalfa just on the other side of the fence to get her used to deer and realize that we don’t track all of them. At first she would run to the fence and bark obsessively, now she barely even lifts her head to look. I have worked hard to expose her to as many different environments and situations as I can. The thing I still struggle the most with is her social skills with people. She likes things to be “me and her” only and she is very protective of me, the house, etc. She is great at a social BBQ, but when it is time to “work” I can tell she still has a problem if there is a crowd. I think one of the down falls of us living on the ranch is the lack of company we have out here. My heeler has got a lot more aggressive/protective toward strangers since we have lived such a secluded life as well. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

This touching picture shows Poppy with the calf she was nurturing. I have a feeling that Poppy will have very strong maternal instincts.

Poppy has always loved to swim. This picture was taken at sunrise.

My response to Derek's question was: "Poppy needs to learn that other people are a source of pleasure and positive experience, and that they are not a threat. If she is food oriented, let them give her treats that she really likes. Don't force her to interact with people if she does not want to, but don't let her to be aggressive towards them either. Some dogs are just not very social (just like some people are not), but she needs to learn to tolerate starngers. If she is not aggressive, then don't make a big deal out of it. If she is distracted by other people's presence when she is working, ask them follow at a greater distance if it is possible. I think you might want to experiment a bit what is a good way to "manage her" around strangers but for this you need to have access to strangers, and this seems to be a challenge to do where you live in isolation. Let me think about it more."

John added: Jolanta wrote she needs more exposure to people. In your rare shopping trips to town take her along and walk her on a leash down busy streets. This will help. You don’t want her to be distracted by the presence of strange hunters to the point that she will not track.

Derek replied:
Thanks for your responses. Yes, tracking comes first and it’s something I am passionate about. I recently got back Zimbabwe where I was on a leopard hunt with dogs. I was very impressed with the houndsman and all the advice he gave me. I showed him pictures of Poppy and he had nothing but good things to say about the breed, and he was actually looking for a WHD himself. I can’t imagine how neat it would have been to hear the 2 of you swap stories.

I will continue to take Poppy to as many crowded places as I can and I hope to find her a lot of tracking work this upcoming season. I am going to Kansas with her again this year and am really looking forward to that.

Thanks for the feedback and I will keep you updated with her progress.

Derek M Harris
http://www.aimstraightoutdoors.com/

Do you have any suggestions how to help Poppy with her problem?

Remi's return from disaster

The last three weeks were so busy that they feel more like three months. First, on May 12 John traveled to Quebec, where upon the invitation extended by the Quebec Blood Tracking Dog Handler Association he was helping develop a new certification test for handlers. When he came back, we almost immediately left for UBT Trackfest in Pocahontas, AR. We got back on the night of May 25, and not even two days later I traveled to Batavia, NY to attend  three field trials for dachshunds. I got back home late last night, and tomorrow morning John is leaving for Michigan to breed Paika. In the next week or so we will write about all these events and post pictures, but tonight I'd like to write about Remi and Justin.

If you search this blog for Remi, you will get a lot of info about this pup, who turned one year old on May 25. Two days before his birthday we received these two pictures from Justin Richins from Utah.

Remi was enjoying life. Then on May 26 e-mail from Justin brought devastating news and tears to my eyes: "I just ran over Remi. We were in the mtns identifying wildflowers, he was running 20-30 yards out as he usually does. I stopped to take a pic of a flower I wanted to identify. I then got back in and started driving forward when heard him yelp. It was then I realized what had just taken place. My truck is a big heavy 4 ton diesel. I'm at the emergency vet right now. He was going into shock by the time I got here vet. I'm an emotional wreck right now but I will keep u informed."

Few hours later another e-mail came: Initial X-ray showed fractures in the hip, ball out of socket and blood work showed elevated liver enzymes. They are not too worried about the liver as they think it could be from shock and say it will heal on its own. They are doing pain management before more X-rays to keep him from going further into shock. Also they think his spine and other organs are fine, We will be transferring him to 24 hr facility in a few hrs. I was just idling along slow with my foot on and off the break getting in and out of the truck to inspect and identify what wild flowers were on the property. I'm guessing this slow moving contributed to this accident because there was no increased engine noise signaling the truck was moving or about to move. I will go up latter today and go look at the tracks and pushdowns so I can figure out how this happened. 

