Hunting with German teckels

Josef Ramacher from Germany is going to be one of four presenters at F3 Hunting Workshop in North Carolina on March 12-14. More info on Josef is posted on the workshop website at http://www.fffworkshop.com/41201.html Josef's own website is at http://www.vom-hirschfaenger.de/main.htm. He is an experienced hunting judge, and is very passionate and knowledgeable about training his teckels for hunting. These are some pictures of Josef and his dogs.

Some misconceptions about blood tracking

John Jeanneney © January 2010 for Full Cry

We are stuck with the term “blood tracking.” It has been used for a long time, but these words do create a lot of confusion. More than one hunter has asked, “What good is a blood tracking dog? If there’s blood to track, I can track my own deer. You’re a lazy hunter for sure, if you need a dog to do the work for you!” Well, these guys do have a point. And up North it’s a point of pride to find your own deer all by yourself.

Of course the real value of the experienced “blood tracking dog” is that he can go on tracking when the visible blood on the ground runs out. The dog actually works on a lot of things in addition to the blood that the hunter can see. In some situations the dog detects the faint scent of ground disturbance. More important are the microscopic scent particles that come down from the wound and the dead skin particles that drift down from animals and humans, whether they are wounded or not. Then there is the scent given off by the various glands of the deer.

To our feeble human noses the strongest scent glands of a deer are the tarsal glands located inside the rear hocks. During the rut bucks deliberately urinate on their own tarsal glands, and the combination of gland secretion and urine is so strong that even a human can follow it in the air if it is fresh and the scenting conditions are good.

I suspect my dogs pity me for my own weak nose, but over the years and 930 calls they have patiently taught me a little bit about how deer scent works for tracking purposes. Sabina taught me that tarsal gland scent, strong as it is, can be a confusing factor. Yes, it tells you where a buck went, but it might be any buck. Tarsal gland scent is so overwhelmingly strong, that sometimes it blocks out some of the more useful, more individual scents like the scent from the interdigital glands at the top of the foot between the cloves of the hoof.

A few times I saw old Sabina correct herself and go back after tracking over a hundred yards on the wrong line. This would always happen when we had a buck moving right out ahead of us at the peak of the rut.

The interdigital glands seem to be really important. When I’m training dogs on lines made with tracking shoes with deer hoofs attached, they can distinguish one set of hoofs from another. I have made a scent line with one set of hoofs, and then changed the hoofs and laid cross tracks. When we tracked to the junction of the two scent lines, the dog would hesitate a moment, but then continue on the original line.

Sometimes a hunter will say, “I didn’t call you because it rained and the blood was all washed out.” Well, a blood tracking dog isn’t tracking by eye. As any coon hunter knows, a gentle rain on a scent line actually improves it. When it rains hard for a long time, things get tougher, but for a good, experienced dog, following the line can still be possible.

I can remember when Max, who was an experienced, but not an exceptional dog, took a line over a cedar knob in a driving rain with the water running in sheets through the poverty grass. There was water almost everywhere, but he could pick up enough scent to follow down a long hill, across a road to where the buck was lying, still alive, on the edge of swamp. The line was only four hours old.

And then there was Clary, who was both experienced and exceptional. With two inches of water in the rain gauge we went out to track a deer that had been gut-shot the day before. The hunters had tracked the deer about three hundred yards before running out of blood sign. They marked the point of loss, went home and then it began to rain. Clary began at the hit site the next morning, tracked to the point of loss although no blood was to be seen anymore and continued on without any problem. Two hundred yards more and there was the deer, still alive.

It’s pleasant to reminisce about old experiences of tracking without blood, but to be honest I have to dredge up an experience in which a very good dog, the same Clary, couldn’t track with visible blood. It was a sultry, grey day, and a storm was brewing. We were tracking a big doe that had been gut shot. There wasn’t a lot of blood, but just enough so that I could follow the big, brown drops by eye. Clary couldn’t smell a thing; she was useless, and we didn’t find the deer. I’ve had the experience a number of times since. With a storm front coming in and the barometer falling, the dog’s sense of smell was powerless.

I wish I could be a dog for a week and learn more about these things. I’d be glad to eat dry kibble and sleep in a crate. I’m tired of being an idiot in these matters that my dogs know so well. They have taught me quite a bit, but not nearly enough.

Sally Marchmont (left) of Vermont writes of “a beautiful, 200-pound, 8-pointer we found for a lady who had shot him in the pouring rain. The rain had washed all the blood away so I had no choice but to trust Petey completely. He made short work of it, so it was a lesson well learned for me.”

Scott Semrau with a buck his “Buddy” found after a hard rain in Ohio.

Great tracking season for Steve, Ruby and Dita

Today's e-mail from Steve Kremp has brought an informative summary of his 2009 tracking season. Steve has two dachshunds - a four-year-old Dita (a daughter of Alfi and Elli) and one-year-old Ruby bred by Gail Berger. Ruby is Dita's niece, and this was her first tracking season.

Dita, Ruby and I had an enjoyable and productive season. Since it was Ruby's first year in the field, I chose to take her out on most of the calls, in order to get her as much experience as possible. This didn't sit too well with Dita, and after leaving with Ruby, my wife and daughter called several times to lay a guilt trip on me, by letting me hear Dita wailing at the door, in the background.

The first track of the year for Ruby was an easy one, but I think it played a key part in bridging the gap from her training sessions to the real thing.

She really nailed her next several tracks, including one liver hit doe that zig zagged through over a hundred yards of the densest, hands and knees, multiflora rose thicket that I've ever encountered. She found a trophy buck for my friend, who hit it high and back with his longbow, just as the rain started, as well as a nice buck that had been gut shot, for a teenager who swore up and down that the buck went the other way!

The highlight of the season for Ruby was a doe that I shot during the bow season in early November. She was shot just before dark, during the rut, while being harassed by two bucks. The shot looked good, and ran about 40 yards, but instead of hearing the telltale crash, all was quiet. My view was blocked by some beech brush, but I figured that she must have bedded there. Despite staying in the stand for over an hour after dark, to give her time, when I got down from the stand, she bolted, with the two bucks in hot pursuit.

The next morning Ruby and I took up the very sparse blood trail. By the time we covered 100 yards, blood was only visible about every thirty or forty yards. The deer went up the mountain, got to the top, then doubled back and headed down the same side. We found her about four hundred yards as the crow flies from where she was shot, but the actual distance traveled was quite a bit farther. Ruby was 10 months old at the time of this recovery, and it took approximately 15 to 20 minutes to find the deer. To say I was proud would be quite an understatement!

Dita also did well, but the deer that she found didn't have much left to them. One big buck was hit in the evening, and the hunters lost the blood trail about fifty yards down the line, when it entered a wheat field. The hunter was unable to return the next morning due to work, but I was familiar with the area, and his description led us to the point of loss. Dita picked up the trail on the other side of the field as it entered a dense thicket. About seventy five yards in, we came to a puzzling patch of what appeared to be neck, or upper body hair in a bed with a little blood. About twenty yards away, Dita found the buck, minus it's head! Apparently someone else must have stumbled across it earlier that day, took the head, and tried to hide the carcass. I marked the carcass, told the disappointed hunter where to find it, and he followed up on it that evening. He thought he knew who might have taken the head, but I never heard how it turned out. A careful camera angle hid the damage that the foxes did to another deer that Dita found in late December.

This time of the year, I always wish that I had taken more pictures, and kept better records, but the memories are priceless. To the best of my recollection, we went out on twelve tracks, and were able to find eleven of the deer. The one that we did not recover was shot during a drive, and ran across a large mowed field. We were unable to confirm where it re-entered the woods on the other side. All in all, it was a great season, and we look forward to next year.

Tracking wounded moose with dogs in Quebec

© 2010 John Jeanneney for Full Cry

Moose hunting is very different from deer hunting. Simon Lemay, a French Canadian outfitter, explained to me that one of the many differences is that there is a time limit for finding wounded moose that run off after the shot. You can’t just wait and find him the next morning in the time-honored American tradition.

In the case of a wounded moose you are dealing with a very large animal, 800 to 1200 pounds on the hoof. This huge and hot body mass is insulated by a coat almost as thick and dense as that of a bear. If you don’t get to the carcass in six or eight hours to open it up and cool it down, you are going to have a truckload of spoiled meat.

The size of the first moose we found was a revelation to me. The whitetails I am familiar with would have looked like cottontails along side of the moose pictured below. The call to track this one came in early one evening from near the New Brunswick border. Alain Ridel and I traveled more than a hundred miles one way to begin tracking shortly before midnight. It was difficult to get to the hit site down in a deep valley, but the rest was easy. Typically there was very little blood, and this only at the beginning, but the moose was well-hit and only went a 100 meters beyond the point where the hunters gave up. We did not stay to get the moose back up to the road. The hunters gutted him and spent a good part of the next day getting him back up the hill to the road with a big four wheeler.

Alain Ridel's Théo with the moose described above. Théo found 7 moose during the two moose seasons.

Moose hunters in Quebec, including outfitters like Simon Lemay, pioneered the use of leashed tracking dogs in Quebec several years ago. Dogs are being used more and more, not only for moose, but also for whitetails and black bears. I ran one tracking workshop in Quebec and attended another one presented by two trackers from France. Interest was high and people came from all over this vast province. I have to admit that I was pleased to see them using the same type of wirehaired dachshunds that I use down in New York.

I had made some good friends in Quebec, and was invited to come up with one of my dogs for some hands-on moose tracking experience last September. Over the ten days I learned a great deal, and covered many miles. We stayed much of the time at the evaporator house of a big maple sugar bush, where we could look down Lac de l’Est (East Lake) right into Maine. The language of my friends may have been French, but the game and the terrain were very similar to that of the moose country across the border. We actually tracked one moose that came within 100 meters of the border before he veered north. I’m glad he decided not to become an illegal immigrant.

Three moose trackers and their wirehaired dachshunds: Shown left to right are Phillipe Rainaud with Sky (three moose finds), Andre Hins with Gamine (seven moose finds), John Jeanneney, apprentice moose tracker, with Billy.

It’s worth emphasizing that from a tracker’s point of view we were not in a foreign country at all. What I saw and learned could have been applied just as well in Maine. Unfortunately, in Maine the interest in tracking dogs to find moose and other big game has been almost non-existent despite the fact that the State Legislature and the Maine DNR legalized the use of leashed tracking dogs ten years ago in 2000. Individual invitations to a tracking workshop last summer were sent to 540 Licensed Maine Guides. There was no response from the guides.

My romp in Quebec showed me that tracking wounded moose by eye is not an easy task. During hunting season the moose are no longer feeding on aquatic vegetation in wet areas that make for simple tracking of hoof marks. You don’t get much of a blood trail from a wounded moose, just as in the case of a wounded bear, because the heavy coat soaks up so much of the blood before it reaches the ground. The blood sign that you do see is generally wiped off on tree trunk and branches well off the ground.

From a dog’s point of nose a moose is easy to track. We are dealing with a big animal with lots of body scent. However, this scent does not seem to be as individualized as in the case of deer. Probably this is because moose have no interdigital glands between the cloves of their front hooves. There are small, barely visible interdigital glands between the rear hooves, but clearly these glands don’t play the same role with moose that they do in a whitetail. Fortunately, moose are more solitary and their density in a given area is usually lower than is the case with whitetails. Staying on the right line is not as difficult with moose as it is for whitetails.

From a handler’s standpoint following a dog that is following a moose is not so easy; it’s strenuous exercise. In Quebec, as in the northern US, the handler is required by law to keep control of the dog on a long leash, and this means that you have to go where the dog goes. Long legged moose stride with ease over the dead branches and dense young growth of the cutovers, but for a man this means stepping over, wriggling under or ramming through the same thick stuff. The off-lead, Garmin Astro tactics of our own Deep South would ease the situation, but this is politically out of the question in Quebec. In Quebec the handler cannot even carry a firearm as he tracks with his dog.

Tracking in Quebec made me realize that tracking wounded moose is not an activity for old men. My own tracking dog Billy is big and powerful for a dachshund, so he was a pretty good tow truck on some of the steeper uphill slopes. When there was a need to slow down in some of the thick stuff, Billy knew how to adjust his pace to his handler’s age. I agreed with the trackers I met in Quebec that a 20 to 30 pound dog is much more practical up there than a dog of twice the size.

I was in Quebec only for the bow and crossbow season, which coincided with the moose rut. Roughly a third of the moose tracked were recovered, although all reports on tracking activities have not been filed yet. The percentage of moose recoveries for the rifle season appears, at this point, to be slightly lower. We can assume that the majority of the moose not found actually survive, although it is nearly impossible to come up with verifiable numbers for this. Animals shot far back in the intestines can take more than a week to die. An experienced tracker, who can interpret the signs of the type of wound (placement of blood smears, color of blood, etc.), is in a good position to make an informed guess about the chances of survival.

