Little taste of the real life

This weekend, during the hunt, we managed to wound one male red deer. Our country boys are really stupid and went searching for it right away with three Laikas and one Labrador. They totally ruined the track. But.... there was one part of the track untouched. So I took Ruudi and tried the "real thing" the next day because I thought I knew exactly where it ends - on the field crossing the path. The rest of the track was already ruined.

But the real life is different. It was raining (has been raining the whole night) and the track was 20 h old. Ruudi is too confident and he started running fast - I just don't know the method to slow him down - I tried but.... he made he's first mistake after about 200 m (look on the map) and even didn't notice it. I felt that something is wrong (becasue I wasn't sure even myself where the track is) because I didn't see any footprints. So I went back to the place I was sure the track is and we continued from that place. And the track WENT ACTUALLY THAT OTHER WAY!

It used to be a lot of blood visibe on the ground the day before but this day I didn't see anything and Ruudi also passed the resting place (so we missed it). All in all it went totally wrong and I cotinued the path just so, to see how Ruudi behaves.

It wasn't difficult for him to find the second resting place. Maybe it was because it had a lot of blood or because we went along this the day before. At the second resting place it was me who found the track because Ruudi was totally confused (because the track was already ruined the day before). But.... Ruudi started going along that and again made a mistake after a while because it was visible that there were no footprints. So I went back to the last footprint and we continued.

The last part of the tracking was already unclear to me. I didn't see any evident footprints and Ruudi was following something.... yes, it was a footprint but was it this deer, I don't know. Our forests are full of animals and therefore footprints. It is so difficult to differentiate. And blood was not anymore on the track at the end. Specially when it has been raining the whole time.

To conclude, I hope Ruudi didn't get any permanent damage because of that. The weather was absolutely awful, the track was 20 hours old and ruined buy other dogs and humans, and it was HALF IN WATER. Ruudi had to manage tracking in the water like this:


Water was freezing but Ruudi somehow didn't mind.

The map: 4,4 km, 2 hours and 30 minutes.

• First mistake - because Ruudi(me) was too fast and stupid.
  
• Second mistake - I can forgive this because the track was already ruined.
  
• Epic fail - the track was already ruined but Ruudi didn't smell the ground enough.