09/04/2026
LONG POST INCOMING — THE DOGS ARE ALWAYS TEACHING US!
Last night, in the middle of a thunderstorm, we got a call to help a first-time bear hunter locate his bear. With the rain coming down, there was essentially no blood left to follow.
For those who don’t know how I handle nighttime bear tracks, if a bear is shot in the evening, I’m willing to come out that night — but generally I’ll only take the track 150–200 yards. The goal is to quickly rule out a double-lung hit and hopefully recover a dead bear before the meat spoils, without pushing a marginally hit bear farther into the woods. If we don’t find it in that distance, we’re happy to back out, let things settle down, and come back in the morning.
We put Opie on the track, and immediately something wasn’t right.
I’ve watched this dog work hundreds of tracks, and this wasn’t Opie. He was nervous, skittish and honestly looked like a scared puppy. After some coaxing, he worked us out to our 150-yard cutoff. We called it for the night and made plans to regroup in the morning.
Morning came, we put Opie back down…and he wanted absolutely nothing to do with it. He’d work a little and circle right back to the bait.
Alright then.
Time to get Old Reliable out of the truck.
Bailey came out and initially took the wrong line, so we enjoyed a nice little morning nature walk together. Eventually I brought her back and put her exactly where Opie had stopped the night before.
The rope snapped tight.
Away we went.
About 7 minutes later — BEAR!
271 yards from the hit site.
When we got to the bear, everything suddenly made sense. Wolves had already been feeding on it.
After 8 seasons, more than 1,000 tracks and hundreds of times watching Opie work, we learned something new:
Apparently Opie has zero interest tracking with Wolves
And that’s one of the things I love about tracking with dogs. You can have years of experience and think you’ve seen just about everything, and then they’ll remind you that you’re still learning. Looking back, Opie was telling us something the entire time. We just didn’t understand what he was saying yet.
I’m incredibly grateful to still have the OG Bailey healthy enough to climb out of the truck when we need her and show the youngsters how it’s done.
But the best part?
We got to hand a first-time bear hunter his bear.
That’s what this is all about.
Thank you to every hunter who trusts us enough to bring our dogs into their hunt. Every track teaches us something, and every recovery is one we’re grateful to be a small part of.
8 seasons in, 1,000+ tracks later…and we’re still students of the dogs.