Friday - Remi was stressed and in a lot of pain. He was refusing to drink.

Justin's frantic search for info how to fix Remi started right away. He wrote on Sunday: Ok, so I have been on the phone, internet and researching like crazy, and there are very few options for smaller dogs as parts just are not available.. However, I have found a few vets located in Colorado and one in the Ski resort town of Sun Valley, Idaho who have done hundreds of total hip replacements. I found their info through a manufacturer from Liverpool, England that produces Micro hip replacements! Anyway the vet's secretary in Idaho was kind enough to forward him my emails and x-rays and he called me back within 10 minutes even

though she said he was leaving for England and would not be back for several weeks. From my conversation he had much more knowledge than any other vet I have talked to and has done over 800 total hip replacement surgeries. Tomorrow morning I'm headed to Idaho as he is assembling a team of 4 doctors to work on Remi Monday because he leaves for Liverpool, England Tuesday morning . He believes one of the pelvic fractures must be fixed /plated before doing any work on the side with the broken hip & he will take all options into consideration. I feel good about this decision.

Yesterday, when I was still in Batavia, Justin called that the surgery was successful and Remi's prognosis is very good. John sent this letter to Justin: "Hi Justin, I just spoke with Jolanta as she started back from a field trial 250 miles away. She told me a little about the operation and your sense that the prognosis was good. I have a lot of respect for the way that you handled the whole thing. The tragedy was well publicized in the Borntotrack Group and you have a lot of admirers out here in the East. You set the standard for a man’s relationship with his tracking dog. I’m glad the pain has diminished for both of you."

Today Justin sent a picture taken on his way from Idaho. He said that Remi can walk and he even wags his tail. What a relief! We'll keep you posted about his progress.  

Remi with his new hip on his way home.

This was his message:

Thanks to everyone for the prayers and support. As you all know we traveled to Sun Valley, Idaho for Remi¹s surgery. The doctor Randy Aker there was phenomenal. He spent an extensive amount of time with us prior to the surgery explaining all of the different options and exactly what was involved with each. He was extremely knowledgeable and made sure we understood and felt comfortable before he began the surgery. He was going to try to salvage Remi¹s hip, but once they got in there they found the hip socket was broken, femur head was severed and the end of the femur bone was shattered making it impossible to reconstruct. They ended up doing a cemented total micro hip replacement.

The doctor called me after the surgery to let me know all had gone well. They kept him over night to monitor him. When I arrived to the clinic expecting a lethargic post-op puppy, especially since he had been struggling the previous days to even have any desire to move his head to acknowledge someone lying down near him, to my surprise, it was like the old Remi, full of life and energy. Wagging his tail vigorously and giving me a face full of kisses! They told me he had eaten breakfast that morning and had walked outside to use the bathroom. I could not believe he was walking again let alone 18hrs after his surgery. We have been home for a few hours now and it is clear to me my greatest task at hand will be trying to keep this active little guy down to allow his body to heal. I would never have believed that after being ran over by a 8,000+ lb truck that this little dog would be doing so well. He is truly a little miracle. Apparently he still has many more days of hunting to live out. I will continue to keep you all updated with his progress. Thanks again for your concern.

Remi X-Ray Before

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Remi X-Ray After
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Sincerely-
Justin and Bionic-Remi

Life on the rocks bonds Man and Dog

Another great video of Remi from Justin Richins - if you are afraid of heights, don't watch it!

My heart just about stopped few times when I watched it, and some shots left me a bit dizzy. Not to mention a view of Remi almost tumbling down... Justin has been working hard on developing a close relationship and partnership with Remi, and it is very nice to see their progress. Remi's responsiveness is very impressive, even with live deer and elk around.

Bonding and relationships within a tracking team

by John Jeanneney, Feb 2010

Advanced training of a dachshund on artificial tracks usually coincides with the tracking of real wounded deer. The natural experience is tremendously important because of its psychological impact on the dog….and on the handler. Tracking a real wounded deer, confronting it and perhaps having to kill it is the consummation of prey drive. It draws handler and dog together into a working team, and this carries over into other aspects of their life together. A dog with whom you have found a deer begins to act in a different way. In the house he follows you from room to room. He watches you intently. He is more responsive and begins to anticipate what you expect of him. And you as a handler change too. You admire and trust your dog, and your dog senses this.

