Hey, little buddies!
I’d like you to meet my buddy, Mosby.
Mosby came to me as a roly-poly, eight-week-old puppy. He is a yellow Labrador Retriever and his puppy coat was nearly white!
He loved to chew on things and chase things, as puppies always do. It had been a long time since the Boyers had had a new puppy, so everybody wanted to play with him. He was so cute that we were able to forgive him for tearing up toys in the back yard and pulling clothes off the clothesline.
Mosby loved to play, but he liked to rest, too. He would cuddle in our arms and fall asleep. One of his favorite things to do was cuddle on my wife’s lap. She loves baby animals, especially puppies. So she liked to hold him while he fell asleep. It was funny to watch them because Mosby would often suck Mrs. Boyer’s thumb while he dozed off.
I started training Mosby to “track” while he was still a baby. It’s easy to do this with a puppy because they love to chase their friends when they run away. It’s like children playing hide-and-seek.
I wanted Mosby to learn tracking because I am a volunteer deputy with a local Sheriff’s department and I hoped to use him to find bad guys who ran from the law.
Mosby was only five months old when he passed the certification test for tracking. Young Mosby was now a certified tracking dog! The master trainer who gave him the test had never seen such a young puppy pass the test.
Mosby loves to go with me down to Mr. Titus’ farm where I keep my horses and record the books for my
He and my bloodhound, Abigail Adams, chase my car as I drive a few miles around the farm. They get lots of good exercise and take time to sniff at animal scents, too.
One morning Mosby and Abigail ran across two young deer in a field and chased them. But deer are much faster than dogs, so the dogs soon gave up and went back to following the car.
Once I was called by the Sheriff and asked to track a man who had kidnapped a woman that night. Mosby and I went to the place where it had happened and talked to a deputy who met us there. He told us that a neighbor had some information that gave us a clue to start looking in a field out to the west.
I took Mosby out into the field and he soon picked up the scent of the man and woman. He led me through the dark field for a while, then went up onto the porch of a house. It was the house where the man lived!
The deputy with me knocked on the door and yelled for everyone to come out. Mosby and I watched as the man came outside, then the woman followed. Another deputy took the lady into his car and took her home. Thanks to Mosby, she was safe. Mosby was a hero!
Now I’m training Mosby to learn to sniff out other objects that criminals might be using or hiding. Mosby is getting pretty good at the work, too. When my grandchildren come over to our house on Friday nights, they love to hide things and then let Mosby loose to find them.
Mosby is now four years old and he is a big dog. He weighs over a hundred pounds. When he’s excited about following a track, he’s pretty hard to handle. He really makes me work as I try to keep up with him.
Abigail recently had puppies and Mosby was the daddy. Here’s a picture of him playing with his pups.
We found good homes for all of them. It was lots of fun having puppies around. There were 7 of them. They looked like Mosby’s dad who is a black lab, but they had longer ears than a lab, like their bloodhound mama.
Oh I forgot to tell you that we usually name our animals after important people in history. Mosby is named after John Mosby, a ranger during the Civil War. Boy, did he ever have some adventures. If you want to hear about him, you can listen to my audio book, Mosby- Gray Ghost of the Confederacy. His story is also told in Brave Deeds of Confederate Soldiers.
(or if you are a member of the Uncle Rick Audio Club, you can find those stories there, as well!)
All school children used to know and respect John Mosby. I am so thrilled that I can acquaint you with the stories of such fine men.
I love finding stories to read to my little buddies! Goodbye till next time.