A couple of months ago I got a call to work with a client that had a particular dilemma. He is a hunter and last year a deer that he had wounded managed to escape and he wasn’t able to find it. Now for hunters this is a VERY bad thing. It’s not managing the wildlife correctly and it’s wasteful.

So, Ken, being the good, responsible hunter that he is decided that he would never let that happen again so he wanted to train his new Patterdale Terrier pup to track wounded deer so that he would never loose another one.

I won’t go into detail of how we did all this tracking work (lots of time out in the cactus studded woods gives you some idea) but this little dog was a natural born tracker.

Zada, the pup, has the true traits of all great Patterdales, she is VERY TENACIOUS. That means that if the trail of the deer went over a cactus, so did Zada. It just didn’t matter what she had to go through to find the deer, she would do it!

Imagine my surprise last night when Ken sent me some pictures of little Miss Zada tracking a Squirrel. Well, now, I’ve never exactly taught a dog to track squirrels but it looks like Ken’s been working on this and, as expected, Zada is doing her dogged best to find whatever she’s told to look for.

So, take a look at the pictures below of Zada tracking her quarry and know that she is only the second dog I’ve ever seen that can literally climb trees!

And, by the way, Zada doesn’t need the fire department to come help her down from 20 feet up in the trees.

Enjoy!

Steve Haynes
Austin Dog Trainer
Fidelio Dog Works
www.fideliodogblog.com

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