Team 12-Legger hits the woods

Some of you may be wondering what we have been up to, but most of you probably have not.  I shall fill you in anyway.

Meet Team 12-Legger… well most of the team, the Mr. is missing (he was positioning the trail cam).  We have banded together to roam the woods in search of Deer antlers.  They have been dropping them for the past month or so, but more so in the past week or two.

So just about every outing with the pups has been in search of these antlers.  We were hoping Wyatt could help us find them, but we simply have not put enough training into him yet for all that.

Though he might not know exactly what we are looking for, he is  happy to join us in the search.  And he does manage to find deer bones. I guess that is a given as he gets to eat those so it is normal for him to want to find those… the deer poop he finds and eats I could do without.

And if you were wondering about Luna, she has been on these adventures too.  Running and combing the woods like the energizer bunny that she is, looking for anything that is breathing.  Some might wonder why I don’t use her to find the antlers as she would have a lot more stamina, it all comes down to the retrieve.  I will not lie, Luna does not enjoy retrieving nearly as much as Wyatt… not even close.  The whole idea is to teach a fetch sort of game at first with antlers… then eventually move on to a bit of hide and seek with the idea that they will bring them to you for praise when they find them.  Luna likes finding things for sure, but I wouldn’t put it past her to just leave them there and not bring them back as she really is not a retriever fan. But maybe one day if I feel she might want to learn this I will.  I have no doubt with Wyatt’s desire to please and retrieve he will put two and two together and begin to find them and bring them to me. I don’t have as many good pictures of her on these outings as I have not been bringing the big camera much, and she tends to stay out ahead as most pointers like to do.

After the hours of shed hunting we have managed to come up with a couple. But not nearly as many as we had hoped. All of the ones I have found have been chewed on by critters.  Your dogs are not the only ones who like to chew these antlers.  Mice, squirrels, rabbits, and any other rodent like creatures seek them out for the calcium and minerals in them.

  

Case in point I found one today that was in the creek… what we figure is that a squirrel was trying to carry it across the creek and it fell in.  Each of the tips was already chewed on but buried in the mud so that had to have fallen there after it was chewed on.

Antlers were not the only discoveries during our hours in the woods. The dogs had a blast jumping up deer, woodcock, rabbits, and even quite a few turkey.  Today Wyatt jumped another woodcock up (look them up if you don’t know what they are, they are hilarious looking) and it flew right in front of me, I could have reached out and touched it. Pretty darn cool, Wyatt had a look on his face afterwards as if to say “what just happened??!?”  Luna went on point near a big bush, and when I got up close Wyatt noticed and came over to see what she was pointing and a rabbit shot out. Both took off after it and I actually heard Luna attempt to bark in her pursuit, she wanted that rabbit BAD but we called them off due to the fact that they probably would have gone to China after that rabbit, and it was thick cover.  It had them both hunting hard after that, and I am happy to say both barely made it onto the couch when we got home.  Now I gotta go see if I can manage to wake the Mr. up.  I think we have just about exhausted our shed efforts for this year, but at least it gives us something to look for when we are out walking.

Time for some well earned dinner for all