As some of you regulars may recall, I had to put down my beloved "Mojo" last winter, mid-season due to an auto-immune blood disease that he was not able to whip. More or less left my season flat.

I "rescued" a daughter of Mojo's (his only sired litter) as the result of a far more devastating tragedy. The owner, a young Auburn coed, was killed by a drunk driver about three years ago. Her mother asked me to take Ellie back and give her a good home.

I started her blood trailing training about 3 months ago. I used deer blood diluted with water. Laid a track about every other day for a couple of weeks, increasing the difficulty each time and using raw deer meat "treats" as a reward for following and completing the track.

About a month ago I thought I had lost her for good after she was bitten in the face by a 4 1/2' timber rattler. Fortunately only 1 fang injected and thanks to a great vet and anti-venom, she recovered quickly.

I am not so slick on the IT stuff but did manage to get a You Tube set up of her blood trailing her first deer. This was also the first deer Ellie had ever seen. It was only about 250 yards total length. Later in the week she found 3 more. Two were easy tracking .... about like this one. However, one was a track of what we guessed to be over 3/4 mile. Included a doubling back, a creek crossing, tracking across pine straw, down dusty woods roads, and pushing though lots of heavy under brush ... it was a big doe that had been hit low and forward, just missing the heart. Frankly we were all amazed at how Ellie Mae never once checked up and the fact that this was only her 3 rd. tracking ever. I'm 99% sure that she has the "gift".

You can look for the video on You Tube if you'd like to see her at work. Search under "Ellie Mae Tracking". To say the least I am proud of her. I apologize for not being more adept at this stuff.