Svante, 2 years old, is father of my new youngster Viljo. Svante's owner Tia Eskelinen of Finland tells us what happened.
"A man called us at 6.30pm on Friday that he has shoot a deer but they can't find it. They have checked one area but it's already dark and they need help. We just took our flashlights (that you can keep on your head) and a dog and drove to that hunting cabin you saw. We met the hunters there and drove to the place where they found some blood. It was about 7pm. They showed me that here is some blood and that is the way the deer run and I showed that blood to dog and said nothing - and he started tracking! I was so excited that I didn't remember to say the word "jälki" what I always use when we start tracking. He did so well, all the time I knew that he is on line. He was full of energy but still calm, he tracked very carefully. Once he spend more time checking under trees (maybe deer has been lying there a while) and few times he smelled ground more carefully (maybe there was some more blood, I didn't see, it was so dark). I was checking the area all the time and then I saw it, deer was lying down on ground. I told shooter that goes to check that deer and very soon I let the dog go to see the deer. Svante has never seen deer before and first he looked that like thinking "oh no WHAT is that?!". Very soon he realised that it's not going to kill him and oh he was sooo proud! His ego filled the whole forest! After tracking we were so proud of Svante, his career couldn't start any better!"
Good job, Svante, Tia and Jarkko! Here's to many more deer recovered!
I found out when I was in Finland in August that the Finns imported whitetails from the States in something like the '40s. Today they have a very healthy whitetail population and whitetails are a favorite game animal. (But not more favorite than the moose!)
"A man called us at 6.30pm on Friday that he has shoot a deer but they can't find it. They have checked one area but it's already dark and they need help. We just took our flashlights (that you can keep on your head) and a dog and drove to that hunting cabin you saw. We met the hunters there and drove to the place where they found some blood. It was about 7pm. They showed me that here is some blood and that is the way the deer run and I showed that blood to dog and said nothing - and he started tracking! I was so excited that I didn't remember to say the word "jälki" what I always use when we start tracking. He did so well, all the time I knew that he is on line. He was full of energy but still calm, he tracked very carefully. Once he spend more time checking under trees (maybe deer has been lying there a while) and few times he smelled ground more carefully (maybe there was some more blood, I didn't see, it was so dark). I was checking the area all the time and then I saw it, deer was lying down on ground. I told shooter that goes to check that deer and very soon I let the dog go to see the deer. Svante has never seen deer before and first he looked that like thinking "oh no WHAT is that?!". Very soon he realised that it's not going to kill him and oh he was sooo proud! His ego filled the whole forest! After tracking we were so proud of Svante, his career couldn't start any better!"
Good job, Svante, Tia and Jarkko! Here's to many more deer recovered!
I found out when I was in Finland in August that the Finns imported whitetails from the States in something like the '40s. Today they have a very healthy whitetail population and whitetails are a favorite game animal. (But not more favorite than the moose!)