There are problems with the present leashed tracking dog system in Quebec, and some of these will not be easy to solve. Most of the hunting area is owned by the Province, not by private individuals. In these undeveloped public areas communications are difficult. Cell phone coverage is poor, and the only way to get to a tracking site in these areas is over a sparse network of rocky logging roads. The game and hunter density is low so you drive far, but of course you can’t drive fast. Because of limited information relayed by the radio-telephones of the Provincial Rangers, we often drove for hours to track a lightly wounded moose that was impossible to retrieve. Things would have been better if we had been able to question hunters directly.

Hunter errors were more of a problem than I had expected. For bow and crossbow hunters Quebec’s training program could be improved. Some hunters seemed to have a very vague idea of where an arrow or cross bow bolt must be placed to produce a killing shot. Most were using crossbows, and there were too many who didn’t understand that the crossbow bolt is deflected off course when you shoot through brush. The short, heavy bolt also drops dramatically after about 35 yards. The crossbow is not a rifle.

In remote areas, like the Gaspé Peninsula of Quebec, tracking dogs can be used most effectively by outfitters and guides. As they work with clients they are in the best position to stay in touch, give advice and offer the services of a tracking dog when this is needed. Simon Lemay, the outfitter in the Lower Gaspé region of Quebec, has several wirehaired dachshund trackers and believes that they are a valuable asset to his business.

We Americans have something to learn from what is going on in Quebec. Guides and outfitters, especially, can profit since moose populations are expanding. In the Northeast: Vermont, New Hampshire and especially Maine have moose seasons. New York State has about 400 of these animals, but they are not hunted yet. Farther to the west they are now present in northern states from Michigan all the way to Washington. Moose are great travelers and they seem to be penetrating down from the North as if they had never heard of global warming.

Chuck Collier's mission to change tracking regulations in Michigan

We wrote about Chuck Collier from Hillman, Michigan a year ago. Chuck, who is a State Trooper and member of United Blood Trackers, has been working hard to change tracking regulations in Michigan. As it is now no weapons can be carried, day or night, during tracking. Tracking is allowed at night but only with lights that can be carried in the hand. No tracking of elk is allowed with a dog. Chuck is trying to modify the regulations, and today there was an article on these issues posted at click here. We wish Chuck good luck as his battle is not over yet.

Wildlife officials consider plan to help hunters find mortally wounded game

By The Grand Rapids Press

January 31, 2010, 7:25AM

Victor Skinner | The Grand Rapids Press

LANSING -- State wildlife officials might adopt changes to how wounded deer, elk and bear are tracked in a move designed to recover more wounded animals.

The Natural Resources Commission soon might allow hunters to use licensed trackers and their dogs to help blood track deer, elk and bear to put down the mortally wounded animals.

The commission has reviewed and amended a proposal raised by State Trooper Chuck Collier, a professional tracker, several times and is expected to take action on some form of the measure next month.

“The main reason we do this is to recover the meat from the animal and put the animal out of its misery,” Collier said. “I’ve had a lot of support from people, even anti-hunters.”

He said other states, including New York, have similar laws that allow professional trackers to help hunters recover game animals, and his proposal loosens rules that restrict the use of weapons and lights.

State regulations allow the use of leashed dogs to find wounded animals, but those tracking cannot carry a gun while doing so.

The new blood tracking measure would allow pros to help hunters find mortally wounded game using dogs and allow hunters to carry a gun afield to finish the animal, during the day and at night.

The new regulation also would ensure trackers pass a state-approved test, contact area law enforcement before and after each track, pass a criminal history check, possess a concealed weapons permit and abide by other safety measures, Collier said.

Collier said permitting only the hunter, not the tracker, to finish a wounded animal complicates tracking efforts, especially after dark, but added he is “thankful that we are allowed to have some means to put the animal down” under the proposed regulations.

Collier, whose 2-year-old dachshund has helped recover 26 deer and three bear, is one of about 10 professional trackers in the state, he said.

NRC member John Madigan said the regulation change specifically would benefit older or younger hunters who have a harder time tracking wounded animals.

The NRC has mulled the proposal for several months, Madigan said, and likely will take action on it at the panel’s Feb. 4 meeting in Lansing.

The commission, however, still is studying the proposal, including when a hunter can load his or her weapon while with the tracker and the definition of a “mortally wounded” animal.

“The commission is very concerned we have qualified people (tracking) and it’s not misused by poachers,” Madigan said. “That’s why we are taking our time and drafting these regulations carefully.”

What do tracking dachshunds do in winter?

THEY:

Hunt rabbits (Billy)

Snooze (Mischa)

Take over their owners' bed (Chris Barr's Gerti)

Take over their owners' treadmill (Robert Rubie's Mirabel)

Look for gators in Florida (Susanne Hamilton's Buster)

Socialize (John with Joeri, Elli and Billy)

Have puppies

Enjoy snow

Play

Get a lot of rest! (Joeri and Elli)

January track for Andy and Ruby

Andy Pedersen from MD writes:
Ruby was too enthusiastic when I tried to start her on this doe - she went trailing another deer that was in the group. After the correction, she locked on. The track was not difficult, but it was good to get her back onto the real thing...

A nice buck recovered by A.J. Niette and his tracking dog Jake

The picture shows A.J. Niette from Alabama, his tracking dog Jake and the buck they have recovered. Jake is a Kemmer Cur/Treeing Walker cross. We wrote about A.J. Niette before, and you can learn more about this highly successful bloodtracker on his website.

A.J. wrote:

"This is an Alabama buck that we found yesterday afternoon. The deer was shot Monday at 7:30 a.m. and we got there around 3pm. It took Jake 45 mins. to find and bay him. This is a nice deer for Alabama. Don`t know how old this deer was but it had to be 5 years old...it was a big deer."

The dog who learned to be brave - Sherif du Bellerstein 1981-1995 "Max"

by John Jeanneney © 1995

Max, my principal tracking dog from 1984 to 1994, died on June 24, 1995, after a long and productive life. He was a dog of many misfortunes, and one of these was to work in the shadow of his predecessor Clary von Moosbach. Still he acquitted himself well. He found 51 deer and was a back-up dog on many more. He grew in character throughout his life. Perhaps, his greatest strength was to never stop growing. He taught me how much I did not know about dogs. When dogs are concerned, there is no rule that does not have its exception. The greatest tribute I can give Max is to tell the story of his life.

* * * * * *

Max was born in Alsace, an eastern province of France that has a strong Germanic tradition, particularly when it comes to hunting and hunting dogs. His breeder, Hubert Stoquert, who was a leading blood tracker in France, took one of his good bitches, Pensee du Bellerstein, across the Rhine and bred her to Gebrauchsieger Cyrus von den Breitenbacher-Alpen, a stud who had been awarded the title of best working dachshund in the Deutscher Teckelklub for 1980. Max, or Sherif du Bellerstein as he was registered, was a big puppy who threatened to grow oversize by Deutscher Teckelklub standards. I like big dogs for blood tracking in the United States, which is one reason why M. Stoquert sent the puppy to me.

Max came off the plane from France in fine shape, a good-looking, friendly pup, five months old, with a gray, salt and pepper coat that would just get him by in the stern judging ring of the cocklebur patch. Max looked like he would make a good working dog, and that was what I wanted him for. It turned out to be a long wait for that working dog, but finally he became a true "Gebrauchshund", literally a useful dog. If anyone had told me how it would happen, I would not have believed them.

I drove Max home from the Kennedy Airport, and then had to leave almost immediately again for Long Island to teach my classes. Max seemed so much at ease and at home that my wife of the time, Mary Lou, opened the back door and let him out for a stroll up the hill and into the woods with Eda, another of our dachshunds. After about twenty minutes Eda returned -- without Max. Darkness came and puppy Max was still out. By this time I was roaring back up the parkway to Dutchess County. I spent the whole night in the woods, checking every hole and every thicket for a mile in every direction. There were several old farm dumps in the area with massive foundations, which contained everything from tractor tires and truck carcasses to bed springs and broken toilet bowls. I heard only one little sound which might have been Max. There was really nothing to go on, nothing to justify bringing in heavy equipment to dig or move tons of heavy junk.

Max should have shown up somewhere, but he didn't. Forty-eight hours after losing this puppy, I was eating a very solemn breakfast after a second night of listening in the silent woods. There was a whimper on the back porch; I opened the door and Max tumbled in, beside himself with fear and confusion. He rolled on his back peeing a cascade of humiliation all over himself and the floor. From then on Max's puppy good cheer was gone. When approached, he cowered and urinated in abject submission. Puppy Max would go for a walk, but he stayed closely at my side. Later he began to trail cottontails, but at the first heavy cover or possibility of getting lost, he would quit and come back to me. Any experienced dog person would have said that something was wrong, genetically wrong. There was basis for such a judgment. The whole situation should have been avoided, but a psychologically strong young dog should have been able to survive the experience without being emotionally shattered. As I worked with Max I hoped for the best, but hoping did not help very much.

At 12 months we tried blood tracking training. Max wanted to follow me on the tracking leash instead of taking the lead. Later, when he had made some faltering progress, he still found it overwhelmingly difficult to make a decision, to take responsibility. At a check on a training bloodline, a right angle or a fork in the trail, Max would turn and come back to me. Placing his paws on my knee, he would ask with his eyes, “Now what do I do?" Max was not the confident, take charge dog that I wanted for blood tracking. Fortunately, during those years I had such a dog in Clary who was winding up her career in a blaze of glory.

But when Clary was gradually disabled by mini-strokes in 1985, it was Max who somehow had to be moved up from a distant number two spot to take deer calls. He was the best dog that I had, and he had a very good nose, but I knew that he lacked the concentration and strength of will to handle the tough ones. I propped him up emotionally and we did the best we could. On two occasions I had to call in a better dog to find the deer. We did find some deer; we got lucky with easy calls, and we lost other deer that I knew a top dog would have found. We survived, but it was not until Max was seven that the breakthroughs began to come, and Max began to succeed on the tough ones in spite of himself.

Success, arising from our sheer dumb persistence more than anything else, began to transform this dog. At the age of eight, long, long after most unsuccessful dogs are "culled off" to pet homes, Max began to take pride in himself and the deer that he found. His submission wetting finally stopped. For a half hour he would hammer away at a check, a difficult gap in a wounded deer's trail, never gambling, never moving out until he was absolutely sure of where the deer in question had gone. He seldom looked brilliant; he tended to made hard work out of whatever he did, but he got the job done. His confidence now permitted him to use his intelligence. He began to pick dead-end backtracks where the deer doubles back and then leaves the trail. Capability on this sort of check is one of the distinctions between the good and the very good blood tracker.

Strangely, progress in blood tracking did not make him a better field trial dog. Max evolved into a good field champion who won two Best in Trials in 1984, but he did this before he "arrived" as a blood tracker. I have no good explanation for why his field trial performance declined as he reached his blood tracking prime. Generally, a very good blood tracker will be a very good field trial dog, but Max's whole career seemed the exception to sound generalizations.

Max did become lost again in December of 1991. He survived for eleven days outdoors in bitter cold temperatures before we found him in good physical and emotional condition. That is another long story, but he probably lived on the carcass of the deer that he was tracking.

What reflected even more clearly the rise of Max's self-esteem was the belated rise of his courage. Max came out of his puppyhood trauma a cowardly dog. When he was two years old and weighed twenty-five pounds he confronted a ten pound possum in a brush pile. Possums growl and gape, displaying a mouth full of fearsome teeth, but possums are all hollow bluff and collapse like a chilled soufflé if stressed. Max barked and bluffed back at the possum, but he was the one to lose the bluffing contest and withdraw.

Now any informed dog person knows that canine courage is largely innate and genetically programmed. It can be modified to some degree by environment, but once a dog is an adult, his character and personality are pretty well fixed. However, Max did not know anything about these well established rules of canine psychology. In a sense, Max learned to be brave. He was able to learn to be brave because pride in his work swallowed up his fear.

His first challenge occurred when tracking dog Max found himself alone in an oil drum with a raccoon almost as large as he was. The oil drum, with entrances cut at each end, had once been a rabbit feeder at our beagle club. It had been bulldozed into the middle of a pile of stumps, and there Max, who may have thought he was chasing a rabbit, found himself face to face with a raccoon in a position where I could give him no assistance. In the oil drum it sounded like pure hell, but after five minutes it was the raccoon that fled from the drum and climbed a tree. Max came out of the vet's office with 28 stitches.