I want to avoid any temptation to illustrate this development with easy and false parallels to certain relationships that humans have with one another. Dogs and people are profoundly different, but they are both social animals and the two  species can come together in a pack relationship. Dogs have inherited their hard-wired social instincts from wolves. Wolf researchers like David Mech have come to realize that wolf pack relationships are much more complex than a simple hierarchy or ladder of boss and underling relationships.

As a wolf pack works to identify a weak and vulnerable deer, then chases it, then pulls it down, different pack members take leadership roles as fits their expertise. The male leader does not necessarily lead in all phases of the hunt. In a similar fashion, the dominant male does not lead in feeding the cubs and disciplining them when necessary. These matters are left to the wisdom of their mother, who is high on the dominance ladder, but yields to others in non-domestic matters.

It is in these more complex relationships of the wolf pack that we find the best model for explaining the handler/tracking dog relationship. It is not just the straight command/obey relationship of some types of retriever training. In tracking real deer the dog learns first that he and his handler have the same prey drive, the same goal of finding the animal. Then the dog learns why teamwork is necessary.

If a tracking dog could talk he might say, “My handler has a terrible nose, and he’s of little use when following a scent line unless there is a lot of blood. My handler gets all excited if he sees drops of blood, but of course I know that this blood is not all that important. Surprisingly my handler is pretty good about determining the direction of the track (he pays a lot of attention to marks that the deer made in the mud, but otherwise he is pretty much “out of it”.

On the other hand my handler is amazingly good at knowing where to go to find a good scent line to track and begin the hunt. Sometimes he drives a long time with me and then, with a man we’ve never met, he goes directly to a good spot to start tracking a wounded deer. My handler is marvelously patient; he doesn’t want to give up when the going gets tough, and he is really encouraging when I need encouragement.

When the game animal is found my handler is very useful. He can kill the deer if it needs killing. And best of all he shares my pleasure in finding the deer. But he doesn’t want to chew on it like I do."

When a dog has figured this out for himself, when he understands his own skills and those of his handler, he has progressed beyond structured training. He will sense that he and his handler can take prey together that neither could have taken by himself. He will know that he is part of a team, and that this team is the most important thing in his life.

Joeri with his second deer. After this long, tough track he understood that he was part of a team.

These team relationships in tracking bring to mind the summer days, 20 years ago, when I hunted woodchucks underground with a pack of dachshunds. The woodchuck pack was held together by a younger, stronger shovel man and a mini wire from Teddy Moritz. The experience really taught the dachshunds to work together. Two old tracking dogs were respected by all for their skill in identifying occupied dens. A couple of sniffs at the opening and they knew that a chuck was down there. They communicated this to the rest of the pack, not by barks but by body language.

Then Polly, the mini, would take over. She was small enough for almost any den, and she would quickly locate the prey. With barks, and a little electronic help, Polly would announce the location of the chuck in the den. Then it was up to the young guy, with his shovel, bar and a good strong back, to dig down to the chuck and open things up so the 20 pound draw dogs could pull out the chuck. The shovel man had a hunting knife, and this was sometimes useful.

The woodchuck team was bigger and more complex than the handler/tracker team, but the team psychology was similar. Each specialist knew his own job and respected his mates for what they could do. A working bond was formed. I believe that this helped prepare the psychological base for tracking wounded deer later in the year.

The woodchuck team in 1988

John's dog of a lifetime - FC Clary von Moosbach

F.Ch. Clary von Moosbach was a dog for all seasons. Dachshund people who had heard of Clary during the fourteen years of her life (1971-1985) thought of her as a field trial dog, and her field trial record was more than respectable. Others, without knowing her name, may have seen her as the hunting Dachshund on the opening slide of the old DCA slide sequence on conformation. From 1973 to 1980 Clary dominated field trials in the East, before the field trial fever had spread very far into the West and Midwest. With her dam, F. Ch. Carla vom Rode and her half sister, Dual Ch. Uta von Moosbach, Clary was on the leading edge of a wave of European Wires that began to win trials in the late ‘60s. She won at least eleven field champion stakes, but had passed her field trialing prime too soon to follow the field trial boom west. In 1984 she was honored in Philadelphia at the AKC Centennial Celebration as the hunting and field trial representative of the Dachshund breed.

