08/14/2025
“God sent her when I didn’t even know i needed her.” Our story, part one.
As the season approaches i thought I would start the story from the beginning of this journey.
I think I started tracking in the usual way, lost a trophy deer that devastated me. This was 13 years ago and tracking was newly legal in the state and dogs just weren’t available in my area. Fast forward a couple of seasons when my husband wounded a doe that we knew was going to expire but couldn’t find. 3 weeks later while out hiking I found her. She had backtracked and huddled in. We had walked past her several times but couldn’t see her. Something snapped with that and i resolved to take steps to do something about it.
I immediately went inside and started researching tracking breeds. I told Ron that I wanted to get a tracking dog, he was like go for it. Two of my girls had just moved to TX and I had met a Blue Lacy there, I was completely enamored and when I saw they were tracking dogs it was a done deal. In the meantime we unexpectedly got a beagle pup so she was my first test subject lol. (Shes a bang up little tracker also actually but doesnt get much work)
I connected with a breeder in TX, Johnathon Wright, he had a litter on the way and even though the wait was hard I was ecstatic! She was imprinted on deer at birth and was exposed to deer scent and then trailing immediately. She had a fantastic foundation! I have videos and photos of her since she was born and i absolutely knew what I was getting- a gritty little HELL CAT! (I’ll plop a video of her in the comments).
I drove the 15 hours to Houston to pick her up and it was love at first sight! I was absolutely smitten and spoiled her rotten -and almost completely ruined her being so ignorant at the time on proper training of a high drive working dog. Jinx was a respite from life, from the fact that I had just experienced a huge loss and was about to go through another as my dad was suffering and getting closer to the end. My kids were grown and either in their PHD, Masters or undergrad with the baby in high school. She became my emotional tether and changed the course of my life, changed me. Maybe even Saved Me in a way. God sent her when i didnt even know that i needed her.
We trained every day. I was obsessed!!! Obsessed with tracking, training, Jinx- she went everywhere with me, even to work. I had no tracking mentor, knew no other trackers so it was just me, a book on training tracking dogs by John Jeaneneny and any videos I could find AND any hunter that would let us come out- and word got out pretty quickly that she was here to help. By the time she was three months old she was pretty much training me, she was a MACHINE and I introduced her to man trailing just to change it up and challenge her. She was so enthusiastic and FAST, I got hurt a lot in those early seasons bc of her mini freighter activities in the beginning, thankfully we slowed down around year 5 but you would be surprised at the strength in 43lbs of pure muscle.
When that first season started she was only 7 months old but we had trained so hard and she had such incredible grit and drive that we were having a ton of success with our oldest recovery being at something like that 44 hour mark. I was hooked! I went from being an avid hunter that bagged a half dozen animals a season to willingly (hell, eagerly) leaving the stand to go track a deer. The high of recovery was my drug and I was addicted. Literally Im serious here, it was the most fun Ive ever had. I dont think i can even put into words how it feels to have your dog turn and look at you and you KNOW, just know shes saying “ i messed this up, we need to go back, can you help me” or that shes saying “hey, that scent isnt here, i can keep going but we aint finding this deer” OR even “dude we about to come up on this deer ALIVE and its about to get JIGGY”. You are so tuned in that it’s no longer actual reads but just the energy between the two of you. It’s incredible, indescribable.
Early on we discover a FB page for Missouri Trackers and joined that. Wow did THAT really open a whole new world for me! But that’s part two. Stay tuned.