The next incident involved a rabid raccoon which Max encountered in the open in broad daylight. The French call rabies "la rage", and this coon was demonic in its fury. He would not tree and kept attacking Max as they fought down a long hedgerow. When I arrived at the scene of the uproar, Max and the coon were fighting head to head and there was blood everywhere. We put the coon away together.

The third challenge means the most to me because it involves our blood tracking. I was three weeks out of the hospital after an operation and not too sure of how I would hold up on a long, tough call. Max was twelve, but certainly in better shape than I was on that warm, sultry November afternoon. After long labors we located the buck, got him out of his bed, and the race was on with the bowhunter and his bow right behind me. It was not a very fast race; everyone was tired, and then the brewing storm broke and the rain lashed down. At last we could drink, but I could not see a thing with the rain driving into my glasses. We were crossing an overgrown field, and suddenly there was the buck. I could not see him down right in front of us until Max grabbed his haunch and the buck gave Max a terrific whack with a hind hoof which rolled him several yards. Then the buck was on his feet, and Max was also right side up and following. There are dogs that would have quit at this point. The deer went down twice more in a half mile and at the third down we ended it.

Max had remained a puppy for a long time, but he made up for it at the other end as he lived to the age of fourteen. He was still a useful dog in the field at thirteen, doing honorable back-up work and finding one deer that was too difficult for the younger dogs. His last years were his finest with the steep decline coming near the very end. This is a dog I admire and will remember. We try to make our brave dogs part of us.

Max's last deer

Mike and Tank are off to a great start!

We got this report from Sian Kwa, who is a breeder of Tank, the puppy owned by Mike Monroe. Mike lives in Florida but he hunts in South Carolina. It is great to see dachshunds being taking seriously by hunters!

Mike and Tank with his first recovery

In Mike's own words:
"On September 24 or so I picked up my puppy from Sian Kwa, he was eight weeks old. The next week I took him to my hunting club in South Carolina; 'Tank' was nine weeks old then. An older man in my club came to me saying he had a deer down and requested help in tracking him.

I went to the shot site and found a small amount of blood spatter. A very sparse trail from that. I went back to my camper, picked up 'Tank' and took him to the site. After a few minutes of calming him down he picked up the trail. After about fifteen minutes he had located his first deer. Keep in mind he was nine weeks old.

The next week there my hunting partner shot a large doe near the spine. We had no blood and it had started to rain slightly. I looked 'Tank' in the face and told him I had nothing to work with. He looked at me as if he understood what I had said. I put him down where the shot had been made. Tank nosed around about a minute then started working in a semi circle fashion. My partner said the deer had gone that way.

We let him work for a little over a hundred yards and into some very thick gall berry brush. It was so thick that I had to crawl behind the dog. In about fifteen yards, we found the fletched 1/3rd of the arrow. We quit the trail to give the deer time to die. We went back the next morning and trailed the deer until I decided the deer had not died quickly or was still alive.

The first week end of December my wife and I went back to my club to hunt the end of a storm front. At about 5:30 pm I shot a doe, which was quartering to me. I got about twenty inches of penetration. The deer left with my arrow. About ten minutes later a second doe walked in. I shot this one full broad side, with a complete pass through. I had good blood and some gut material at the site, however, I had no blood after that. My wife does not like to search after dark, and with the gut material present I decided to back out and wait til the next day.

I went back to the site at about 10:30 am and put 'Tank' down where I last saw the deer. We had a NW wind of about 12 mph, so we cross winded that. Tank went down a well used deer trial for about forty yards, made a hard right turn and walked right to the downed deer. Keep in mind; I had no blood whatsoever to start him on.

My wife started walking the edge of the swamp the second deer went into. She located three drops of blood. I put 'Tank' on that. 'Tank' started toward the first deer site again due to the wind. When I realized what he was doing I picked him up and went back to the blood.

This time; 'Tank' went into some brush following a lightly used trail. We had gone about eighty yards. For some reason 'Tank' stopped and made a circle to his left, went through the same brush as before, walking right to the downed deer. This is a twelve week old puppy! He had found two deer that had been shot fifteen hours prior. All I can say is 'Thanks for a champ of a dog'.

We are now one week from Christmas. I shot another large doe, with a compete pass through. I had good blood at the site, and fairly good blood initially, but it was spread out after that due to the speed with which the deer left when shot. I went back to camp for 'Tank' and some help. We were in a swamp about a fourth of a mile from my truck. I put 'Tank' down and let him start to work. In just a matter of a few seconds he was off at a rapid pace. We found the deer in about fifteen minutes or less. I probably could have found the deer, but it would have taken at least an hour and a half to do it.

The next day, one of the men in the club who trains bird dogs came to me and said " I have been in this club for over twenty years, and have seen a lot of people bring in what they call trail dogs. But, that dog of yours is the best I have ever seen. He truly loves what he does".

As of now January 10th, 2010 'Tank' has found seven of the deer I have put him on. One I did not go into, and one did not die or walked until she did, the third involves inexperience on my part and 'Tank's'. He is now a little over five months old. I can only imagine what he will do in a couple of years."

Upcoming blood tracking workshop (UBT Trackfest) in Michigan

United Blood Trackers will hold its Trackfest 2010 on May 15, 16, and 17, 2010 in Marshall Michigan. Marshall is 35 miles north of the point where Michigan, Ohio, and Indiana come together. On Saturday and Sunday there will be both classroom presentations and field work. Monday will be reserved for those individuals wishing to test their dogs on the UBT I or UBT II. Further details will be coming out soon.

John and I are co-founders of United Blood Trackers, the organization dedicated to promoting resource conservation through the use of trained tracking dogs in the ethical recovery of big game. UBT supports recovery efforts afield, the education of hunters, the training and testing of dog handlers and their dogs, and legislative efforts to promote blood tracking.

UBT fulfills its mission by:

• Making hunters and future handlers aware of how a good tracking dog can reduce the loss of big game.
• Providing support to handlers training their dogs.
• Encouraging our members to assist hunters with lost game recovery afield.
• Sharing information and advice with those who seek to establish the legal and ethical use of tracking dogs in their own states.
• Sponsoring testing opportunities for those who would like to document the capabilities of their dogs.
• Organizing blood tracking workshops as a means of promoting excellence and encouraging fellowship among members.

Check out United Blood Trackers website at http://www.unitedbloodtrackers.org/ To see pictures from previous events go to http://jola.smugmug.com/United-Blood-Trackers-UBT

Upcoming workshop in North Carolina

On March 12-14, 2010 the Fun Follows Function workshop will be held in the Raleigh area, North Carolina. This is going to be the third workshop of this kind. I attended the first one in 2008 and found it highly educational and entertaining too. According to the organizers ( Sian Kwa-Hopfensperger her husband Matt, Donna and Hal Schafer) "the workshop was initially set up in 2008 with the idea of promoting and preserving the hunting Dachshund or Teckel by offering information about the breed in English from the most knowledgeable and experienced sources. We have been inviting European hunters who did an outstanding job presenting the different tasks of hunting Dachshunds in Europe. These tasks were explained further through the outdoor exercises and training with the dogs". More about the mission of the workshop is given at the workshop website at http://www.fffworkshop.com.

The schedule is listed as follows:

Friday March 12, 2010 FOX DEN TRIAL

DOG TRAINING & TEST DAY focused around hunting in fox and badger dens with earthdogs. Practice and test are open to all earthdogs: Terriers and Dachshunds.

Saturday March 13, 2010 AFTER THE SHOT how to successfully recover shot deer

In order to be a successful team in recovering shot deer with a tracking dog, it is imperative to gain knowledge regarding tracking deer in general. We recommend for all blood trackers to attend the Saturday seminar prior to the dog training on Sunday.

SEMINAR DAY covering the tricks of the trade what deer hunters need to do after the shot, in order to improve the chances in finding shot deer.

Sunday March 14, 2010 BLOOD TRACKING with dogs

DOG TRAINING DAY entirely dedicated to the blood tracking practice with dogs for recovering large wounded game. The training is open to all hunting breeds.

For information about instructors click here.

You can see pictures that I took in 2008 at http://jola.smugmug.com/Workshops/North-Carolina-Hunting-Dog

Attendance highly recommended!

Zeus' first real tracking experiences

Zeus is a wirehaired dachshund puppy owned by Patrick McCaffrey from Columbus, Ohio. He was born on September 9, 2009, so now he is four months old. His parents are Perfect Tiller owned by Jeff Springer and our Billy.

When Zeus was 13 weeks old we got this e-mail from Jeff:

"Just got off the phone with Pat McCaffery about Zeus's first deer track. Pat has been working Zeus on deer liver tracks successfully. One of his friends called to ask for some help tracking the deer he had shot. So he decided to take Zeus but almost half apologies about bringing a 13 week old pup out. Anyway Zeus got on track and went the wrong way. Pat was now getting real embarrassed, but his friend said he's going right back to where I shot the deer. OK, they now get Zeus head the right way and he takes off. Good blood sign runs out and Zeus is still on track but no deer. Pat feels that they missed the trail and takes Zeus back to the last sign. What do you think Zeus does...goes on the same trail. Now Pat picks him up and the two of them start a grid search, not finding anything. They decide to check out where Zeus was headed in the first place and there is the deer within 25 yards of where Zues was picked up Twice!"

Last week Pat sent few pictures with this report:


"I have been training my 4 month old dachshund, Zeus to track deer. We have done basic obedience training and several liver and blood lines. He is a quick learner on the things that matter to him. For example, he hasn't completely mastered potty-training, but he can follow a scent trail with little difficulty.

We were hunting Ohio's January muzzleloader season. I got a call from Matt, a new hunter, who was hunting with me on my farm that he had just shot at a doe at "over 150 yards" and that he thought he'd missed, because the deer "ran out of the field with its tail up." He said he had a good steady rest, and I knew the gun was accurate as it belonged to me and I had sighted it in. I told him to wait twenty minutes until I got there with my dog, Zeus, and we would look for signs of a hit.

There was a foot of snow, which would seem to make tracking a breeze, but there were new and old deer tracks all over the field. We cast around with the dog looking for fresh tracks or blood, but could not find any. At one point, Matt asked me what all the hair on the ground was from. I looked to where he was pointing and told him it was cut deer hair probably from his deer, as no other had been shot in this field. The distance was 86 yards from where he shot. Still, there was no blood and the tracks were confusing.

I led Zeus to the hair and off he went. This time, I let him lead the way without any input from me. Within 30 yards, I saw sprayed blood on both sides of the track, so I guessed a double lung shot. Zeus led us into the woods and a dead deer. He was so intent on the track that he bumped into the deer before he saw it. Zeus is an extraordinarily well-socialized and friendly dog, but he was going to bite Matt when he tried to touch "Zeus' deer." I let him lick and chew the deer for about 10 minutes and then we packed the deer out. We would have found this deer on our own, but I can't believe that this little peanut of a puppy is able to do it already. Obviously, his dad, Billy and mom, Tilly, have given him some wonderful genes.

After I carried the deer back on my four wheeler, I had to chase after Zeus for the next two days because he was so set on following the dripping blood trail left from carrying the deer on the atv. It's amazing to me how competent this dog is at doing his job, even as inexperienced as I am as a trainer. The book has been my Bible. Thanks so much to John, Jolanta and Jeff Springer."

Pat, I am so glad to hear that Zeus is doing well. This puppy is getting great experience in the field. Hope to meet you one day!

Randy Vick, Lil' Brown and Annie - a tracking team from Georgia

Few weeks ago Randy Vick from Georgia sent us a nice letter along with pictures. We wrote about Randy before . His two tracking dogs are Lil' Brown, a Bavarian Mountain Bloodhound, and Annie, a Kemmer Stock Mountain Cur.

"Dear Mr. John and Ms. Jolanta,

Here are some pictures of Lil' Brown and Annie. They are both doing great, though they have completely different tracking styles. Brown is as laid back as they come, almost doesn't need a lead. He's pretty good in the water (lots of flooded timber and creeks here). At the age of 3, he has several 16-18 hr successful tracks.

My Kemmer Stock Mountain Cur, Annie, (Osteen's Yellow Anne) is 5 years old and is the star tracker now. She pulls hard on track and can handle 6-8 hour old tracks. She will wind a deer exceptionally well and when released will bay a live or dead deer and stay with it until you arrive.

The picture of Brown was a "practice" track that turned into a four hour adventure. We jumped the deer on an island in waist deep water and later found it floating in the river. It score 158+ B.+C. points. The guys were proud of Brown, who swam along and came out of the water right on the trail.