 Clary was the product of an outcross of two German-bred dogs, Bobo von der Schofielden and F. Ch. Carla vom Rode, whom I imported as a puppy in 1965. The genetic component behind Clary's aptitudes was the product of pure luck, rather than any breeding skill on my part. She was a good producer when bred to compatible studs, but she never replicated herself. As is often the case with outcrosses, her best offspring resembled the sire as much as they did Clary. Her puppies were all of the same general psychological type, however. In field trialing, the fun of these European Wires was in their abundant voice, their desire to trail and their enthusiastic, slambang style, which we had to condemn as judges, but could enjoy in private company. The development of the Dachshund in Europe never involved selection for the slow, close-trailing style, off lead, which is the standard for American Dachshund field trials. Our trials here are modeled upon American Beagle brace trials, rather than the German tests. Still, Clary and her best daughters, Field Champions Eda, Gerte and Giesele (Goose) von Moosbach, did very well in their own decade, even beating, on occasion, Glary's own distinguished cousin, F. Ch. Adelheid von Spurlaut.

To put it all in perspective, not everyone was delighted by these working class European Dachshunds, who usually lacked the aristocratic good looks of American show stock. Field trial competition from these Wires, many of whom were Clary's relatives and descendants, irked some breeders and inspired others. For certain, the stir and controversy raised the level of competition and helped to end a certain complacent approach to performance.

However, Clary was more than a field trial dog, and those who knew her well realized that rabbit brace trials were not even her best event. The selection process behind her German breeding probably prepared Clary better for natural hunting than for the precision tracking work of field trials. What really distinguished Clary was an uncanny intuition of knowing what I wanted and what was needed in any season or situation. Even for Dachshund lovers who have no interest in hunting whatever, her history can broaden our awareness of Dachshund psychology.

Dachshunds, particularly the Wires, were developed by German foresters as solo companion/hunters. Never used as pack hounds, they were bred to relate and respond to the needs of their masters rather than to pack members. They were used as flushing dogs, trackers of wounded big game and for underground work, usually on foxes rather than on badgers. At twenty pounds, Clary was too big to work the underground game of the Northeast, but she exemplified the other character traits bred for in Germany. It was something that came naturally to her with a minimum of discipline. Quickly she learned that hunting was more fun and more productive if she worked with me as a team. She hunted pheasants in the fashion of a slow spaniel, quartering back and forth ahead of me to flush within shotgun range. Yet she had a hound's nose for a track. If she crossed the feeding trail of a pheasant she would give voice and I would follow. We might go 200 yards, through cover, but it was almost a sure thing that the bird would burst into flight at the end. Pheasants and rabbits usually like a similar habitat. If rabbits were the game, after the pheasant season, Clary would quickly sense what we were up to and extend her searching range accordingly.

Clary loved to hunt grouse, and she was invaluable in locating downed birds which had burrowed under the loose, dry leaves of autumn. She was a little small to retrieve in heavy cover and she had never been trained to do so. One morning I shot at a grouse as it cleared the treetops, and apparently missed. The grouse showed no reaction to the shot that I could recognize, and I watched it fly high and strongly out of sight. Clary disappeared in the same direction and was gone for a long time. I was mildly irritated; this was hardly teamwork. Finally, the brush parted and Clary struggled out, stumbling on the wing of the dead grouse, which she held in her jaws. She had known, somehow, that the bird was hit and that it would certainly be lost if she did not make a difficult retrieve, for which she had never been trained.

On another occasion, we were invited to go pheasant hunting in a neighboring county. The designated canine star of the hunt was a huge Weimaraner, but Clary ended up finding more pheasants. She could work the cover, which was too high and dense to see the big, gray dog on point. Clary's barks let us know that she was trailing one pheasant up the long length of a swale. When the pheasant ran to the limits of cover, he took to the air; my companion shot - not well - and wounded the big cock The pheasant flew heavily across a wide field, staying about ten feet high, and landed in a dense brush lot 200 yards away. Almost certainly, it seemed, this was a lost bird. Clary followed out of the swale; she had been too far back to see the bird take wing, but she had heard the shot. Apparently, the low-flying pheasant had thrown off scent, which settled to the ground as he flew. In "S" curves, following the diffused band of scent, Clary tracked her way across the field to where the bird had landed to run once more. This pheasant was too big to retrieve, but Clary had him anchored when we arrived. Few Dachshund owners have the joy of seeing their dog carry off a stunt like this.

