This should make you feel good. My dog was a finished duck dog that spent most of the time in Arkansas duck hunting and at work with me. I leased my place to an oil company form LA in 2010 and they shot some deer like 75 a year on average. Needless to say tracking deer became a must over the years I've lost count but if the deer was hit or blood was found so was the deer especially gut shot. I believe that over time that tracking deer was more enjoyable for the dog because of the challenge. I'm not ashamed to say that I literally broke down the day that dog died. I have had a many a hunting buddy tell me I'll never have another one like that and most of them had fine dogs themselves but the difference was very easy to see. Drive is the best word the dang dog didn't know how to fail and could adapt to any situation and had the best nose I've ever seen. My pup has some big shoes to fill but I seen a lot of similarities
That’s awesome!....It’s good to know that Shelby comes from a good line of dogs like that. There’s no doubt she’s not your everyday lab. I’ve been working with her some on shed hunting and she’s like a machine. Her puppy excitement doesn’t cause her as much issues hunting sheds as it does with blood tracking. I’ve went ahead and mowed part of my property into rows like you would see in quail hunting setups so we could start working more. I hid 3 sheds this morning along a loop and she found them all within a matter of a few minutes and brought them too me. I’m gonna talk to a couple landowners I track for and see if they’ll let me take her on a true shed hunt this spring. There’s one high fence property that would be ideal for training. I found two sheds off the edge of a food plot in there earlier this year on just a short blood track.