Lil' Brown with Randy Vick and Larry Williams (hunter)

The pictures of Annie (below) are from a six hour old track that was 1.25 mile of going down the creek and looping back across his own track (3 times), picking up another deer to run with (when the deer split up, Annie stayed with the right deer) across open fields and grown-up cut-overs, until finally we found the deer in this swampy area. Needless to say, Charlie thought Annie was the greatest.

Have taken about 50 calls so far and recovered 21 deer. I try to split calls between dogs and still have 2 weeks in Georgia and 2 months in Florida."

Charlie Hester with Randy Vick's Annie

Iowa Bill allowing the use of leashed dog to retrieve a wounded deer

Below you will find the the text of the House Bill #2009 introduced in the Iowa Legislature. Iowa is a big deer hunting state, and it is a move in a right direction. For the Bill history click here.

House File 2009

HOUSE FILE BY WILLEMS

A BILL FOR

1 An Act allowing the use of a leashed dog to retrieve a wounded
2 deer and providing a penalty.
3 BE IT ENACTED BY THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE STATE OF IOWA:
TLSB 5061HH (8) 83
av/nh

PAG LIN

1 1 Section 1. NEW SECTION. 481A.56A Retrieval of wounded deer
1 2 by leashed dogs.
1 3 A person having a valid hunting license and a valid deer
1 4 hunting license who has wounded a deer while hunting may use
1 5 a dog to locate and retrieve the wounded animal. The hunter
1 6 or any person in the company of the hunter shall not possess a
1 7 firearm or bow while using a dog in this manner and shall have
1 8 control of the dog by leash at all times during the search.
1 9 The commission shall adopt rules pursuant to chapter 17A to
1 10 implement this section.
1 11 Sec. 2. Section 805.8B, subsection 3, paragraph c, Code
1 12 Supplement 2009, is amended to read as follows:
1 13 c. For violations of sections 481A.6, 481A.21, 481A.22,
1 14 481A.26, 481A.50, 481A.56, 481A.56A, 481A.60 through 481A.62,
1 15 481A.83, 481A.84, 481A.92, 481A.123, 481A.145, subsection 3,
1 16 sections 483A.7, 483A.8, 483A.23, 483A.24, and 483A.28, the
1 17 scheduled fine is twenty=five dollars.
1 18 EXPLANATION
1 19 This bill creates new Code section 481A.56A to allow a hunter
1 20 with a valid hunting license and deer hunting license who
1 21 wounds a deer while hunting to use a dog to locate and retrieve
1 22 the wounded animal. The hunter or any person in the company of
1 23 the hunter shall not possess a firearm or bow while using a dog
1 24 in this manner and shall have control of the dog by leash at
1 25 all times during the search. The natural resource commission
1 26 shall adopt rules pursuant to Code chapter 17A to implement
1 27 this provision.
1 28 A violation of the new provision is punishable by a scheduled
1 29 fine of $25.
LSB 5061HH (8) 83
av/nh

***

Support the Iowa Bill allowing blood tracking with leashed dogs. I am reposting John's message from a year ago about most common objections raised about the legalization of blood tracking dogs.

In the states where it is still illegal to use tracking dogs for the recovery of wounded big game, the following objections are used most often:

Complaint: The availability of dogs to find wounded deer will encourage hunters to take long and irresponsible shots.

Reply: No one ever argued that the use of retrievers would encourage duck and goose hunters to take long, “sky-busting” shots.

Complaint: The use of tracking dogs will terrorize deer and drive them out of the area.

Reply: The dogs work silently on a long leash and they are trained to track only the designated wounded deer. Guides and outfitters use tracking dogs successfully on their leases when they have much to lose if they spook deer out of the area.

Complaint: Dogs and deer hunting don’t mix. The use of tracking dogs violates our hunting traditions.

Reply: Tracking dogs are not used to hunt deer. They are brought in after the hunt to find wounded deer that would otherwise be lost.

Complaint: It is the responsibility of the hunter to find his own wounded deer, not rely on a dog and handler to do it for him.

Reply: Are you really saying that it is better to leave a wounded deer to suffer, die and be wasted, than to use a tracking dog when there is no blood sign to follow and eye tracking has failed?

Great tracking season for Greg Accardo and his two dachshunds

We got these GREAT pics and report from Greg Accardo who tracks wounded deer with two wirehaired dachshunds - Ariel and her son Axel. Ariel was bred by Andy Bensing and Axel vom Feliciana is out of Greg's breeding. Greg and his two dogs are having a fantastic tracking season. Congratulations Greg!

Greg wrote:

"The pic with the three bucks was taken on 1/03/10. The big buck to the left was shot on Friday, 1st of 2010. The other two bucks were shot on Saturday, 2nd. Hunters called me on the 2nd and was not able to get there until Sunday, 3rd. We tracked all 3 bucks that morning with Ariel and Axel using the Garmin Astro.




The last pic (below) with me and the dogs was taken last Sunday, the 10th of January. That was a 24 hour old track where the buck was shot in the rear of the gut with very little sign. On top of that, the ground was frozen solid due to a hard freeze the night before. But again the dogs locked down on what scent they had and went right to him about 200 yds away. This club is archery hunting only. They called me out 4 times to track 6 different deer and we found 5. So far this year we have 9 finds, 3 still alive and bayed up by the dogs, and we still have 3 weeks of deer hunting left.

Deer Search and the 2nd Amendment Advocacy Day in Albany, NY

Today is the 2nd Amendment Advocacy Day in the NY State legislature in Albany. Deer Search has a booth at this event, and John and several Deer Search members are attending the event. For the last two days I worked on getting two display boards ready.

The first board is on Deer Search http://www.deersearch.org/.



The second board message deals with the issue of firearms and this is what the text on the board says:

"The Deer Search experience has revealed another reason why firearms, and especially handguns, are a necessity in modern, civilian life. Deer Search has a reason to reject the theory that today the Second Amendment on the right to bear arms refers only to the descendants of a “well regulated militia”.

When Deer Search handlers are called upon to tracked wounded deer and bear, quick, reliable shots are occasionally needed to stop an aggressive wounded animal. The photos show what can happen when a handgun is not accessible.

At all times Deer Search handlers are ready to shoot a mortally wounded deer to end its suffering and secure the meat for the hunter."

Pictures at the bottom of the right panel show what can happen when a wounded buck charges a tracking team. In this case it was John and Sabina who were injured, and you can read about this incident in the second part of the article on Sabina http://www.born-to-track.com/our-writing/john/Character-of-Sabina.pdf

On the Scent: Missing dachshund turns itself in at lost-and-found

This story was posted few days ago on Spiegel Online International website:

Homing pigeons can famously find their way home over long distances, and there have been many reported instances of lost cats turning up at their owners' houses. But one dachshund in Bredstedt, a small town in the northern German state of Schleswig-Holstein, showed herself to be even smarter than those animal navigators. She turned herself in at the local lost-and-found office.

The exhausted dog, who bears the somewhat aristocratic name of Druse vom Höllengrund, entered the municipal building where the lost-and-found office is located just after it opened for the day and lay down in front of the elevator, local officials told the German news agency DPA on Tuesday. A receptionist alerted staff from the lost-and-found office to the pooch's presence.
A local hunter who happened to be in the building recognized the clever canine, which had apparently got lost during a fox hunt on Saturday after losing the quarry's scent. Druse was reunited with her owner soon thereafter.

It feels good to be appreciated

Eddie Wiliamson made our day yesterday by sending us this e-mail:


"Dear John and Jolanta,

I just wanted to drop a line and tell you I appreciate all your efforts in promoting tracking. Your book and blog are wonderful teaching tools. Last September I contacted several of people on your blog that had litters and they were all very helpful, and after several conversations I decided I wanted a bigger dog. Being a Pastor and a Christian I truly believe it is our job to steward and take care of to the best of our ability Gods gift of animals therefore, the reason I became interested in blood tracking and the reason I took on a stray walker hound a veterinarian that attends our church had come across. After reading and rereading John's book and numerous blog posts and exercising patience Kaiah is starting to really get it. Thanks again for all of your efforts. Eddie

Eddie and Kaiah

And just few days ago we received this nice message from Jack Kale, who is also a Pastor.

"Jolanta and John,

First of all, thank you for the years you have put into this amazing book and sport. I just got the book in the mail yesterday and haven't been able to put it down. I bought a puppy from Barb Wills (at your reference) about six weeks ago. I have done one line trail with him each week and I am having more fun that I ever imagined. As a bowhunter, I think developing a tracking dog/relationship is as fun as learning to shoot a bow.

Secondly, I appreciate your insights into the condition of the hunter who can't find his/her deer. In Chapter 15, pg 246 you said "Hunters, who have wounded and lost a deer, are not in a "normal" state of mind. Be tactful. Don't lecture or preach." That simple tidbit spoke to me in a deep and personal way. I am a pastor in the United Methodist Church, and have found your insights to be very pastoral and personal. Thank you.

Thirdly, as an educated man, I appreciate that this book is filled with history and practice that is well written and erudite. Thank you.

Jack"

There is no deeper sense of satisfaction for me than the knowledge that what we do matters and contributes to other people's lives in a positive way. Both the book and blog were created mainly for educational purposes so it is good to know that we are on a right track. Thank you Jack and Eddie!

Blood tracking adventures of Ryan and Oskar (standard smooth dachshund) from Indiana

I saw Ryan's post about Oskar on one of the archery forums and asked for permission to post it here. He agreed and actually expanded it. Thank you Ryan! And congratulations to awesome Oskar!

In Ryan's words:

"Thanks for letting me brag on Oskar a bit - he has been all we hoped for and more. Getting into a tracking dog has been a work in progress for us - I think I bought John's book 4-5 years ago and have read through it at least 3 times. Our research into the right dog for us has taken the last couple of years, and we couldn't be more happy with the outcome.

Oskar is a standard smooth coat dachshund from Sian Kwa's July 2009 litter. We brought him home from North Carolina to Indiana at 8 weeks old (Sian had started the pups on short blood tracks at 6 weeks) and began our serious training with him right away. We used a combination of techniques from John's book and advice from Sian to direct his training. We were very pleasantly surprised with his progress (this is our first experience training a blood tracking dog), and he was soon working artificial lines up to 300 yards long with several 90 degree turns.

Oskar at 9 weeks

Oskar tracked his first deer at 12 weeks - a doe I harvested in the early Indiana archery season - and took to it like a champ.

Throughout the fall/winter he has tracked a total of 12 fatally wounded bowshot deer (with 12 recoveries), 6 of which were easy tracks - 30-70 yards long, 4 were moderate difficulty - 200-300 yards long, and 2 were difficult - 500 and 800 yards long. The last two deer would likely not have been found without the dog. Not bad for a 5 month old pup!

He also tracked one non-fatally hit deer (brisket shot) and was pulled from the track at 200 yards upon confirmation of the non-fatal injury. One unknown track was attempted for a gun hunter that did not know hit location and had 2 small spots of visible blood and only minimal knowledge of the flight path of the deer. This track was a non-starter.

Oskar's final track of the year was a real eye opener for me with 25 years of serious archery experience and participation in probably 80-100 blood trailing situations without a dog. I shot a good sized doe - hit looked good, maybe just a tad back, but a solid passthrough shot in the ribs with a big 160 grain Snuffer on a 7 yard broadside deer. Gave her a couple of hours to be sure, then went back with a two helpers and Oskar. Figured this would be a simple 75-100 yard track in the snow, then load her up and bring her home.

We started the track at approx 10 degrees F in several inches of snow and a very high deer traffic area about 3 h after the hit. Tracking went well with moderate blood for the first 75 yards, then got into a tall (3-5 ft) grass field and things became interesting. Two hours later we had found 6-8 wound beds with decreasing blood and covered around 450 yards of trail in the grass field before the dog took me across a county road. After the first approx 150 yards in the grass the blood was very spotty, even in the snow. After crossing the road I heard the deer jump and go off - keep in mind I had watched the (shaving sharp) Snuffer tipped arrow go through her ribs several hours before this.

Oskar started tracking hot at this point and we took her another 200 yards and came upon her bedded down 10 yards away, still alive. We are not allowed to carry a weapon when tracking with a dog so at this point things were at a dead end. After 20-30 min the doe jumped up and ran into the timber. Assessment of the wound bed showed only a couple of spots of blood and no visible blood on the flight path.

I decided to back out at that point, and my helpers convinced me that I had a non-fatal hit (shoulder or back) and that the deer would live. I was very pleased with Oskar's performance on this track considering that my previous working dog experience (beagles) has convinced me that scenting becomes problematic around 10 degrees F and below. He also maintained focus and drive for the entire track of several hours in these temperature and snow cover conditions.