Clary's abilities extended to raccoon hunting. She understood that this was what nights were for, and she paid no attention whatever to rabbits, which she loved to chase in daylight. Deer were also of no interest. Once, on a moonlit night, I saw her come to the tree where the coon had gone up. She made one short bark and then cast a broad circle around the tree. Then, sure that the coon had not "marked the tree" and continued on, she settled down to steady tree-barking. When I hunted with friends who had specialized coon hounds, Clary treed her share.

Clary and Carla

Clary did have her failings; she would leave almost any game for certain small, black and white creatures of the night. She seemed to relish being drenched with skunk spray. After munching on the skunk, she would get back to work and, somehow, her nose would still function. For her, at least, this was no inconvenience.

Clary was four years old before we discovered together the challenges and intricacies of tracking wounded deer. Deer Search, the New York State-based organization, began as an experimental program to see if the European method of using leashed tracking dogs to find wounded deer was feasible there. Since Dachshunds are one of the major breeds used in Europe for this work, it was natural for me to begin the research with Clary, and it was my sheer good fortune that she turned out to be one of the most talented dogs to ever work in the program. Clary was a natural, but I did not fully appreciate how exceptional she was until years later, when the Deer Search had grown to involve many dogs and handlers. Training and experience are important but, in addition, the best dogs must have an exceptional nose and the intelligence to use it well. Since we humans are "challenged" with very poor noses and little awareness of scent, it helps if we imagine scent as microscopic particles which are cast off by the animal being tracked. Each deer, like each human, has a distinctive scent signature. On an old track, dried by sun and swept by wind, the only scent remaining may be the particles, which have filtered down among the dead leaves of the forest floor. Clary would work her nose down under the leaves and painstakingly inch along the difficult sections of the trail.

I remember tracking with her one bitter cold night in a howling wind. There was no visible sign that the wounded deer had passed, and Clary had to work a broad zone for scent, zigzagging back and forth from hollows at the bases of trees to piles of leaves swept up against rocks and stumps. It involved something more than having a good nose; Clary had learned from experience where scent might linger under such conditions, and where traces of it could be discovered through active and aggressive search. It was her desire that kept her focused and permitted her to use her experience so effectively.

The desire showed in other ways. Many of the deer, which we tracked, were not seriously wounded and, after a mile or so on the trail, a decision would be made to back off and let the deer recover on its own. When I picked up Clary on such a scent line, after she had tried so hard, she would struggle and cry like a puppy. On the other hand, if she were allowed to overtake or find a deer, Clary clearly expressed her feelings. After an hour's drive home from a deer call, Clary would still be "up" and would perform her "happy dance" on the kitchen floor. She would end, four feet in the air, wriggling contentedly and thumping her tail in self satisfaction. This came from an ordinarily laid-back house dog with a plain vanilla personality.

In a tracking dog, the desire to find the quarry must be balanced with discriminating intelligence. The outstanding dog also has the powers of concentration to keep focused on a day-old track, even when a healthy deer crosses the scent line just ahead. For Clary, the quarry was the designated deer that she had been asked to track by her handler. Other deer were of no more interest than a cow. One early November morning we tracked a deer shot the day before. Looking ahead, I could see a field, white with frost, upon which more than a dozen deer were grazing. White tails flaring, they bounded out of the field as we approached. Even I could smell their musky scent, but Clary remained strictly focused on the old, cold scent of the day before. There were very occasional blood droplets, just visible through the frost, to show that we were on the right track. If I had not seen and smelled the herd myself, I never would have known from "reading" Clary that fresh deer scent was everywhere present. For Clary, on the track, it must have been like following the thin thread of a flute solo through the whomp-whomping roar of a live rock concert.

Clary was a blood-tracking dog from when she began at age four until a series of mini-strokes incapacitated her at fourteen. She probably reached her peak at ten years of age. By this time she was slowing down physically to some degree, but she more than made up for this through her experience gained in taking over 200 calls and finding more than 70 deer. It is impossible to state the exact figure, because she was used often in her last years as a back-up in the field for young dogs who were learning the game. If an inexperienced dog faltered on a difficult check or dead-ended when the deer backtracked, as sometimes happened, it was Clary who would be brought forward. Almost always, she solved the riddle in her patient, conservative style. Then, without complaint, she would give up the lead to the younger dog once more. Clary was a professional.

