Don,

I wanted to send you a picture and tell you a story about Beaux. As you know it's only been about 4 weeks since I got Beaux back from your kennel. Since getting him back we have been doing the weekly training needed to prepare him for the upcoming deer season. Well, this past weekend our season opened for us and we had one of our club members that was hunting with his 8 year old son. The weather was hot and the mosquitos were bad so I decided to leave Beaux back at my house instead of leaving him in the boat while we hunted. About 8 am I heard a shot in the distance that sounded like a direct hit to me. I sent a text to my buddy and he said that his son had shot a nice buck. I let him know I would be picking everyone up in about 30 minutes and we would come and help him retrieve his deer. Once I finished rounding up everyone we headed his way. When we arrived he hadn't found his deer yet so me and the other 5 guys I was with continued to help him look. We couldn't find blood , hair or anything. We covered the area with 8 people for about an hour and a half and did not come up with anything. It was about 1130 in the am and we decided to call it quits thinking he must of missed the deer.

Once we got back to the trucks my buddy was reliving the hunt and he said that it was funny because when he shot the doe the buck was with and a smaller buck just stood there but the buck he shot at jumped up and took off. Immediately I said well you definitely must of hit him. I decided to call my brother who was in town about 20 minutes from where we were hunting and asked him to swing by my house and pick up Beaux because our buddies son shot a nice buck and he was pretty bummed out that we couldn't find it. He said he would go pick up Beaux and meet us. He met us at the landing about 45 minutes later and we all jumped in his boat and went back to the spot where the deer was shot. Without any blood or hair or anything to get Beaux to "Check IT" I really was not sure how things would go. I put his harness on him and connected his lead and we jumped out the boat downwind of where we thought he had shot the deer. After Beaux stopped for a bathroom break I told him to find it, he immediately started working, after going maybe 75 yards he threw his head up in the air and you could tell he was on to something. He went another 20 yards or so air scenting as he went, he stopped and smelled a bush , when he did I was right behind him and could not see anything visible on the bush, he then turned and went straight ahead on a mission, I was almost to the end of the lead when he took a left behind some thick brush, once I made my turn around the bush he was sitting next to the deer . I yelled back that he had found the deer and everyone was very happy especially the 8 year old that shot him. The funny thing is we looked for this deer for over an hour with 8 guys and Beaux found the deer before my brother could take his tennis shoes off and put his boots on. This deer would have been buzzard meat if I would not have had Beaux without a doubt. Thanks again for your help in developing such an awesome dog.

Mark

Since being trained in March of 2012 at ABCANTRA, my Catahoula, Bella and I have been practicing in the woods by the house in anticipation of deer season this fall. During those long hot months in the south Louisiana summer, I have endured mosquito bites, great loss of blood, and countless ripped shirts, keeping up with her as she dashed through the briars in search of countless pieces of deer hide. In all of those practice runs, some as long as 150 yards, she has never failed to find the hidden hides. So, it was with great anticipation that I awaited her first opportunity to track a real deer this fall. That opportunity came on the evening of November 10th, the day before her first birthday. A friend shot a doe that evening in a group of eight deer in the food plot. He watched it run through the woods and lost sight of it as it disappeared into the briars. I put Bella on a few blood drops in the plot and we were off to the races. Needless to say, less than five minutes, and 100 yards later, she was licking on her first trophy! Now, I can't wait to find that buck for the next hunter who thinks he has lost his trophy for good. Thanks Don, and ABCANTRA for making that first find so memorable, and I am sure there will be many more to come.

Keith A. Barré
Covington, LA