That night I kept thinking about the situation and I was convinced that this deer was mortally wounded - I knew what I saw at the hit. I went back in the morning with Oskar and put him in the deer's last bed. There was an additional 1-1.5 inches of new snow, so there was no visible trail, but he tracked directly to the dead deer approx 75-100 yards further into the timber. The coyotes took one hind quarter, but I salvaged the rest of the deer and got closure for myself (and Oskar) on the track.

This is a virtually unbelievable situation to me - the deer was hit 3-4 inches forward of the diaphragm through the chest and there was a visible broadhead hole through the back lobe of both lungs. I can only attribute this deer living so long (around 5h) and travelling so far (approx 800 yards) to very bad luck in evidently not striking a major vessel/artery in the back of the lungs.

The top picture is the entry wound, and the bottom is the exit wound.

We are extremely pleased with Oskar and he is becoming a great tracker as well as a great pet and gets along well with our other dogs (rat terrier, beagle, and basset hound). The only caution I would give to prospective owners is that these dogs are definitely hunting dogs, not couch dogs, and someone expecting the stereotypical American dachshund might not be the best fit for one of these dynamos.

Ryan"

Bill Yoder's traveling zoo includes his wirehaired dachshund Daryl

It was good to read today that Bill Yoder and his traveling zoo are doing well. I enjoyed the story posted here. Daryl is our Billy's littermate, and he has been living a very adventurous life with Bill. One of the adventures is posted at http://www.born-to-track.com/dogs/stories/daryl-big-buck.htm

Barry Wensel, Bill Yoder and Daryl

Congratulations to Bill Smith and Nevada; spotlit for tracking at night

This New Year Day started with e-mail from Bill Smith who reported that his wirehaired dachshund Nevada found her 45th deer today at 8:15am. The number of Nevada's recoveries is mind boggling as she is just 2.5 years old. Bill hunts and tracks a lot, and his hunting season in Virginia is very long (his Urban Archery Season goes until March 27), but still his tracking record is very impressive. Bill donates all the venison Hunters for the Hungry Program. By the way, Nevada v Moosbach-Zuzelek is a daughter of Buster and Emma.

In our recent correspondence Bill raved about the small light that he clips on Nevada's collar when she tracks at night. Susanne Hamilton loves the light as well. It is called Spotlit and is manufactured by Niteize

I picked up the light at Cabelas (search for Spotlight LED Pet Light), but you can get it at other places such as Battery Barn.

Tracking wounded elk with Ziggy in New Mexico

It was great to hear from Jim Baker, who has been tracking wounded elk in New Mexico. He is an owner of "Ziggy" (Elka von Moosbach-Zuzelek), who was born February 28, 2008. Ziggy is a daughter of Billy and Gilda.

In Jim's own words:
"I describe how she did this year as phenomenal. At first I did not trust her on some of the first couple of times we went out. She was just going so fast and then I remembered from your book. If in doubt, trust your dog, so I did. She was called 12-14 times. Several of them were never to be found, high back shots and the elk was down, then gone. She found 5 of 8 possible. Some of the others I determined that the elk would probably live for at least few days or forever. After 2-3 miles with no real blood, and they got back with other elk.

The last one she found was at least 3 miles and 24 hours after the initial wound. I first realized I could trust her when we had gone 2-3 miles and I pulled her from the track as the bull got with other elk. We were just walking down a road that coincidentally the elk apparently came back on. She started getting excited and I looked down and there was a drop of blood about twice as big as a pinhead. I couldn't believe it. So after that wherever she wanted to go I was running behind her as best I could.

Here are a few photos."

New Year is coming - wishes from Lenka Fairaislova

From Lenka Fairaislova (Kalokagathia kennel) from the Czech Republic

Two deer recovered by Doc in one day

A week ago Doc (Pushkin v Moosbach-Zuzelek) had a very good day. His owner Stanley Thrasher from Alabama wrote:"Doc and I had a very good Sat. I shot a 13 point buck and Doc was able to track it down. In the afternoon we received a call out. This time an 11 year old boy had shot down a seven point and they could not find the buck. Doc hit the trail about 6:30 pm and within 30 minutes he had the seven pointer located. That was two recoveries in one day." Pictures show the seven pointer recovered by Doc.

Congratulations Stanley and Doc!

Maggie's biggest buck

This picture came from Michael Polavin in Michigan with the caption: "This is the last deer Maggie tracked, last Saturday. Biggest buck she's recovered. "

Maggie is four years old, and her registered name is Danka von Moosbach-Zuzelek. She is a daughter of Alfi and Elli.

Merry Christmas to All!

Last day of tracking season

by John Jeanneney

Our hunting/tracking season in the Southern Zone of New York is over. I don’t know whether to cheer or cry. There was a flurry of activity on the last day of black powder season. Two calls came in last night, long after dark, when the temperature was 8 degrees. I elected to take them the next day because of the temperature…cold enough to kill scent…and old men too.

Well, of course it had to snow on the tracks overnight so there was nothing to confirm a dog’s work. Joeri seems to be learning how to work these situations.. Now he get his nose down in the track of the scent and works like a snow plow.

The first scent line was pretty easy because the deer was down in front with two broken forelegs. However, the hunters had been unable to follow it by eye earlier in the day because of the snow cover. Joeri had no difficulty over the 200 yards to the dead deer. Unfortunately, the coyotes had found it first and collected their 30% tax.

Hunter and Joeri with the deer damaged by coyotes.

We failed to find the deer on the second call about 30 miles away. It was colder now, 10 degrees, and there was more snow. This deer had been hit too far back the previous afternoon. The hunter had been able to track blood for only 50 yards on the hard crusted snow; then he lost it. The next morning he attended a Christmas party and afterwards, well fortified, he came back and searched some more in the deepening new layer of snow.

When Joeri and I got there we worked over what had been the blood trail to the hunter’s point of loss, and then, what! more blood,… a gut pile and a bloody swath under the snow where a deer had been dragged out a few days before. We cast back, started again….another blood trail and another gut pile and drag. Truly it was a great spot for hunting, but a mighty tough spot to start a scent line under the snow, in cold conditions. We were never able to find the right line.

Joeri and I started the drive home from that second call with mixed feelings. Somehow it seemed appropriate that we got slightly lost on the way home in the fog of snow. Our last day of the tracking season summed up a whole season of good and bad luck… 9 finds out of 35 valid sorties. But it was Joeri’s first season, and I kept that in mind. He had come a long way. Because we are both afflicted with the tracker’s disease, it seemed like fun and a challenge we couldn’t pass up.

Christmas cards from Europe

From good friends at "vom Nonnenschlag" kennel - Rosi and Anne Bauersachs. Rosi is a breeder of our Joeri.

From "Lottie" Charlotte Jacobsson from Sweeden and her teckels at www.bussahagens.com

The Nose Knows

John Philips' article on blood tracking published in Petersen's Bowhunting is available now online at http://www.bowhuntingmag.com/tactics/BH_nose_1209/index.html

First deer for Digger

This nice e-mail came a couple of weeks ago from Susie Fitzsimmons. Her Digger was bred by Bob Hageman.

"Hello Jola and John,

I just wanted to let you know that my dog, Digger, found his first deer today. Unfortunately, due to some knee and leg problems I was unable to train Digger near as much as I wanted to. I guess it was enough, however, because this was his first opportunity to do a "real" tracking job and he did fabulous! I was surprised and happy at how aggressive he was about tracking and finding the deer. It was a fresh trail, so perhaps it was an easy job for him.

I'm not sure we would have found the deer without Digger's assistance, so we were certainly pleased, and very happy for the young man that was able to recover his deer.

Thanks for all your support and assistance, advice, etc. last year when I was getting Digger started. "

Christmas cards and pictures with teckels

These GREAT pictures were sent by Alexandra Daley-Clark, a professional photographer from Maine. Alex and her husband Denis have a young wirehaired dachshund Bogey and a border terrier Basil. Bogey was bred by Maribeth McEwan from New Hampshire and is being trained for blood tracking.





We received also the picture from Ruben González and Marisa Escobar from Spain, Kennel Los Madroños http://www.teckels-losmadronos.com/

Thank you, and Merry Christmas to All!

First real deer for Beau

The picture and message came from Chris Surtees who is training two pups now - Koa (for himself) and Beau (for his Dad). Koa is an eight and a half month old son of Gilda and Billy. Beau was bred by Jeff Springer and is out of his Tilly and our Billy.

"A buddy of mine called me to track a deer for him. He said it was good blood and a fairly long line so I decided to take both Koa and Beau out.

Koa saw his tracking collar and went crazy. I told my buddy to handle Beau and be prepared to pick him up until we reached the trail...boy was I wrong. After putting Beau's collar on I set him on the ground and he was off like a flash.

Fast forward to the trail. Koa reached the spot, started unlocking the direction and off he went. His track was steady and fast but accurate. He got to the spot where the deer stopped and appeared to have stumbled and ended up going in a couple different directions before heading out again. Koa spent a couple seconds there and was back on track. He tracked the deer another 75 yards and found him up near the railroad tracks.

Beau started a couple yards behind Koa and was on track quickly. He caught up to Koa where the deer had stumbled and from that point on was right on my heels. I thought he was following me but his nose was to the ground and several times passed my feet staying on track. Beau is very impressive and seems to have a great nose.

At the deer Koa and Beau both started in sniff and tug on the deer. Then Koa claimed the buck for himself and would not let Beau near it. After Koa took his licks at the buck I pulled him off and put Beau in for his turn. Beau showed no fear of the deer but kept an eye on Koa while he took his turn chewing and tugging.

Overall it was a great evening. Koa found his second deer and Beau was introduced to his first. Learned a lesson though...only one dog at a time. Next time I will run each separately on the trail."

Great tracking season for Sally and Petey from Vermont

Sally Marchmont and Petey (Matthias v Moosbach-Zuzelek) are a tracking team in Vermont, and we wrote about them before. Petey (Buster/Keena son) was born on March 19, 2007 so this was his second real tracking season (he was just seven months old in fall 2007). I could not be happier with Sally's report.


Hi Jolanta and John -

You will be happy to hear that Petey and I have had another successful tracking season. We took 20 calls and found 8. We had good tracking weather and hunters that were really good to work with. I had hoped to get more calls, but I did get some repeat customers which was nice to see.

During our training this summer, I managed to get Petey to slow down fairly well, but it was a completely different story once we started taking calls. He gets so excited and worked up, and I know he's less effective that way. I had hoped he would be a little slower this year, but it looks like it's going to take more time.

Over the first part of the season, I was beginning to think that I was picking him up too soon when I wasn't seeing blood, and it seemed as though when I picked him up and brought him back, it threw him off. He would seem to lose momentum and focus, almost as if he thought that I was telling him he'd gone the wrong way. So I decided to trust him more and let him go longer without seeing blood, with good results. One of the pictures attached is of a beautiful, 200-pound, 8-pointer we found for a lady who had shot him in the pouring rain. The rain had washed all the blood away so I had no choice but to trust Petey completely. He made short work of it, so it was a lesson well learned for me.

The best thing Petey did this year was during a track but had nothing to do with tracking. We had gone into a mass of pricker bushes after a deer when he slipped out of his harness. The prickers were so thick that I couldn't see the ground and it took a minute before I realized what had happened. I had no idea where he was but within 30 seconds of calling, he was at my feet.

Tom and Chris DiPietro were a big help again this year. Chris hurt her knee so couldn't track for most of the season (she's having surgery next week), but Tom and I took some calls together. Musket had another good year. He's in great shape and still going strong. We're having our table again at the big hunting show, and we're making plans to do a lot more advertising next year.

Petey continues to be strong and healthy, and an absolute pleasure to live with. Merry Christmas to you both and a happy and healthy New Year. Sally

Christmas is coming!

Christmas is coming... and it is great to see all the Christmas cards and pictures we have been getting. The above picture was sent to us by Chris Barr from Indiana and shows his eight and a half month old Gerti (Gwen von Moosbach-Zuzelek). Thanks Chris for sharing and Merry Christmas to you too!

By the way, my favorite Christmas album is How Like The Holly by Joel Mabus. If the popular commercial Christmas songs get on your nerves, try this beatiful, banjo-based alternative. We listened to Joel quite a few years ago at the Old Songs Festival in Altamont (just 15 minutes from us) and were mesmerized by his unpretentious music.

How Like The Holly
(by Joel Mabus ©1999 )

How like the holly in deep winter time
How like the star in the dark night shine
How like a path on the snow driven plain
How like the candle -- how like the flame
How like the winter that promises spring
How like the carol we sing.

