Howdy y'all,

My wife and I are hosting a shed hunt training day in La Vernia area Saturday Dec 21. We will have 10 working spots for $20 and unlimited audit spots (no dog, just observing and learning) for $10. Each working spot will be for one handler and one dog, any level dog is welcome. If interested check out the Facebook Event Page for registration and more information.

Shed hunting is one of my favorite dog sports and we are hoping to grow the sport in our area. The dogs love it and you will too.

I would be at this in a heartbeat if I wasn't 14 hours away. I have a young shed dog in training, and can affirm that it is a great and rewarding sport!

I would love to join next time if y'all do another one!

nice - I live in LaVernia. I have some wild GSP's, is this something they could do?

Where are you at? We have friends doing this from Wisconsin, Illinois, Oklahoma and North Texas, I am sure we can help you find a club near you.

As long as they have some retrieve to them we will help you get started. Get signed up, we already have 3 spots taken and I expect the others to go fast too.

We had our training Saturday, turned out great. The place that hosted us is going to allow us to have two UKC shed hunt trials, one this fall and spring 2024. We're also going to host a second training event soon, once I have more details I'll post it.

The property is awesome for both practice and trials, we set up two courses. Heidi ran our best hunter, Tessla, for everyone to watch in the morning on the tougher of the two courses. She actually timed out by 1:10 seconds. We then worked with each handler/dog on the course or even had a couple of dogs that had no experience who we helped with the first steps to introduce the scented sheds, one from here on Texags.

We also had Taylor, a very experienced trainer who got us started in shed hunting, run her dog for exhibition on the other course. Everyone there said they had a great time also. At least three dogs are ready to enter and will be entering the February trial in Alvarado.

As I said, our goal is to get more dogs and handlers involved here in Texas. This sport is a TON of fun and very rewarding for the dogs. If you have some acreage around San Antonio and might be interested in hosting a shed hunting event let us know. We'd love to chat.

I know quite a few of you guys here already shed hunt on your own. If you're dog is retrieving to hand, and you'd like to know more reach out on the Facebook link above. Here is the list of upcoming events, we'd love to see y'all.

We're ready to host our second AKC Shed Hunt Training Day March 17 from 8:30-11:30. Here is the Facebook Event page if you'd like to get more information or sign up.

As I said above our first event went great and we just got back from the Trial in Alvarado this week. We had four dogs and handlers from our first training day join in the three day trial. All four dogs had great weekends and each earned points towards their working shed dog titles.

https://instagr.am/p/CpLkxGaunGd

Our crew did great. This is such a fun sport to play, if you are finding sheds on your own please consider joining us for training or ask about entering a UKC event. Here is the upcoming event schedule, lots of opportunity all around the country. We are heading to Nebraska next week for the Nebraska Shed Dog Championship. The northerners have been playing this a lot longer than we have and there will be some really tough competition up there, some dogs will retrieve all five sheds to hand from a 50 yard by 100 yard course in under two minutes.

I didn't know such a thing existed as a competitive sport! Wish I still had my old lab!

Any breed is capable of learning, it's incredible exercise for both their bodies and mind. That goes for the handlers as well. This weekend we had Mals, Shepherds, Labs, a Chesapeake, Rots, Weimaraner and a freakin Boston Terrier that won the working class one day. All they need is a nose and a retrieve.

The sport started up north and you and your dog get 15 minutes to find four or five sheds, depending on class, that are planted in a 50 yard by 100 yard course that is divided into 6 equally sized quadrants. Five quadrants will have an antler hidden and one will be a blank.

Once your dog touches an antler the judge will call "find" and you must stop moving and get your dog to retrieve. Working class dogs, the beginner class, will have easier, more visible plants and only have to retrieve to within one step of the handler. Champion dogs must return all 5 sheds all the way to hand. Champion plants will be much harder to see and can even be planted in water with up to 3/4 of the antler submerged.

The courses can be set up anywhere as long as there is enough space to spread out. This weekend we worked in a pecan grove, a field with a few trees and tall grass and an area with two stock tanks with a lot of topo and trees. I generally like the courses to be hard. Its just as important for you to hunt the sheds visibly so that you can position yourself with it between you and your dog and hopefully downwind. Environmental conditions play a big part in how hard the hunts are. Sunday for example, was cooler and foggy with less wind. The scent was trapped close to the ground and didn't really leave the plant. The top Champion dogs were in the 3 min range, I ran my first Champion dog and finished in 5:56.

I've mentioned the scent a few times. Each planted antler is scented with a chapstick that has the same enzyme that causes the antlers to drop. If you want to pick some up check out Bone Clone Scent. That and a dropped antler are all you need to start training.