BORN-TO-TRACK NEWS & VIEWS

The picture says it all - mini longhaired hunting puppies

2012-01-28T10:32:00.001-05:00

I absolutely love this picture, which we received from Teddy Moritz, a falconer and breeder of mini longhaired dachshunds for hunting. She wrote: My bitch Garmin whelped these four pups a week ago. Their sire is a dynamic little hunter named Rhett who is out of my Bane and Lorraine Simmons' Darter. All the pups, two males, two females, are going to falconers. They ought to be pretty good hunters. Thought you'd enjoy the picture.

Congratulations Teddy on such a fine litter and thank you for the outstanding picture. Good luck with the pups!

Two mini dachshund trackers for Samantha Allen from Salisbury, North Carolina

2012-01-27T00:01:00.000-05:00

We wrote about Samantha Allen from Salisbury, North Carolina before. As it turned out Cabela, Ollie's sister, became avialable, and she joined Sam's four-legged family. Sam wrote:

I am so happy with Ollie and her progress this year I figured if I could get a puppy close to her I would be happy. She has found 10 deer so far this season and she is almost 1 year old. I drove 4 hours to pick her sister up for our trial run to see if we liked her. It is now one month later and she is a keeper! I have named her Cabela and we are currently up to about 300 yard lines aged at 4 hours with 3 ounces of blood and track shoes. She is a little different from Ollie as she tracks slower and with great concentration, she does not overshoot her lines very far at all! Two young dogs keep me pretty busy with laying practice lines and also taking "adventures" to different places for hiking, playing etc. to get them comfortable with all types of settings and people.

Oh, and for Christmas I received tracking shoes, a blender for churning my tracking blood, new cabinets in my garage for all my tracking items and some camo clothing!! Not too many wives would have been happy about that but I was ecstatic!!

Samantha Allen with Ollie

Cabela

Thanks Samantha for sharing the gorgeous pictures of Ollie and Cabela!

Experience makes a difference: tracking dachshunds at 5

2012-01-26T21:35:00.001-05:00

This was just a pure coincidence. In the last week I have had a short e-mail exchange with two handlers of blood tracking dachshunds, and they both marveled over the superb performance of their dachshunds who are five years old now.

Gary Kata wrote about Buster: "Buster is doing great, he will be 5 years old in May. This tracking season I really noticed his maturity level and concentration improve. He did really well on some tough tracks, my confidence in him and myself really grew. I have always thought he has done well but this year it was different, the change in him was very obvious."

And Christian Elwell said: "I had an incredible tracking season this past year. Josy is unreal in what she can do. It's so fun to see the difference now that she is around 5. She just puts her head down and works- and she is a blood thirsty killer. I'm trying to work on some articles about a few of the tracks from this last year, I'll share them with you once they are finished."

By the way, we are not breeders of these dogs: Gary got Buster (who was sired by our Billy) from Carl Eisenhard, and Josy was bred by Laurel Whistance-Smith. But here you have it - the dachshunds got into their prime at the age of 5. Be patient; don't expect your puppy or an adolescent young dog to perform at this level!

Our breeding plans for 2012 - we will be having spring puppies

2012-01-24T21:54:00.001-05:00

I am sorry for having taken a break from blogging but the work on our house has made our life pretty difficult. If this was not enough to handle, both Keena and Paika came in heat. This is earlier than we were anticipating.

Anyway, our Keena (FC Keena v Moosbach-Zuzelek) is going to be bred tomorrow to FC Tom vom Linteler-Forst. Keena is almost seven years old, and this is going to be her last litter. She was examined by a vet few days ago, had her full blood panel done, and everything looks good. She was declared to be very healthy and got a green light from our vets for breeding.

FC Keena v Moosbach-Zuzelek is a daughter of FC Billy v Moosbach-Zuzelek and FC Gilda v Moosbach-Zuzelek

Our FC Paika v Moosbach-Zuzelek, Keena's daughter, came in heat today and she will be bred to FC Nurmi v Moosbach-Zuzelek "Moose" again. This is going to be a repeated breeding of our S-litter. In 10 days John will be driving to Michigan, and I hope that the weather will cooperate as in winter the drive there is not going to be much fun.

FC Paika v Moosbach-Zuzelek is Keena's daughter.

Recently I spent some time on updating info on our main website, especially on Keena, Paika and Tommy. Click on the above links and you should get to the current information.

We stopped taking reservations for puppies some time ago as we have not had enough time to process the inquiries and questionnaires we received in the last three months. We might take more reservations when puppies are born.

Wish us luck!

Young dachshund puppy's first blood tracking season

2012-01-19T11:34:00.001-05:00

From a breeder's perspective - it does not get better than this. Matt and Jenny Willis from Missouri are owners of Moose and Paika's puppy called Dubya (Strut von Moosbach-Zuzelek), who was born on August 4, 2011. This is Matt's report describing the pup's first tracking season.