How like the frost on the evergreen tree
How like the deer running wild, running free
How like Orion, arising so bold
How like the story bound to be told
How like the winter that promises spring
How like the carol we sing.

How like the holly in deep winter time
How like the star in the dark night shine
How like a path on the snow driven plain
How like the candle -- how like the flame
How like the winter that promises spring
How like the carol we sing.

Joel's official website is at http://www.joelmabus.com/

Darren's trip to Illinois and Karl's first real tracking experiences

The pictures show Karl, a young wirehaired dachshund owned by Darren Doran. This is the first tracking season for Karl who was bred by Laurel Whistance-Smith. He was born February 18, 2009, and he is out of FC Pagan von Lowenherz and our Billy. Darren wrote:

"I'm back home now and Karl really liked his trip to Illinois. We stayed in a house in Hannibal, MO and crossed the Mississippi every day to go to the farm to hunt.

He's really a good dog. The first track was a doe Bobby shot. He knew he killed the deer and it was only about 50yd long. Karl was on the deer in less than a minute. The next was a doe I shot. Again I knew the deer was dead. The track was about 4 hr old. The deer ran through a blow down and directly into the wind. Karl came out of the blow down and immediately air scented the deer and went right to it.

The third was the deer in the picture this doe was shot by Jim and went about 100 yd. The track was 4 hrs old. These tracks were really very easy for Karl and I ran him on these so he would start to realize what his job is and how he fits in to this. As far as that goes I think he's getting it.

The track of the buck that Jim shot I mentioned in the email was different. We went to the hit site and the deer had left the bed; Jim saw him lay down in the night before. The deer had crossed the north line on to private property and we had to get permission to enter. Our contact in IL went to the outfitters camp, but no one was there to give permission. While we were waiting Bob and Jim walked east along the north line and saw the deer dead in a weed patch about 50 yds from his first bed. We really couldn't finish the track with Karl. He became confused as to why we stopped on the track and were just hanging around. The fact that it was raining wasn't helping either. I do believe he had air scented the dead deer when we first started. He left the blood line and charged toward the dead deer and was doing everything he could to get though the fence and go in that direction. We got the deer back on our side and let Karl chew on him as a reward. "

Pictures of Tim Nichols and his Bavarian Mountain Bloodhound

We wrote about Tim Nichols and and his Bavarian Mountain Blood Hound Bruno in January - see that post here. Today we are presenting the first four pictures of the bear and deer he has recovered during this tracking season.

Lucy's first blood tracking season

I got a good and thorough update on Lucy (Patti v Moosbach-Zuzelek), a Theo/Keena daughter. She is eight and a half months old now. Her owner Dan Davis wrote:

Things seem to be going well with Lucy. She absolutely loves to hunt. When she sees the gear coming out she lays in front of the door waiting until its time to go. I had her out 12 times this fall on "deer calls." We had significant rain in October (20 out of 31 days) which made it tough to get out on training lines. On 7 of the calls either the hunter or I knew where the deer were. She found those 7 and two others that we didn't know where they were but only because no one had looked yet. Two others I honestly didn't think there was much chance for her to find the deer. Based on what the hunter told me I was not convinced either were mortal wounds. I took her anyway mainly for the practice, but also "just in case." She did not find either deer nor did she show us blood beyond where the hunter had found it on their own. I had the opportunity to get her out at night, some tracks took us across water (she loves being in the water), she got exposed to being around other people while tracking; I think it was a productive fall. I am convinced that I have much more to learn about this than she does.

At this point my biggest challenge appears to me to be getting her to slow down. She loves being in the woods and gets very excited. I spent some time trying to get her to slow down with limited success.

Her owner (me) ruined what would have been her best outing of the fall. I shot a mature buck with my bow at 7 a.m. It looked and sounded like a good hit to me, but I found a piece of bloody corn while I was tracking it so, fearing a gut shot, I pulled out for 5 hours. I brought Lucy along when I went back but left her in the truck for the time being. We lost blood after 300 yards, at 400 I found one spot where the deer had brushed against a corn stalk. We looked for a while then decided to give Lucy a try.

She did really well for the first 450 yards or so but then started to get easily distracted by moles, bugs etc. She eventually made a right turn and took me into another woods which happened to be the same woods we walked the edge of when we went to the truck to get her. After a short distance it looked to me like she was taking the same route we took so I thought she may be tracking us. I took her back to the last place we knew the deer had been to start over. She made a left turn.... We started over again, she went straight... We were seeing no indications where the deer might be and she was not as interested as she had been in the beginning so we decided to call it a day. We were walking through the same woods to the truck when Lucy started barking and pulling into the wind. I let her go for awhile while she was zig zagging but then she started circling which usually means she has lost the trail. It was getting late so I picked her up to carry her to the truck. About 75 yards later my brother found the deer. Making a short story long, Lucy was taking me to it both times.

An exciting recovery for Greg Accardo and his dachshunds

These two pictures show a buck recovered by Greg Accardo from Louisiana and his two wirehaired dachshunds. Greg can work his dogs off leash and uses Garmin Astro GPS to keep track of them. Congratulations Greg on this exciting recovery!

Blood Trailing Seminar in Rocksprings, Texas - February 27, 2010

Hurry up and sign up for Marlo Riley's workshop ASAP as the number of available reservations is very limited!

February 27,, 2010

10:00 am: Blood-trail class starts (Please arrive 30 minutes yearly to sign in, if you would like earlier arrival there will be breakfast available for purchase.)
12:30 pm: Lunch Break
1:45 pm – 4:30 pm: Finish up Blood-trail class

$75 for each handler and dog team running blood-trails for the day. $35 for each handler without dog.

Sign Up Contact: Marlo Riley bluelacydogs@sbcglobal.net 210-288-0553


Directions:
Coming from Mountain Home – Head towards Rocksprings, TX on Hwy 41. Hwy 41 intersects with Hwy 83. Garvin Store is on the corner. Go pass intersection, staying on Hwy 41. The ranch gate is 5 miles past Hwy 83 and Hwy 41 on the left. Gate will be marked.

Here is a link to the pictures for the 2009 Seminar: http://bloodseminar2009.shutterfly.com/

Ginie v Moosbach-Zuzelek - a blood tracking puppy from Georgia

It was great to hear from Wayne Varnadore from Alma, Georgia. We have not heard him from him for a while because as it turned out in July he had a back surgery. Wayne has Ginie from the 2009 litter out of Gilda, sired by Billy.

Wayne wrote: "Ginie has found 5 deer so far for this deer season. On the first find it was an experience for the both of us. It was a gut shot deer with no blood that approx. traveled about 400 yards with about 6 or 7 90-degree turns. She never missed a turn; I didn't know where the deer was with no blood sign. The second deer was my son Tyler's deer with an approx. 200 yards for her to find the deer. She's found all 5 deer with no help. Just wanted to send you a few photos of Ginie with her deer. Also wanted to let you know Ginie has done about 4 overnight lines that I have done with my scent shoes and has done a good job for me. We will let you know if she finds any more deer this season."

Wayne, good to hear from you. We hope that your back heals really soon. Good luck hunting and tracking to all of you!

About our breeding program

I was asked some questions about our breeding program on the Michigan Sportsman Forum. I thought that I would post my answer here too and actually elaborate a bit.

We import wirehaired dachshunds from Europe so we keep a gene pool of working wires alive. It is a small gene pool, and new blood is needed on a regular basis. This is not easy to do.

Every time we import a puppy, we take a chance. We keep the pup and work with him/her. Three years ago we imported two pups from two breeders who breed hunting lines. We decided to place one puppy in a pet home only after four months of having her (because of her temperament tendencies). We kept the other one for a year and a half and placed him in a pet home too.

We don't select only for the blood tracking potential but for health, temperament, functional conformation, reproductive qualities. We select for other (not related to bloodtracking) working characteristics too. We don't use in our breeding the dogs who are not spurlaut even though this characteristic is not critical for blood tracking. Our dogs don't lack prey drive. Actually some owners would say that they have too much of it!

We don't breed narrow specialists but our aim is to breed dachshunds which CAN blood track. Not all dachshunds can. Here in the USA there are no other real hunting jobs for standard dachshunds - just blood tracking. In Europe the breed is used for a variety of hunting tasks. But American hunting tradition, game and regulations are different, and certain types of hunting performed with dachshunds in Europe are strictly illegal here.

Our youngest female now, eight-month-old Paika goes back six generations to the cross I made in 1991:

1. Fausto de la Grande Futaie (French import) was bred to Rivendells Ruby Tuesday (American show line). This produced Kuba (Zuzelek's Globetrotter) who was better than either parent.

FC & Can. Ch. Fausto de la Grande Futaie, JE (1990-2002)

2. Next generation was Branie vom Dornenfeld bred to Kuba, which produced Agata von Moosbach-Zuzelek.

3. Agata was bred to Asko von der Drachenburg, and this produced Elli von Moosbach-Zuzelek.

4. Elli was bred to Alfi von der Hardt-Hoehe, and produced Billy von Moosbach-Zuzelek.

5. Billy was bred to Gilda von Moosbach-Zuzelek (Sabina and Asko's daughter) and this produced Keena von Moosbach-Zuzelek.

6. Keena was bred to a French import Du Théo de la Meute à Cheops and produced Paika von Moosbach-Zuzelek.

Dogs listed above, with the bold font were imported - two from France, three from Germany, in total four by us and one by a friend from Canada.

Asko (excellent producer of blood tracking and field trialing wires) is on both sides of Keena's pedigree so this in an example of line-breeding. But most of the time we use a breeding strategy called asortative mating. You can read about it http://www.canine-genetics.com/breed.htm. We certainly know more about dogs that have produced than about the dogs we have imported, but this is the best that we can do. We don't live in Europe, and are not able to visit often but we have gone to Germany and France several times and talked to numerous breeders. We watched blood tracking tests and competitions. Every year we buy a DTK Zuchtbuch and study it.

In our experience the best cross we have ever made was Zalud Staccato by Gerte vom Dornenfeld, and we go back to this bloodline time after time.

Zalud Staccato

We have had experience with other very good producers of blood trackers but sometimes got unpleasant surprises, for example undescendant testicles etc.

Breeding is a process, and in every generation you have to evaluate, select and prioritize. For example, you may have to sacrifice conformation for spurlaut. We try not to double on weaknesses. We know that not all our puppies are going to be perfect blood trackers, and this is why we keep them here for longer and we don't sell them at 7 or 8 weeks. At that age we have no idea yet what we have.

With every litter we learn something new.

This snow will most likely will end our blood tracking season

It has been snowing since noon, and to me it looks like we got 5-6 inches of snow...so far. It is supposed to stop snowing around midnight. Since temperatures are going to stay around the freezing point for the next week, and more snow is expected on Wednesday, most likely this is the end of our blood tracking season. Hunters will continue to hunt, but in many cases they will be able to track their own deer. Our regular firearm season will end on December 13, and then we will have a muzzleloading season until December 22. We hoped for some easy tracks for our young dogs but so far we have not had any.

Big Game Hunting with Dogs in Frontier Maryland and Pennsylvania

John Jeanneney © 1997, Full Cry

Speculation and debate about cur dogs and hounds of the American frontier has been going on for a long time. Sometimes new pieces of the complicated puzzle show up and add to our understanding of the big picture. Two autobiographies by hunters of the early 1800s describe dogs and how they were used on deer, elk and bear in the frontiers of western Maryland and north-central Pennsylvania. This style of hunting had little in common with modern bear hunting with hounds or with the hunting of deer with hounds as it continues in the south.

The man who tells us most is Meshach Browning (1781-1859) who was born on a small, poor farm in Frederick County, Maryland in the year that the American Revolution ended. Browning's father died shortly after his son's birth and by the time he was ten Meshach's mother took the boy over the mountains to western Maryland. Meshach stayed and hunted in this area for the rest of his life. Deer and bear were plentiful and mountain lions were still present.

Young Meshach spent several years on pioneer farms belonging to his uncle. Here he "hunted coons and wildcats and sold the fur which was in brisk demand." For this he used his dog Gunner, a jack of all trades dog who also hunted rabbits. Before he was 16 (B.25) he was on his own. By this time he also began to hunt deer accompanied by Gunner.

Browning hunted deer and bear with the dog in close, not ranging out. The dog was kept at a loose "heel", or if not so well-trained, was restrained by some sort of a cord. The hunter "still hunted" moving slowly through the timber looking for deer and watching his dog who would wind scent the deer and indicate its presence through body language but without barking. The dog acted as nose and ears for the hunter and could also follow the game after the shot. This hunting method is still used today in Scandinavia by moose hunters who use Norwegian Elkhounds and related breeds.

