A story by Tom Monehan
"Well we did a little something this past weekend while down in Mississippi at the Scenic rivers dog training event. We tested for a UBT3 we passed!!!
First left to right JJ Scarborough, Lindsay Kiefer,Cecelia Steel,Chad Tate,Kenny Wall,Katie Sanderson,Crystal Faith and behind the camera Eric Sanderson there is some tracking power in that pic of which im the least. All of which either were part of it or followed along. I had a plan going into the test. Follow Bear try not to mess him up. Besides getting him there that was my only job. I still managed to get us 1 call back. It’s my understanding at the start point they did a grid with dogs for a bit. Then went a ways and drug a hide across the track at some point. We got to the first article it was a hoof. Bear thought it was over. I sometimes leave them at the end and we play with them. Took me a bit to refocus him. He was eating grass ,feeling stressed as was I. So i watered and gave him some love back to work he went. Got to a major distraction! Goat tied off in the middle of a field. I pushed him some. He wasn’t ignoring it fast enough for my liking. Like I knew where the line went SMH. That was our call back. All my fault. We bounced back from it. Then the trail went past a live coon in a cage right next to the line. He ignored it after a quick “ leave it “ command. Then shots were fired!! Got to the hunter in a stand Lindsay was jawing me for being in her area lol. Her shots must of hit something on the buck, found an article by her.( nutsack)I talked but was focused on where the corner ended up being.Bear worked it out. Off we went into a low spot behind a lake dam. Scent pool city. He worked his way right through it. Got to the top of the dam and found a dead large bird of some kind not part of the test. He worked through it and took us to the lake edge where a fisher women (Crystal)had found our deer and captured it on her boat. We ended up finding 4 of the articles I think Bear put his nose on the 5th but I didn’t go look. All this was at Chad Tate’s beautiful home. Thank you
Was happy about several things JJ is the first tracker that I had heard about using a Labrador to track deer and part of why I went with the breed. His dog Rosie was a legend!! They are in “ John Jeanneney’s book”Katie gave me our UBT1 and 2 tests it was only fitting for her to be there to see how much we have grown. Cecelia was along as an apprentice on my 2 couldn’t have been happier for her to be one of the judges on this 3.
Thank you family and tracking family for all your help and support you all have given us. If I go into individual thank you’s this post will never end."