Clary was so professional, so focused on her work of finding wounded deer, that she would tolerate almost anyone at the other end of the 30-foot tracking lead. She simply required that the stand-in handler respect her greater wisdom and not interfere with what she wanted to do. Lightheartedly, I lent her out to other Deer Search members, never thinking of all the things that might have gone wrong. If skunks were not involved, she had an uncanny sense of doing the right thing and staying out of trouble. There were no mishaps.

Dachshund people tend to communicate primarily with one another; our Dachshund world is rather inaccessible to those not already in the loop. Generally, outsiders who do not know the breed well, have no sense that Dachshunds today are useful hunting dogs. Perhaps the name "Dachshund" leads them to suspect that , back in the mists of distant time, ancestors of our breed did somehow hunt badgers, but certainly there is no link in their minds between past and present. Clary made hunters and scent hound people aware that the right Dachshund can be a serious and versatile hunting dog today. Actually, no other breed carries so many possibilities in a twenty-pound package. It is fortunate that the first Deer Search dog was one of the very best. For her owner, she was a partner for all seasons and the dog of a lifetime. For the Dear Search members who knew her, she was the right dog at the right time.

A dog of your lifetime?

April 6: This beautiful tribute to Bounder was written by Karen Rheinberger from Ohio.

Jolanta,

      I read the recent post about special dogs or dogs of a lifetime. I had to respond. Although I love each of my dogs and each of them are special to me, my "dog of a lifetime" was Bounder (UCD Einzigers Bound ToBeMy Hero CD CGC Delta Society Therapy Dog).
      Bounder was the first rottweiler puppy I raised, I had adopted an older rottie a year earlier. Most people said I was nuts adding a 2nd male rottie to my house. I didn't breed him, but was present at his birth and I went to played with the puppies every weekend until he was 7+ weeks old and came to live with me.
      Bounder was my constant shadow - he loved to go and do... it didn't matter what I asked him to do, from obedience to flyball to agility to tracking to pet therapy, he was always willing to try it and normally excelled at it. Bounder wasn't raised with children, but I never worried about him - he walked in the Dayton Childrens Parade every year, dressed as Santa. He would often have 5 or 6 kids hugging him at the same time - he just stood there and loved it.
      One of my favorite memories with him involves a visit with a WWI veteran. It was "veteran appreciation day" so the Pet Therapy group went out to the local VA hospital to accompany active duty Air Force personal visiting the veterans. It was Bounder's first official visit as a therapy dog - he was dressed as "bob the builder" with a specially made green and white checkered flannel shirt and tool belt. There was a nurse that just fell for my dog - she wanted all the elderly patients to see the dog. This one man was very old and fragile and bedridden - the nurse wanted Bounder to come up on the bed so the man with very bad eyesight could see the dog. I was so worried - Bounder was about 110 lbs, young, and energetic. I put my arm out and asked Bounder to put his feet on my arm - he very gently shifted all his weight to his back legs, put his front legs over my arm and placed them carefully and gently onto the bed next to this man. He then leaned in and put his head under this man's hand so all the man had to do was move his fingers to scratch the dog. I can still see the smile on the man's face...
      Bounder had a spine injury when he was 4 years old and had to retire from all training - but he was still my constant shadow at home...

I often say that Bounder "grabbed my heart at birth and never let go". It's been 3 years and 4 months since his untimely death from bloat at 8 1/2 years old. This is the first time I have even tried to write about Bounder - and I'm sitting here with tears in my eyes. I still miss him everyday. I have 4 dogs at home right now (including Bob Fulcher's Nadina) and they each have a place in my heart - but there will only ever be one Bounder for me.

Thank you for letting me share my special boy with you.
Karen Rheinberger

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April 5:
Greg wrote to John: "Thanks for all you and Jola's help and attention during these tough times. I know that you, more than anybody, can appreciate the relationship between a dog and handler along with the life they have to live together in order to be successful. I've heard before an old dog man say that "everyone deserves one good dog in their lifetime." Well, I've had mine. If the rest turn out to be anything like her, I'll be lucky."

Coincidentally, it was exactly five years ago today when I had to say good bye to my dog of a lifetime. I still cannot talk about Kuba without crying, and cannot bring myself to write his obituary as it hurts too much. I think of him often and miss him tremendously. I miss the bond and connection  that we shared, miss his eyes following me all the time. He took my breath away. Kuba (FC Zuzelek's Globetrotter) came from my first litter; I raised him and we spent 13.5 years together. I watched him change through the seasons of life, and finally he succumbed to old age and disease. How I wish dogs lived longer.

