Had a fun day today

[Kenneth]

I went out this morning. I took the wife along, because she hasn't had a chance to see a lion in a tree. She hasn't even had a chance to see the dogs work much. In fact, when we caught the last lion with krk hunting and I called her to tell her about the lion, she said, "you suck!" when I asked her if she could hear the dogs barking treed in the background. Conditions for finding a track were terrible. The snow was frozen. The snow got too deep for the quads. Where there wasn't any snow, the mud was frozen. I finally found a track at about 8 AM. It was frozen. The track was headed north. My young dogs couldn't start it. They didn't even offer to follow it at all. I decided to come back to it after it had thawed for a couple hours.

We rode for about half an hour and found another track running east down a road following a creek. The track was clear and crisp, but it was frozen, too. When I dropped the dogs, they didn't seem interested. Unlike the first track, I was able to follow this one by sight for about 2/3 of a mile. I led my young dogs down the track, but they seemed more content to just pull on the lead in any direction but the way the lion track went.

When I pulled my young male off the lead and let him have the track, he put his nose back on the ground and started to follow the track. He started following it faster and faster. In short order he was almost a 1/4 mile away. Hind sight being 20/20, I think he over-runs a track a lot. He's a little too eager for his abilities right now. He was ready to go even after being chewed up a bit by a javelina last week. My wife and I jumped on the quads, and my dog promptly came back to us. Tons of frustration and I know I'm in for more in the future. Like I said, I was able to follow the track by sight for about 2/3 of a mile. I could see where that lion walked up and down the creek bottom. It seemed to be strolling around aimlessly. We couldn't find a kill anywhere, but it would have been easy to miss one in that thick brush. I lost the track in the rocky soil. My dogs didn't have any more interest, so I told my wife, "let's go check that first track."

We made our way back to where we found the first track. I followed it out and back-tracked it by myself so I could lead my dogs down it as far as possible. I put my young male on the lead again, and he just pulled in every direction except the right one. I felt the frustation building. By this time, about two hours had passed since we found this track, and the temperature was about ten or fifteen degrees warmer.

I was ready to put the dog back in the box and go home, but I thought maybe I should let this little dog have his head again. I let him go and he went straight to the track. Then he slowly walked down it with his nose to the ground. He walked along with his tail wagging slightly and his nose waving side to side on the ground. He worked this track much slower than the last one.

When the track crossed the stream, that little dog lost the track for about five minutes, but he trailed up stream and then back down. He cut a few circles then he went back to the opposite side of the stream where he lost the track. The ground was rocky enough I couldn't see a track. He picked up right where he left off. He found the track and folowed it about thirty yards up the road, then he trailed straight up hill. I looked at the bank on the north side of the road and saw the lion track heading uphill and into the brush. My little dog worked up the hillside and to the next road a few yards ahead. Then he started to the north again along the road.

When I got to the road, I couldn't see the track, and my wife was yelling to me where the dog was going. My dog came back to me and started searching the ground in about fifty yard circles. After a few minutes of that, my little dog headed up the hill again. When I looked at the track my dog was following, I saw the lion track here was going downhill.

I called my dog and turned him around. He came back to me, then right on by me to the area near where I last saw the track headed uphill. He worked for a while and ust couldn't seem to line the track out any more. And I was absolutely no help to him since I couldn't find any more tracks, either.

All in all, it took that little dog about twenty or thirty minutes to go only a couple hundred hards, but I was happy with the fact that he was trying to work that track out, and that he slowed down to do it. I gave him tons of praise and headed back to my wife who had the other dogs.

My wife and I covered about 20 miles with the quads today, and she had a big old grin most of the time. We saw a few deer. We didn't get to see a lion, and hell, we didn't even get to really trail one, but it was a great day nonetheless. I was able to enjoy the day with my wife, and she was able to get away from the house for a while. That little dog trying so hard to work that track out was a success for me, even if it may have been a small one. Baby steps...

[twowalkers]

that sounds like a good day with the wife and hounds to me

[pat_kemp]

Sounds like an awesome time to me not to mention some good training for your young dog. Get back out and put one up this time.. But make sure you have your wife she might be mad if shes not there.. (: