Teddy Roosevelt has a deep rooted history in Makoshika and is one of the finest patriarchs of wildlife conservation in the history of the USA and North America.  We owe a debt of gratitude for his swift political action which saved the opportunity to hunt, fish, and forage in wild places for all future generations. 

 

After serving two terms as US president as a member of the Republican Party, TR did not receive the Republican nomination for the race toward a third term so he formed and ran as a member of the Progressive Party for the 1912 election.  The party was later named the Bull Moose Party, and was derived from the characteristics of strength and vigour often used by Roosevelt to describe himself.

 

He waged an energetic campaign, during the course of which he was shot by an insane man in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, while on his way to make a speech. He went ahead with his address:

Theodore Roosevelt’s opening line was hardly remarkable for a presidential campaign speech: “Friends, I shall ask you to be as quiet as possible.” His second line, however, was a bombshell.

“I don’t know whether you fully understand that I have just been shot.”  Clearly, Roosevelt had buried the lede. The horrified audience in the Milwaukee Auditorium on October 14, 1912, gasped as the former president unbuttoned his vest to reveal his bloodstained shirt. “It takes more than that to kill a bull moose,” the wounded candidate assured them. He reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a bullet-riddled, 50-page speech. Holding up his prepared remarks, which had two big holes blown through each page, Roosevelt continued. “Fortunately I had my manuscript, so you see I was going to make a long speech, and there is a bullet—there is where the bullet went through—and it probably saved me from it going into my heart. The bullet is in me now, so that I cannot make a very long speech, but I will try my best.”  Only two days before, the editor-in-chief of The Outlook characterized Roosevelt as “an electric battery of inexhaustible energy,” and for the next 90 minutes the 53-year-old former president proved it. “I give you my word, I do not care a rap about being shot; not a rap,” he claimed. Few could doubt him. Although his voice weakened and his breath shortened, Roosevelt glared at his nervous aides whenever they begged him to stop speaking or positioned themselves around the podium to catch him if he collapsed. Only with the speech completed did he agree to visit the hospital.

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Testing is extremely important to realize and communicate the full potential of the pup.  It also can be very taxing, strenuous, and unforgiving for the handler, so the BULL MOOSE AWARD was created for the handler with the pup with the highest total combined breed tests (VJP/HZP) scores from each litter.  It will be presented to the fortunate handler after all pups in the litter have completed the breed tests.