Above - Kuba in his prime, below - near the end. He loved to snooze in the laundry basket.

So who is your dog of a lifetime and why? Write in comments or send me an e-mail.

My favorite article on passion for tracking dogs

The article written by Kevin Armstrong is one my favorite ones. Originally it was published in 2006 in New York Bowhunters Full Draw, and later reposted on Deer Search's website. Regular readers of this blog are familiar with Kevin, a former President of New York Bowhunters, and his tracking dog Karma, who soon will celebrate her 5th birthday.

Karma, a sister to our Keena, was born on April 7, 2005. I remember the date very well as John's birthday is on April 7 too.The sire of this litter was our Billy, who back then was a very young dog himself. The dam was Gilda. This combination proved to be very successful, and we repeated this breeding later two more times. The two pictures show Kevin and his wife Kathy when they came to our place to pick up their puppy.

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Passages of a Well Seasoned Hunter and a Little Rooky Dog

by Kevin Armstrong,  for Full Draw 2006

There have been two constants in my life. Number one is a nearly obsessive interest in deer and deer hunting; the other is an abiding love for dogs, especially hunting dogs. Unfortunately, for the first fifty three years of my life these pastimes had to remain distinctly separate. In my world it was taboo to think of dogs and deer hunting together.

A connoisseur of hunting literature I had thrilled to the nineteenth century accounts of hounding deer in the Adirondack Mountains. I’ve spent countless fireside hours captivated by the deer hounding yarns of “Old Flintlock” (Archibald Rutledge) and his Christmas morning horseback deer drives. Where aided by a pack of fine deer hounds he and his cronies chased great stags through dense southern swamps, harvesting the noble bucks with heavy loads of buckshot fired through fine double barreled shotguns. I savored the works of Robert Ruark and William Faulkner, picturing in my mind the colorful characters, lanky tri-colored hounds and great bucks that inhabit their tales.

In the late 20th century New York sportsmen had the notion that deer and dogs mixed like oil and water, but despite this I long harbored a secret desire to blend my two loves. Alas, my deer/dog fantasies were doomed to remain in the closet. In most deer hunting circles I dared not even express my heretical interest.

Over the decades I assuaged my interest in dogs by hunting small game and upland birds. For rabbits and hares, I used my trusty, stubborn, little beagles. For upland birds I began with English Springer Spaniels eventually coming to favor pointing dogs, especially Brittany Spaniels.

I pursued big game, especially deer, with an assortment of firearms but early on developed a preference for the bow and arrow. After 15 years of deer hunting with compound bows equipped with all the bells and whistles I ended up where I began; using a bare recurve bow and heavy arrows. Life was good. I was nearly content. As the years went by I surrounded myself with serious bowhunters. I spent my autumns in deer camps and springs in bear camps where I gained a good deal of experience and a degree of expertise as a tracker.

Sometime in the early 1980’s I attended a New York State Conservation Council Big Game Committee meeting where Don Hickman and Roger Humeston gave a presentation on a revolutionary new concept: Deer Search. A perfect gentleman, Don laid out a very professional presentation. After the meeting Roger and I talked about recovering arrow wounded deer. I asked him a loaded question; what did he consider “the best” broadhead? Without hesitation he gave me an unambiguous answer. His answer and his reasoning delighted me. These guys were the real McCoy. They were savvy deer hunters and they were doing it! They had found an honorable, ethical way to combine dogs and deer hunting. The seed was planted.

Years passed, and as they passed I met other sportsmen and women who were finding great fulfillment in tracking wounded deer with their funny looking little dogs. I pestered Walt Dixon, John Engelken and others for stories of their tracking seasons. The devotion these folks showed for tracking impressed me. Unwilling to forgo my own bowhunting time I hesitated to get involved for nearly two decades. Then in 2004 John Jeanneney donated a copy of his new book Tracking Dogs for Finding Wounded Deer to New York Bowhunters, Inc. (NYB) to be used as a fund raiser. I was the lucky high bidder for the book. Before I was half way through I was sending John and Jolanta email. I found myself spending time on the Deer Search Inc. (DSI) web site and the Born-to-Track web site. I filled out an application and got myself on the waiting list for a puppy.

