Tiny, outcast chihuhua has turned into one of Mississippi’s top dogs when it comes to finding deer that hunters can’t.
Sophie entered the world under extreme duress, at a mere 5 ounces, and was immediately rejected. The poor, little chihuahua was quickly adopted by extended family.
Greg Tabb of Lauderdale already had a dog and wanted nothing to do with the puppy, and he let everybody know it. Little did he know the two would become intertwined by fate and their love of deer hunting.
After Tabb’s wife and daughter nursed Sophie back to health, she didn’t fare too well in their house, so the tiny chihuahua went in the yard with the other dogs.
“That’s when Sophie became my dog,” Tabb said. “Every time I came out of the house Sophie was there; (she) became my shadow. She wanted to go everywhere with me, and I couldn’t help but like the little chihuahua who had fought so valiantly to survive and now took up with me.”
On her first trip to the woods with Tabb, Sophie found a deer that had gotten away from him.
“I shot a doe, and it went out into the cutover,” Tabb said. “It was so thick I couldn’t find a blood trail, but Sophie found that deer in no time.”
Johnny Cumberland of Meridian, shot a buck this past Jan. 8 at 300 yards.
“I was so far from the deer that I heard the ‘whap’ when the bullet hit the deer in the cutover,” he said. “We found blood and trailed the buck across a cutover, across a beaver slough and lost the trail after it crossed a hardwood bottom. We were just finding specks of blood, so we quit looking.”
The next morning, Cumberland called Tabb, and they took Sophie to the last place they had found blood. Though it had been 16 hours since the shot, Sophie picked up the cold scent trail and started working. Evidently, the deer had been pushed further away by the hunters the previous night.
“We found a speck of blood about every 50 yards, and she tracked the buck across a stream and continued another 200 yards until she found him,” Tabb said.
“I can assure you that I would never have gotten that buck if Sophie hadn’t found him,” Cumberland said.
That buck icing on the cake for Tabb and Sophie, whose legend grows with each deer recovery. Now 9, she’s been recovering deer for the past 8 years and hasn’t let up yet.
“I’ve got a little camo collar with a light on it, and when I get it down, Sophie gets ready because she knows she’s going to get to work and have some fun,” Tabb said. “She just loves it so much.
“She’ll go through thick briars and rabbit holes like nothing else. I’ll put her in the truck with me and leave an old jacket in there with her and go to the woods to hunt while she waits on me, and she’ll be there when I return. We’ve found a many a deer by taking her with us on hunts, and we don’t have to drive home to get her and bring her back.”
Tabb has gone all over the eastern part of Mississippi recovering deer, and the more people who hear about Sophie, the more call for her services in times of need.
“My nephew, Robert, has shot quite a few deer, and she’s found a good many for him, too,” Tabb said. “He’ll call me up when he needs us and says, ‘Uncle Greg, we are going to need Sophie’, and off we’ll go on another adventure, which usually ends in a quick recovery.”
Sophie was the first dog Tabb used to track deer; it happened because she had a good nose for picking up scent, and she was a natural trailer.
“Sophie’s found deer that were still alive, and she gives me signals to let me know that,” Tabb said. “People can hardly believe she’s just so good. She tracked one for a little boy from Houma, La., who was hunting up here, too.
“There’s just nothing better than helping kids and finding the deer for them and seeing their excitement when they find them. They’ll high-five each other and are so excited.
A bad storm came through an area right after Tabb’s son had shot a deer at last light, and it got away from them.
“That deer went into the swamp and went across Possum Creek,” Tabb said. “I was kind of worried about Sophie getting across, but as soon as I put my foot on a log to cross the creek, I heard ‘Ka-loop’ and saw Sophie swimming across the creek. She went up the hill, across the swamp and found the deer.
“I knew then that she had the heart of a lion.
The heart of a lion indeed, and in such a tiny but inspirational dog.
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