I have written before about my little Jack Russel Terrier named Walker…

Well as mentioned Walker has always been kind of slow… and I was ready to give up on ever using her as a hunting dog…

But she recently surprised me and I thought I’d share it with you.

Friends of mine were visiting me this past weekend to hunt Bushbuck here on Sabrisa and I was under a little bit of pressure to get them their animals as we only had two hunting days…

My one friend shot a nice Bushbuck on his first day of hunting which alleviated the pressure somewhat…

On the 2nd day we didn’t get anything in the morning and after a siesta in the afternoon we left for the afternoon hunt… As we got into the hunting truck Walker came out of the house with a longing look in her eyes (even though she had been of much use as a tracking dog she really enjoys going out with me) and I decided on the spur of the moment to take her with us.

Well, things weren’t going well on the afternoon hunt either and sunset was approaching when a bushbuck unexpectedly crossed the road about 80 yards ahead of us and we immediately stopped, got out and started the stalk… Being completely focused on the stalk, I didn’t even think of taking Walker with me and left her behind with the driver on the truck.

We saw the bushbuck behind some brush shortly afterwards and I told my friend to take the shot. It was clearly a hit, yet the bushbuck took off and ran to our left… I radioed the driver to come closer and when they arrived I picked up Walker and carried her to the spot where he was when my friend took the shot… At this point I was more than a little bit concerned about finding the bushbuck before it was dark…

I started looking for tracks and walked in the general direction of where the bushbuck had ran off to. Walker, on the other hand seemed to be messing around in the area where I had put her down so I was not paying too much attention to her at first…

While I was scanning the surrounding area for the bushbuck, some blood or at least tracks of it, I also kept an eye on Walker… and then something quite amazing happened… She suddenly seemed to come alive, lifted her nose and started purposefully running in a direction parallel to me… then coming to a halt on three legs with her one front leg lifted into he air as if pointing towards something…

I looked at her, and looked at her again… and there – right in front of her was the dead bushbuck under a tree about 20 yards from me…

This was the first animal that Walker had successfully tracked and it made me immensely proud. One thing is or sure… unless I can help it I’m never leaving on a hunt without her again…


This is a picture of my friend and the bushbuck… not a monster but it was his first bushbuck and measured just a tad short of 14â€. Walker can be seen on the right sniffing on her first bushbuck.

Good hunting!

Chris Troskie

Jack Russells are great little dogs with a lot of heart.

Looks like everyone is pleased in the picture!

Chris,

I've found the JR's very helpful a couple of times. Even if the animal is stone dead they can save you lots of mucking about as they will go direct to the animals.

Last year we had a 7 month old JR Tombie Fick with us when we finally jumped our very much alive wounded eland bull. Watching her chase and then worry the dead eland after we got it down was a hoot. Her sister Shoopy also helped us with a klippie. My 22 solid had been a vital hit but the klipspringer had died up in rocks. We let Shoopy go and she went direct to the dead animal saving us a lot of time.

Mark

Chris, Tico wants to see a pic of Walter. He never paid any attention to you talking about Walter, but as I read to post to Tico, he perked up when I read "her." Now he wants to see her. Here's his first Dove. Although he's a small and big game kind of guy, he found this Dove for me in some tall grass on opening day. It was the only bird we took out of four hunters. Tico is a NKC registered Mountain Fiest Terrier. Congrast on the Bushbuck. The other one was a bus!
Cheers,
David