The Jeanneneys and I agreed that a female pup would keep peace in my pack of male housedog/hunting dogs. She was from the Jeanneney’s “2005 K litter”. My wife (Kathy) and I spent weeks before we brought the puppy home discussing various names, knowing all the time that puppies have a way of naming themselves. A couple of days before we were to pick up the pup Jolanta told us we needed a name beginning with K so she could fill out the pedigree papers. I asked Kathy for a name beginning with a K. Without hesitation she said “Karma”, Jolanta replied “that’s a wonderful name” and so it was.

The name stuck. In July 2005 I brought Karma home and introduced her to her new family; Punky the beagle, Magic the Brit, and Mohawk the bull/boxer mutt.

I was determined to get my DSI certification in the fall of 2005. In June we attended a DSI seminar. In August Kathy and I passed our New York tracking dog license certification tests. Gary Huber took me under his wing and became my Master Tracker. We started out the first weekend of the archery season. On our third call we found a nice eight pointer for a happy bowhunter in East Otto, New York. I was handling the more experienced lead dog when we made the find. What a thrill! After a difficult trail I spotted the dead buck first. “We’ve got your deer up here!”

As the bow season passed we followed quite a few trails. Most of them were clearly superficially wounded deer. I met and tracked with a number of fine dogs and experienced trackers as the weeks went by. I learned from each of them.

It was growing late in the bow season when I decided I had better get serious and shoot something or go skunked this year. On a sunny Saturday morning a spike horn that I had been passing up all season looked mighty good. He was ten yards away when I passed a razor sharp Woodsman broadhead between his ribs. Even though I knew he was fatally wounded and even though I had heard the deer crash fifty yards into the thicket, and even though the blood and arrow told the tale of a solid lung hit I could not resist the opportunity to go home and get Karma. After the last ten trails without a reward at the end I wanted her to follow a trail with a deer at the end of it. After the requisite calls to the Environmental Conservation Officer, Karma and I took up the short, hot, trail. Kathy tagged along and took photos. Karma found the deer in minutes fiercely attacking the carcass.

We had a couple more fruitless calls that week. Then one late afternoon near the end of the bow season the phone rang. The hunter had heard I was training a pup for deer search. He had a fatal hit on a nice buck but he had no blood. Rain was in the overnight forecast and the deer was in a coyote infested valley. Prudence dictated we wait at least six hours before taking up the trail. At 10:30 PM Karma and I met the hunter. At the hit sight the hair told us the arrow had entered the deer’s back and exited the paunch. The arrow showed evidence of a paunch hit but there were also a few tiny air bubbles near the fletching. There was not a drop of blood to be found.

The night air was cool, damp, and still. Seven month old Karma was straining to go as I switched her from her everyday collar to her tracking collar. As soon as I gave her a bit of slack she was off. The hunter confirmed that she was going in the right direction. My instinct told me to let her have her way for awhile. I asked the hunters to hang back a little way and look for blood. Karma nearly dragged me one hundred yards up hill through acres of dense thorny rose and wild grape tangles. Then at a low ridge she turned a hard right angle. We fought our way through another fifty yards of thorn and vine when my headlight caught the reflection of a deer’s eye. There he is! A fine buck lay crumpled between twin blow-down tree trunks, his antlers entangled in vines where he died on the run. “I’ve got your deer up here!” I called.

The next hour was one of the most pleasant hours of 2005. Photos were taken, tags were cut out and filled out, the deer was dressed and dragged and Karma and I basked in the praise of the hunters and the glory of the moment. That was the hour where I came to understand why the men and women of Deer Search so willingly give of themselves. Young Karma had passed a milestone with her first serious solo find. I had passed a milestone where I realized that my time spent working with my funny looking little dog, in service to a fellow hunter, to help find their deer, was at least as rewarding as my own hunting time. My deer/dog preoccupation had found a healthy outlet. Now I knew why all the DSI folks I had met along the way so happily go to such extremes to track deer. It had been a passage for the well seasoned hunter and the little rookie dog.

As I write the story she rests quietly at my side, both of us longing for the next season and our next trail together.

Kevin and Karma with Gary Huber and Keeta flank a hunter and his deer.

This was our first recovery of the 2005 bow season. 

 Kevin and Karma with the hunter at Karma’s first serious solo find.