In reading Browning's narrative it is obvious that these needs to follow wounded deer were frequent. The flintlock rifles that were generally used on big game threw a .45 caliber ball. The quality of the powder available was also not the best. By modern standards the energy delivered would be considered marginal, and these flintlock hunters had difficulties if placement of the ball was not ideal. Under the circumstances putting a dog on the hot line of the wounded deer was a time-saver and often a game saver as well.

Meshach became best known as a bear hunter and at the end of his hunting career he estimated that he had killed 300 to 400 bears. It was an old bear hunter, Mr. John Caldwell of Wheeling, who introduced him to the use of dogs in bear hunting. Meshach obtained his first great bear dog, Watch, out of John Caldwell's stock. Watch was what Meshach wanted, a large, powerful dog up to the task of pulling down wounded deer and baying bears that would not tree.

Bears were more numerous and much less wary in those days than they are today. Sometimes Meshach hunted bears with his dog on their feeding grounds as he did deer. He would use a dog to locate denned bears, to roust them out, bay them and follow after the shot. He would also cold track bears on snow by sight, and after jumping them turn his dogs loose on the hot line.

Browning described his preferences for deer and bear dogs in some detail. From the start he wanted big dogs that were strong and fast like Watch. At the end of his career Meshach seemed to have a pretty clear idea of how to breed what would be useful to him. He worked with variations of the bulldog/greyhound cross. "Take a half-blooded pup," he advised, "a cross between the bulldog and the greyhound...." He did not stick to a rigid formula and "bulldog" and greyhound were generic terms for kinds of dogs less extreme in type than the breeds of today.

Clearly Meshach liked jaw power in his bloodlines. "I had lost my old hunting dog and had with me the slut from which I raised my good dogs...."When (the buck) found her so close, he turned to fight her off. Being partly of the bulldog breed, she seized him by the nose, and held on until she mashed his nose up to his eyes, and crushed both eyes entirely shut." Browning liked to work with variations of the bulldog greyhound cross, but he did not stick to a strict formula. "I have had some very fine dogs which were a cross between the bulldog, the greyhound, and the fox hound; but the only objection to them is that they are so noisy that you can never steal on the game, but keep it always on the look-out."

Meshach's preferred dog was fairly tight-mouthed and apparently more a windscenter than a specialist for old, cold ground scent.

"The extraordinary success which I had in bear-hunting requires some explanation which I will endeavor to give. I always kept two good dogs; one of which walked before me and the other behind. The one in front would wind the bear, and lead me up to him on that side on which he could not smell me, and I would come on him unexpectedly. If, by chance, he found us coming on him and ran, the dogs would overtake him before he would be out of sight. The moment I would see one run, I would send the dogs after him; and as I could run almost as fast as any bear could, when the fight began I was close up and a shot was certain death."

Sometimes we have to take a small grain of salt with Meshach's statements and realize that he was describing his ideal of dog work rather than what took place most of the time.

None of the adventures which he recounts in his book required much cold nose work by modern big game hound standards. Cold trailing ability would not have been very important in this style of hunting.

There is no basis for assuming that Meshach's dogs were ancestors of any modern cur breed although clearly they resembled curs much more than hounds. We have no sure way of knowing what they looked like. Engravings and etchings provided by Browning's editor Edward Stabler show dogs which have the outline of a rather rangy southern black mouth cur of the Ladner or Nolan strains. The plates from Meshach Browning's book do not prove how the dogs actually looked. Edward Stabler, the artist/editor who produced them, knew Meshach personally after his hunting days were over, but we can't be sure whether his illustrations in the book depict specific dogs or just showed generic big game dogs of the 1850's. An engraving identified as a "bear dog" looks like a modern pitbull.

What we do know is that Meshach's dogs acted like curs and were useful in the ways that a cur-dog is useful. They were used by Browning to wind game. They worked very close to him until a deer was encountered. There are hounds that will do this, but it is more typical of cur work. Browning's dogs also formed close associations with individuals and were more protective than is characteristic of hounds."I asked Mary if she would stay in the house by herself while I went out to shoot a deer for she had been a long time wishing for some fresh venison; and I told her that her brother wanted to go with me. She said yes, if I would leave Watch (her favorite dog), which would not suffer man or beast to touch her in a rough way; for, if I was playing with her, and she called Watch, he would jump at me, and would bite too, if I persisted."

We will never know if these dogs ever became part of the great gene pool from which modern curs derive. Meshach does describe what canine traits he found useful for his frontier hunting. These traits could be bred for when needed by combining certain types of dogs, as has been done with the deliberate greyhound collie crosses that produce "lurchers" for taking hares and rabbits in England.

Browning also took great pains to train his dogs to handle well:

"Take a half-blooded pup, a cross between the bull dog and the grey hound, FEED HIM WELL - FOR A STARVED PUPS WILL SURELY BE A THIEF, - and when he is able to follow you to the field, make him lie down at your feet and do not allow him to rise until he is told. When he gets a rod or two from you, either make him return, or wait till you come up with him, and then make him lie down again. In all cases where he does his duty caress him and he will soon learn to love his master; after which he will not be afraid and run away to avoid correction. Whip but lightly, until you have so trained the dog that you can depend on his obedience to your command to stop, or to return at your order. When you have taught him this, you may venture a little more severity, according to the offense; and when he is taken into the woods he must be first taught to trail his game; for if a deer is wounded he should trail it carefully, going but a step or two before his master, until the game is killed. When the master can see the deer which he has killed, he should let the pup go toward the carcass, and then call him back; then, advancing a little nearer, he should let him go to the deer a second time, and call him back again; then let the master accompany him to the deer and flatter him as much as possible. By this means, when he is sufficiently instructed, and is sent to catch a wounded deer, he will kill it, return to his master and guide him to the spot where it is lying. And he must never leave his master more than two or three steps, lest a deer bound off, and he run after it and be spoiled.

When in the woods, and your dog seems to desire to run after deer, pretend you see some, and take the gun in your hand as you would if you were creeping toward a deer; when if the dog misbehaves, you can chastise him. By treating a dog this way every time he becomes unruly, he may be entirely cured of his faults."

While Meshach Browning was thinning the deer and bear population in western Maryland another hunter Philip Tome (1782-1855) was hunting with his dogs along the same Appalachian ridges some 250 miles to the Northeast along the Pennsylvania-New York Boundary. By his own account, Tome's parents were of "German extraction." He was born a year after Meshach Browning near what is today Harrisburg and his family later migrated north up the west branch of the Susquehannah. Tome's methods of hunting big game with dogs were a little different from Browning's, but the techniques overlapped in some respects. In northern Pennsylvania Tome hunted deer and bear, but his specialty was elk which very uncommon down in Browning's country.

Tome credits John Mills, an old hunter who lived near his father for giving him his best instruction, although later Tome certainly expanded upon the art of his master. Before moving to Canada Mills sold his farm to Tome's father and then made another deal with the son. Meshach reported that he offered "to sell me his dog, and to teach me all he knew about hunting for fifteen dollars which I accepted. I had already hunted for several years, but his instructions were of greater value than all my previous experience."

Tome seemed to want a "houndier" dog than Browning:

"The best kind of dog for hunting deer is a large variety, half bloodhound, a quarter cur and the other quarter greyhound. I have had two dogs of this kind, for one of which I paid ten dollars and the other six. They were of more practical value than four small dogs would have been. When they were one in a chase on a deer they would not lose one in ten. So famous did they become for their prowess, that if any of the neighbors saw them running, they would exclaim, "there are Tome's dogs; the deer cannot be far off." The deer could never baffle them by any of their usual stratagems, and they often ran them down before they reached the water. Those wishing to hunt successfully should always procure at any cost, the largest and best dogs to be found."

The bloodhound genes in these cross-bred dogs should have produced strong aptitudes for working ground scent. When we compare Tome's hunting stories to those of Browning, we see that Tome places much less emphasis on wind scenting, and his runs on deer tend to be longer. Tome did not work his dogs in close as much as Meshach, but he definitely expected them to be obedient and handle well. "We owned three well-trained dogs. If we put them on a track they would not leave it for any other; they would come when called, and never go until we gave the word." They were hounds but they were very well-trained.

A posed, not very clear photograph of Tome which is in the collection of the Warren County Historical Society shows him with a rifle and dog. This dog seems to have more the features of a cur than a hound, but he may not have been typical of Tome's elk and deer dogs.

According to Tome:

"The most favorable time for hunting elk is in the month of August, when they herd together and the bucks are very fat. I have sometimes seen as many as sixty in one herd. At this season they utter a peculiar hollow roar, which can be heard at a great distance, and are constantly fighting with each other. The hunter approached them cautiously with dogs, and when near enough he let the dogs loose, and the elk, instead of running, would face the dogs. The hunter now crept nearer, and shot them, keeping himself concealed. They would gather around their fallen companions, making a great noise."

In the winter, snow cover made it practical to scout for elk tracks. He would follow these tracks for many miles before jumping the elk and releasing the dogs. In heavy snow the dogs had a good chance of running down and baying the elk.

It was Philip's father, Jacob Tome, who had created a sensation in January of 1800 by using dogs and ropes to capture a large bull elk and bring it out of the woods alive. In his own career Philip repeated the feat a number of times.

Tome hunted deer with dogs in a number of different ways. Especially in the fall when the deer were fat he cast his dogs like hounds; hunters were posted along the steams to ambush the deer as they picked their way along through the water and rocks in an effort to lose the dogs.

Tome also jacked deer at night from a canoe or at natural or man-made salt licks. Close to salt licks he would build a "scaffold" (this sounds like the German Hochsitz); when the deer came he would lower a burning torch to give himself shooting light. "I generally had a companion and a dog, and one of us remained at a distance with the dog, while the other watched from the scaffold. In the morning, if any were wounded, we set the dog on the track, if we could not track it by blood without difficulty."

Both Meshach Browning and Philip Tome hunted primarily for the market. Meshach estimated that he killed, in total, 1800 to 2000 deer. Philip Tome, as well as his brother, about whom we get little detail, took a lot of game. "My brother killed from twenty-five to thirty-five elk and twenty to twenty-five bears each year. I did not kill as many.... During one season, my brother killed of bears, elk and deer nearly two hundred.. The greatest number that I killed, in any one season, of the same kind of animals was about one hundred and thirty." Bear meat was the most valuable of all. "If we saw a bear track when we were in pursuit of elk, we would always leave the elk and follow the bear."

The methods of Browning and Tome would be illegal today in most of the country; there is also a real question of whether their methods would be as effective. Black bears were certainly much less wary in the early 1800's. Elk, in the habit of standing up to wolves, did not fare well when responding in the same way to dogs and hunters with rifles. There may well be some over-simplification or exaggeration in some of the accounts, but we do know that wild animals responded very differently before they came to know of humans with firearms.

Black bears then also tended to be more aggressive than the ones which survive in the East today; they were a real threat to livestock, especially free-ranging hogs. Browning saw the bear as a respected adversary, but he fought them no holds barred. Describing a rough bear fight, he wrote:

"When I saw him laid out at my feet, and thought how manfully he had fought in his own defence, and also how unfairly he had been taken, without the least notice at the onset, it destroyed all pleasure of the fight. But then it occurred to me that, if he had escaped at this time, he would perhaps have killed a dozen hogs for some of my friends; and that if he had received the least notice of the attack, he could not have been taken by all the dogs in the neighborhood."

Both Browning and Tome hunted deer as if they were harvesting apples for the market. They picked everything in sight, always confident that there would be more for the following year. They were hard men living in hard times, but they did not hunt for the love of killing. Tome wrote:

"I never want only killed an animal, when I could gain nothing by its destruction. From October to May their skins are good, and at this season I always killed all I could. With a true hunter it is not the destruction of life which affords the pleasures of the chase; it is the excitement attendant upon the very uncertainty of it which induces men even to leave luxurious homes and expose themselves to the hardships and perils of the wilderness."

For these two frontier hunters dogs were as much a part of big game hunting as their flintlock rifles. Dogs and men had much in common. They were equally driven and equally tough. They lived up to one another.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Browning, Meshach, Forty-Four Years of the Life of a Hunter Being Reminiscences of Meshach Browning, a Maryland Hunter, Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott, 1859. Reprint. Oakland, MD: Appalachian Background Inc., 1982.

Tome, Philip, Pioneer Life or, Thirty Years a Hunter, Harrisburg, PA: Aurand Press, 1854. Reprint. Salem, NH: Ayer Company Publishers, 1989.

