SCOUT APRIL 2016 AGED 13⁄4 YRS Scout was an underdog. Captured or surrendered (his records were lost) to the animal shelter in Madera county, CA at the age of 1 year and 6 months. A big boned dog, he had knocked over the Rescue Organization’s desk containing their administrative paperwork, resulting in most of the line of waiting new dog owners to walk away. He was the only dog there! By the end of the day, everyone was gone except for the Volunteers...and that one dog. Then an old Hunter walked up to one of the Volunteers and said, “Now... what are you going to do?” The disheartened Volunteer sadly looked down nodding her head, then upwards gently rolling her tearful eyes as she did so, and replied in a low voice, close to a whisper, “I guess we’ll just have to take him back and have him retrained.” The old hunter tightened up his jaw, grunted, took out his wallet, then handed the requested $300 for the dog. He immediately named him Scout, because that’s the name people often mistakenly called Sport, his old hunting partner, now gone. Sport had been his son’s dog which had been raised from a 12 week old pup, when the son went into the army, within months of getting the dog, the old hunter inherited him, becoming his first hunting dog and a relationship which lasted nearly 15 years. Scout would be the old hunter’s first adopted (rescue) dog, and for nearly a decade, these two would hunt and explore most of California, eventually exploring all 48 of the continental United States, all guided by only a traditional paper map and the truck’s compass.