A Dog That Can Do Both

Building a versatile pack that can trail and tree different types of game.

- Jonathan Lesperance

It was early December and I was staring intently at the faint impressions of tracks on the snowy ground through the driver’s side window of my truck. I already had my suspicions as to what animal had made the tracks, though the freeze-thaw conditions of the last 24 hours had obscured the ground surface that was about a 50/50 mix of frozen mud and snow. As I got out of the truck to inspect the track in greater detail I confirmed that it was indeed a mountain lion – the rear pugmarks were lined with a faint shading of mud indicating that the large cat had walked through the area sometime during the day before when the ground was slightly thawed. I started to kick myself mentally for getting such a late start, the result of having attending my brother in law’s wedding the evening prior. As is typical of such events, the festivities and celebrating went well into the wee hours of the morning and it was now the early afternoon, giving me but a few hours of daylight.