Misconceptions about us and our dachshunds

This post is going to be more personal than any other as today was a really bad day. First a friend called with the news that an outfitter from the Midwest has two of our dogs, he does not like them and wants to get rid off them. Well, we never sold a dog (or two dogs) to any outfitter in this particular state (it is illegal to blood track there). So these dachshunds can’t be out of our breeding (=bred by us). Also in our contract we have “If the buyer at any time chooses to resell or transfer custody of this dog to a third party, the buyer must first notify seller before any resale or transfer to a third party takes place. At this time the seller shall have the first option to repurchase the dog (at the price not higher that the original purchase price) before sale or transfer to a third party.” We repurchased our dogs before. For example, Emma was repurchased for the sales price when her first owner was going through a nasty divorce and had to find a new home for her.

I have encountered this thinking before. If it is a wirehaired dachshund used for tracking, it must be from John and Jolanta. How not true! There are other breeders in this country, and close to 12-15 litters of wirehaired dachshunds out of European blood lines were bred this year. Some litters were sired by our males, but some were not. If there is a “von Moosbach-Zuzelek” dog in a pup’s pedigree a generation or two back, this pup is not “out of our breeding”. Only dogs purchased directly from us are “out of our breeding”.

Anyway, I feel really bad about the two dachshunds mentioned by our friend but I don’t know who bred them.

Next I stumbled upon a hunting forum, where a person we know from online contacts and phone conversations (never met him in person) was giving advice about buying a dachshund for blood tracking. He has a great little dachshund, and we have always been supportive of his work and promoted his accomplishments. He has never owned or worked with dachshunds out of our breeding or bloodlines. Well, it was a shock to find out that “our dogs are overrated and not worth the money we ask people to pay”. Apparently we are very good at marketing, breed dogs for living, and the dogs are not that good. This is not all that was written there, and after I had read the whole thread I felt sick. Why do people have this need of making themselves feel better by putting others down?

In reality we are very selective about buyers. When you go to our website www.born-to-track.com there are no hard sale tricks there, no flashy advertisement. We don’t even have “testimonials” as we want to attract buyers who have done their own research. Actually, we have an “obstacle course” for potential buyers, and we don’t make it easy for people to buy a puppy from us. Yes, we charge quite a bit of money for a puppy, we ask people to come here to pick up a puppy (we don’t ship), which might be very expensive, and we sell our puppies on the AKC limited registration. It is all spelled out very clearly on the website, but I doubt that it is “good marketing”.

Why don’t we sell our pups cheaper? We value our work and time we put into these puppies. We import dogs from Europe, and we don’t get any guarantees from European breeders. We evaluate the imported puppies thoroughly, and we use for breeding only the best individuals (usually 50% of what we import). The evaluation and strict selection are integral parts of our breeding program. We do not put together just any two dogs out of European breeding or sell pups at 7-8 weeks. This is not the way we choose to breed dogs. Most of the time we breed only two litters of pups a year, and we work with puppies until they are at least ten weeks old. Some pups stay here until they are 12-14 weeks old. We spent at least half a day with people who come to pick up pups (no extra fee). We provide as much support as people are willing to accept.

Of course, we have expenses. Our dogs are fed premium food – twice a day. In the morning they get raw diet from Omas Pride (our bill is $700 per two months just for that). In the afternoon they get premium dry kibble. We don’t skimp on veterinary care, and all our dogs undergo eye examination every other year. The dogs have fenced-in 12 acres where they get exercise.

It was hard to read how apparently we profit from dogs because we give so freely our time and work to clubs such as Deer Search and United Blood Trackers. John who has been retired for 9 years from his professional career as a college professor does not charge for his seminars (as most professional dog people do) and sometimes (!) he gets reimbursed for travel. He spends every day two hours on the phone giving trackers encouragement and advice…for free. We don't charge anything for tracking.

Then I did a google search and visited another hunting forum. I read somebody’s post there (of course nobody is using their real name) that John wrote his book “on Hofstra dime”. The truth is that he retired from Hofstra University 9 years ago, and his book was published in 2003!

I have no idea where people come up with stuff like this but certainly it was a day full of nasty discoveries.

Poppy's second deer; advice for new handlers

Derek Harris from Texas wrote that Poppy found her second deer on Saturday. "A hunter had made a shot too far back. We gave it a couple hours and then made a go at it. We went out with the hunters but she did not seem to be able to focus. It seemed like if she heard them talk or make any noise she would get distracted. I picked her up and took the hunters back to the lodge. Poppy and I came back alone and she was focused. After a little more than an hour we found the deer still alive in a draw. He was about 80 yards from us. We circled back around to get behind the deer. When we got about 30 yards from the deer I tied Poppy to a tree and got a little closer so I could make a good shot with the pistol. She is still very possessive of her treats at the end of blood lines and of deer. I am going to call Kevin Breaux this week for advice because I am having trouble with my lead in this terrain. Poppy has done well but I still don't have that much confidence in myself. Hopefully with more practice and experience that will change."

My response to Derek was: "Like with anything in life, you get better at things when you practice and get more experience. Poppy is just eight-months-old and you are a novice blood tracker. You both have a long way to go but you will be getting better and better.

A good idea to call Kevin. If you track in a very thick cover, you may need to use a longer lead – around 40 feet. It has to be stiff so it can snake on the ground without getting hung up."

Derek's e-mail brings up important points. First tracking experiences for novice trackers with inexperienced young dogs may be very frustrating and daunting. There is a steep learning curve involved for both, a dog and handler. Sometimes people who plan to get a tracking dog think that blood tracking is simple and easy, and that a tracking dog will take them straight to the dead deer. If they have never seen a tracking dog in action, why would they think differently? Then they learn that usually in the beginning things are more complicated than that. This is when having a good support system can really help.

It is a good idea to:

• Re-read John's book; now with some experience you will get more out of it. What was abstract few months ago, now after some tracking will make more sense.
• Join United Blood Trackers to network with other trackers in your area or online. Don't hesitate to ask questions. Read other trackers' posts and articles, you will learn from them.
• If you live in New York, join Deer Search.
• Attend blood tracking workshops and seminars as you will always learn something new.
• Talk to a breeder of your dog. If this person is an experienced blood tracker, he/she will be able to advise you.
• Have realistic expectations. Because even young tracking puppies can look so brilliant on difficult artificial tracks, it is tempting to expect them to do really well on natural lines. But there is so much more to real tracking.
• Keep on socializing your dog. Tracking dogs have to work with hunters around and be at ease with strangers. They need to be exposed to a variety of situations.
• Avoid situations in which your young dog might suffer traumatic experiences. Make sure that your pup is exposed to gun fire and she is OK with it before you take her on a real deer call where hunters will be shooting. Don't let your pup come into a close contact with a deer that it is still alive. Plan, anticipate, and ...be patient.

Trust your dog? part 3

Joe Walters from Indiana wrote yesterday:

"Hunter thought he had hit too far back. After checking his arrow and hair, we determined he had made a good hit. Starting at the hit site Doc took it out of the woods and north along the edge of a bean field for a long ways and then back into the woods with blood starting to get sparse. He then opened and started north again opening a lot as we went to the north end of woods with no blood. I pulled him off and we went back to blood trail and farther west about 200 yds to dead buck. He had gotten on a live deer. A 3/4 mile track had turned into a 1 1/2 mile jaunt. I hope he doesn't start doing this as it was a wild goose chase."

This is a good example of what might happen when you track wounded deer. There will be tracks of live deer in the area, and a dog will be tempted to leave an old blood line, especially when it is a difficult line. It takes experience, maturity, focus and self-control on dog's part not to give in to the temptation. As John stated before: "Even dogs have their limitations; even a dog can make a mistake, and this is especially true for young dogs. Don’t blindly trust your dog for 100s of yards; keep looking for that speck of blood to confirm your trust. And read your dog."

A long and exciting track for Kevin Armstrong and Karma

Karma's #7 recovery this season was a long exciting track. The hunter swore that he had a chest hit. He followed bright blood 100 yards to a bed and jumped the deer. After jumping the deer he followed blood for another 100 yards then lost the trail.

When Chris Martinek and I arrived we found paunch hair and bright blood at the hit site. We got off to a poor start due to many other deer in the area, walking on the same trails as our wounded buck. Eventually we followed our deer the 200 yards the hunter had marked. Then we added another 50 yards of trail out to a paved road. We lost the trail at the road. After 1/2 hour of searching we began to suspect a back track. Sure enough, when we went back we found blood spatters going back on the trail. Karma soon found the turn and took me through suburban door yards and across driveways. The hunter confirmed that we had tracking permission as we went from one property to another.

The trail was confirmed by an occasional drop of blood. After 1/2 mile the deer was veering to the west, away from the homes. Karma soon found a second bed. The blood leaving this bed was much fresher than the blood leading to it, so I knew we had jumped the deer. Now Karma was locked on to this deer. I knew that nothing could break her concentration. Rather than back off I decided to try to run the deer down. Away we went through swamp and thicket for over a mile. From time to time the trail was confirmed by a drop of blood. From time to time I would find a drop of blood with the fingers pointing back at us, indicating that the deer was moving in front of us and watching his back trail. In another 1/2 mile we were going through water nearly to the tops of my 18 inch pac boots. I took this to be a last ditch effort of a desperate deer trying to lose the trackers.

I was right. As we came out of the swamp and up a bank covered in rose, wood vine, and thorns, there lay our buck. He was still alive but his head was drooping as in sleep. The deer was 10 yards from Karma when I spotted him. I gave the hunter my dog lead and pruners to hold as I moved in for a killing shot. At 5 yards I cocked the hammer of my .44 mag. Hearing this the buck leaped to his feet and fled. The laser was on his chest so I squeezed.

The lucky bullet severed his spine, knocking him down and allowing me to dispatch him as humanely as possible.

Breathless, the hunter and tracker watched in celebration as Karma claimed her buck. We walked exactly 1 mile from where we dragged the buck to the road and the where the truck was parked. So, if we straitened out the trail we had probably tracked the deer from 1.5 to 2 miles. Maybe more.

The once skeptical, now totally impressed hunter, gave Deer Search a very generous donation.

Sorry about the poor quality picture. I had forgotten my camera and have to be content with a cell phone pic.

Kevin

Great future ahead for Andy and Ruby, a very promising blood tracking team from southern Maryland

This is a first blood tracking season for Any Pederson from southern Maryland and his wirehaired dachshund Ruby. Ruby is a daughter of our Billy and Pepper Berger von Arno Yergz owned by Gail and Art Berger, and she was born December 13, 2008. Andy has been a volunteer tracker at the local Navy Base for the past 20 yrs. and getting Ruby has fulfilled his dream. The future looks bright for this promising team. Thank you Andy for sharing your experience with us!

12 Oct 09:
Ruby and her first encounter with the real thing. She was fun to watch; when she came up on the doe, she laid down about 5 feet away and pondered her options. She soon started licking up blood and chewing the ear - it was an effort to keep her off her trophy. It was not a difficult deer to track - Ruby covered the 120 yds in 4 minutes.

***

4 Nov 09:
Ruby convinced this hunter that she was right about where the buck ran off - no blood was evident at the hit, and the hunter opined that he heard the buck run off in another direction. The 250 yd track took Ruby less than 5 minutes to cover. The buck could have easily been lost.

***

21 Nov 09:
A very difficult track of ~175 yds that took about 10 minutes - very dense cover. There was very little blood in evidence after the first ~50 yds of the bow hit. Ruby lost the track a few times, but managed to pick it up to the end. The hunter credited Ruby with saving a potentially lost deer.

***

25 Nov 09:
This buck could have been sight-tracked, but my friend called me off my stand and waited for me to get Ruby. Just after the hunter told me he thought the buck went off to the right of our track, we came across his broken arrow. I did not see much blood - not a pass-thru and the hit was high. Ruby ran the ~150 yd track under 5 minutes. My friend commented: Awesome!

Blood tracking with a Jagdterrier

We received this e-mail and pictures from a fellow Deer Search member - Marc Niad, from Yorktown Heights, NY, who tracks with a Jagdterrier Dakota. Marc says:

"I am happy to report that two Westchester County, NY bow hunters were greatly elated and appreciative Deer Search and of my dog Dakota's ( German Jagdterrier) ceaseless efforts which helped find their bowshot deer.


The first picture is of a 7 pt. buck shot on 11/6/09. The track was initiated 6 hours after the shot. The wounded deer crossed two roads, then walked further down the second road and subsequently turned back into the woods. It finally ventured up a hill and expired where Dakota then found it. As you can imagine, the hunter was very appreciative.

The second picture is of a doe that was gut shot on 10/25/09. This time Dakota started the track 7 hours after the shot and found the deer within a short time. Again, the result was another grateful hunter who was rewarded with his deer."

Great job Marc and Dakota!