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| Chris DiPietro with a recovered deer in 2012. |
On March 22 we were shocked to learn that Tom and Christine DiPietro, both 59, from Jericho, VT, died due to the accidental carbon monoxide poisoning. Their three dogs, Scout, Filou and Addie, died with them. For more information about it go HERE. Poughkeepsie Journal published the full obituary.
This
article about Tom and Chris DiPietro from Jericho, VT, was written five years
ago - see http://vtsports.com/deer-tracking-dachshunds/
.
It is impossible to express the impact of Tom and Chris's death in a couple of short paragraphs. People who were close to them have been grieving deeply.
Their
lives touched so many people, and this sentiment has been expressed with such
emotion by many of their tracking friends, who were started in the field and supported by Tom
and Chris.
I received this e-mail from Tom 15 years ago:
"My name
is Tom DiPietro and I live and track in Northern Vermont. I came to Vermont
nine years ago when my company transferred me to its Essex Junction plant from
Dutchess County New York where I grew up. My love for tracking started many
years ago when I was a bow hunter in New York. One day I made a poor shot on a
doe, after searching all day, I failed to recover the deer and called a number
I had received at a local sportsman show for a group called Deer Search. The
Deer Search volunteers came out and assisted me in tracking the deer, which we
never found. I was very impressed with the way the small Wirehaired Dachshund
worked the trail and the dedicated handlers who gave their time to help a
person they didn’t know.
After
moving to Vermont, due to the demands of a new job, my family adjusting to
their new home and being unfamiliar with the hunting area, I didn’t hunt as
much as I would have liked to. As I became more familiar with the area
and my life settled down, I found myself drawn back to the woods. A few
years ago I heard about a man named Tim Nichols who had helped pass legislation
legalizing leased dog tracking in Vermont similar to the service that I was so
impressed with many years ago in New York. I called Tim and he helped me
to obtain a tracking license in Vermont. Now all I needed was a
dog. I contacted a breeder in western New York, who does blood tracking
with Wirehaired Dachshunds and had just had a litter of puppies, so I decided
to go out and take a look. I came home with a three-month old male puppy
whose nose seemed as long as his body and my son named him Musket."
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| Musket's first deer |
In December 2001 this email arrived showing how serious Tom and his tracking family and friends were about helping hunters:. This was a summary of their 2nd tracking season.
Well tracking fans the year has finally come to a close.
I have some mixed feelings on this: I'm glad to no longer be waiting for calls
but at the same time I want to be in the woods and find some deer. It drove me
nuts when we went out for an evening, then found out I'd missed a call and lost
an opportunity to find a deer.
We did much better this year getting out on calls taking
24 of the 37 calls we received. Last year we took 26 of 44 so that shows some
improvement. Calls were definitely down this year because of last year's winter
kill but the lack of snow in VT extended our season 3 weeks over last year and
we came close in the total number of calls. Perhaps the best improvement we had
was in the number of finds we had: 12 of 24 for a exceptional 50% find rate.
When you add to this the fact that we actually came up with 2 other deer that
we found but determined they were okay and stopped chasing, and 2 more that we
didn't find but they were seen alive later in the season I think we had a
season that far exceeded our hopes. For comparison sake we found only 6 last
year.
A few more numbers of interest: our avg call time was 9
hours after the hunter shot and the avg time of the deer we found was 7.8 hours.
We did get some interesting feedback from a guy I tracked
for last year and didn't find his deer. Last year he shot a deer in the
shoulder with his rifle and we had a very good run, but came up empty. Well
this year he shot a deer in the same area that had a broken leg and a nasty
healed over wound on the same side as the one he wounded last year. We believe
it was the same deer that survived the year, what a great animal!
As far as our
last 4 finds we had one very easy run where the deer made a quick turn and lost
the hunter. Musket and I never even got to the last blood before Musket turned
left and started down a trail. The hunter was saying: no, the blood is over here, you are going backwards. I was starting to pull Musket in when I noticed a smear
of blood on a tree. I let him go and within 15 - 20 yards we had the deer. The
deer had executed a little J maneuver and I had to tell the hunter twice before it sunk in that we had the deer that quickly. We could still see his boat in
the backyard.
Another find was
in Craftsbury over an hour away and perhaps one of our best tracking jobs of
the year. We went a long, long way with no sign before we found a single drop
of blood. The hunter had walked out on the same trail the evening before so we
had our doubts but Muskie was working well so we stuck with him and went a long
way again before we found another spot of blood. The hunter was quite impressed
and studying the blood spot when the trail got hot and we found a few more good
spots of blood and then the dead deer. Something else had found it before us
and a fair chunk of one hind quarter was missing and leaves had been thrown
over the deer. We could have given up on the trail a number of times but Musket
"looked" like he was working so we didn't quit and ended up with a very impressive find. Chris was with us and we followed the guy to the check
station where we enjoyed celebrity status.
We had another
very exciting chase on a four point buck 41 hours after he was shot. Someone
else had tracked the deer the prior evening but they couldn't get a shot into
it. We went out the next day and took up the trail from where the first tracker
had started the previous evening. We eventually kicked the deer up (this was 41
hours after the shot and he was still alive!!! Like I said what a animal) after a short chase and a few
more shots we had him down. It ended up the hunter had not shot him in the gut
as he had indicated but shot his front leg completely off. Yes: "off
" and the bullet also passed through into his other leg so he was running
on 2 and a half legs. Chris says it was really a unfair chase because 3 people,
3 guns and 2 different dogs seems a little unfair. But it was really a good
find because this deer was coyote bait for sure.
The last deer was another rifle shot that the hunter lost
the trail after a long track. We re-established the track very quickly and took
it to the deer in just a few minutes. This was another very impressed hunter
who we had to tell twice that we had the deer because he didn't think a little
dog could be that good.
In review the
season was great, we found 12 deer but we were able to share the finds with
Rei, TJ, Danny, Scott Lopez, Scott's friend Joe, and Chrissy. I think the most fun day was with Rei, TJ, Danny and
Scott where we found 2 deer.
I can't wait till
next year, I'll be losing Scott Lopez to college but Chris is going to get
licensed and we will be running Filly and Musket which is sure to be a great
team. We've learned a ton this year and made some equipment improvements. I
never mentioned the night my light died and I had to stop and go back the next
day.
In my opinion Musket was the best.
Tom got Musket from Sue Redden, a Deer Search tracker from Western NY. Sue bred
her Sage von Moosbach-Zuzelek, our Sabina’s littermate, to a male that had been
bred by Gary Huber. Sage was a small, feisty female, who turned out to be a
very good tracker. Musket, her son, lived to be 14.5 and found 148 deer for
Vermont hunters.
Tom
seemed to be a bit impulsive when it came to getting puppies. I remember he
came to us to get a backup dog for Musket, and at the time the only pup we had
was Filou von Moosbach-Zuzelek. She did not look too promising, but Tom did not
want to wait for the next litter and got her. The arrangement was that he could
return her within next few months. He kept her. In spite of a pretty good
tracking start, she never turned out to be a decent tracking dog. At one point
she was placed with a new family but she missed her old home too much and came
back to live with Tom and Chris as their pet. She died with them at almost 15.
In fall 2003 Tom
came back to us to get another dachshund, and around that time Filou’s sister
Fredrika (Rica) became available. In October he wrote:
John, I wanted to give you a quick update on our
last few days and Rica's progress. First off, while we were gone the boys took
two calls and found one so we didn't miss much while down at your house.
Saturday night we got a call where the hunter indicated a shot through the body
cavity but he wasn't sure exactly where. I took both dogs out with Scott
handling Musket and Rica with me. We put the dogs down and Musket started the
track while Rica ran off a little to the right. Once Musket was gone I
restarted Rica and she marched along the track that Musket had taken. She
appeared to be tracking so I let her do her thing. When we caught up to the
others they had just gotten to the point of loss and Musket was doing some
checks. Rica never faltered and marched right through! With us now leading the
way we covered 50 yards when Rica turned left up the side of a cut corn field.
Musket reached the point where we had turned and stayed straight, found blood,
and continued the track. We followed for quite a distance when we reached a
point that Musket was having trouble and we fared no better. Musket eventually
restarted the track and we were off again but I kept Rica back behind on the
trail. We reached another field where Musket was having trouble and once again
Rica marched through without hesitation. With us now leading we crossed a
stream and recrossed again. Just when I was thinking we were lost we picked up
some blood to confirm the track, found her bed and kicked the deer up! Not long
after finding the bed we lost the track and never regained it but I was
thrilled with her first track and the way her and Musket had worked their own trails but
combined to have a very impressive track
In 2006 Larry Gohlke leased Fredrika (he raised
her) and bred her to Susanne Hamilton’s Buster. This litter produced Danika and Nix;
Cheri Faust’s Danika is an all-time #1 field trial dachshund in the States. Tom
had one more litter out of Fredrika and Buster, and Scout and Avy came out of that breeding.
The last time I saw Tom, Christine, their son TJ and his wife Laura was at a tracking workshop organized by the United Blood Trackers in New Hampshire. The pictures below were taken during the workshop.
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| Chris DiPietro |
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| Chris DiPietro |
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| TJ and Tom DiPietro and Sally Marchmont |
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| TJ and Tom DiPietro with Dan Valdez |
The original motivation for tracking was to spend time with my husband,
Tom, who loved tracking more than hunting. I love to be in the woods
and he would always ask me to go with him, so I would go and help him
spot blood. I also love a working dog and truly enjoyed watching Musket
unravel the puzzle to find the deer. My motivation to continue is to
train our newest tracking dogs, Scout (WHD) and Addie (BMH) and to help
the hunting community find their deer. It is very rewarding to find a
deer that the hunter could not find him/herself. My favorite weekend to
track is our Youth weekend. It makes you feel so good to help a young
hunter find his/her very first deer. Other motivations are that it
keeps me in good health and you meet so many interesting people. I
remember my first years of tracking, I would be so exhausted. Running
up & down mountains and through swamps and thickets is very tiring.
Tom and I started training for sprint triathlons to keep us in shape
for the "tracking" season. Just another thing we could do together. Now
I can track for hours and still get up the next day and do it all over
again. The hunters are very appreciative when we come out to help them
and we have made many friends through our tracking connections. I love
the time I get to spend with Tom, in the woods with my dogs. It's my
favorite time of year.
Our deepest condolences and sympathy go to the DiPietro family and their friends such as Susanne Hamilton, Sally Marchmont and Scott Lopez. Tom and Chris lost their lives way too soon but they made difference in this world and they will never be forgotten. RIP.