Jolanta,
I still can't believe it's been three and half months since our trip to meet Dubya for the first time. All of my hunting days have been spent running training lines with Dubya, I can't say John didn't warn me. I enjoy watching Dubya run the lines so I didn't mind much. Dubya did find his first deer and ran an amazing natural line, more on that later.

October 9, 2012: Jenny and Matt Willis in Berne, NY with their new puppy Strut aka Dubya

Dubya is maturing into a very handsome dachshund. His coat is exactly what I hoped it would be! He is incredibly popular every where we go. I really enjoy introducing him to people who own americanized dachshunds, their questions/reactions always make me smile. This past weekend we were out with Dubya and ran into a woman holding her dachshund with its long body, short small legs, and little tiny head, who looked at Dubya and said, "Uh is that a dachshund?" I replied, "yes it is." She looked at Dubya, looked back at me with a skeptical look, and said, "I have three other dachshunds." Lord knows what she was thinking but I am pretty sure she was trying to tell me I was wrong and Dubya couldn't possibly be a dachshund because he didn't have the same frail build as her dog. Jenny and I are really proud of him!

The big deer outing in my family is opening weekend of rifle season in Missouri. I couldn't imagine not bringing Dubya even though he was still a young puppy. I was trying to keep my expectations reasonable even though he had shown tremendous ability on our training lines. Going into the weekend I was hoping for a couple short natural lines we could use to give Dubya the experience of being on a real line.

The weather was horribly hot which made the hunting slow. After an opening morning with very little action and weather only getting warmer I was a little concerned getting Dubya on a line was not a certainty. Trying to tell myself it's still early in the hunt, I headed out for my afternoon hunt. As the minutes turned to hours unfortunately none of the shadows turned to real deer. I was really beginning to feel the pressure when I heard a shot; it had come from a ground blind where one of the other hunters in camp was sitting. I immediately began to hope the deer ran at least a few yards to offer Dubya some work.

I got back to camp soon after to get the scoop. The blind sits on the edge of a cut corn field with a creek a few yards behind. The deer had come in to 50 yards and was feeding in the cut corn. At this point I was thinking this may not be much of a track. The hunter said the deer had run past the blind and splashed into the creek, where he believe it had expired. I was pretty excited we would at least get a 60 yard natural line out of the deal, we got a little more than we bargained for!

Thinking this was going to be a very short track I was grossly unprepared. We got to the hit site with Dubya about 2 hours after the shot. There was some bright blood and Dubya was excited. He had a little trouble getting started but then locked in and off we went. It took Dubya little time to cover the roughly 60 yards to the creek bank, I shined my light in the creek and saw no deer. At this point I wasn't sure what we were in for. Dubya continued down the very steep creek bank to the edge of the water, I couldn't find any blood and wasn't sure he was still on the line until he stopped and smelled a leaf on the edge of the water with a blood drop on it.

The water was calf deep so we carried Dubya across to the other side where he promptly picked up the track again.

First crossing

We went about 50 more yards on the edge of the creek when Dubya started to head back down the bank to the waters edge. We carried him across the water again where he found blood on some rocks.

Second crossing

He took us up the other side of the creek and back out to the cut corn, we worked from the cut corn to some CRP and then to a hard wood ridge. At this point we had gone a couple hundred yards. Dubya worked up the steep ridge, overcoming being distracted by a dead mole, to take us to the top of the ridge. We were confirming his line with drops of blood and the occasional larger blood spot. After a detour to check out some osage oranges I asked Dubya, "where did he go?" Dubya responded by finding some more sign and leading us further along the ridge.

We realized the track was on a trail leading past a stand where my brother was sitting. He stayed on stand 40 minutes after the shot and never saw the deer come by. The blood has all been bright arterial blood but this new information in conjunction with the distance we had travelled at this point, we began to believe the deer may not be down. We continued along the track, which led us past my brothers stand through an opening in the barbed wire fence and into another CRP field.

We couldn't believe Dubya had stayed with it this long but were still finding blood spots and decided to continue. This is some very tall dense CRP, I wasn't sure how well Dubya could move let alone track through it, but off we went. Dubya was still very determined and continued to follow the track over, under, and around the grasses. Luckily most of the track was on a deer trail working through the CRP.

Dubya's view

I was in awe of this little dachshund at this point but this is where he really blew my mind. There were a lot of deer trails in the CRP field, any of which could've been used by the wounded deer. Every time I was pretty sure he had followed the wrong trail I would find a little blood spot confirming he was still on the right track. I can't even imagine how much different scent he had to sort through to follow this specific deer but somehow at 13 weeks of age he was doing it.

After 800 yards and a flashlight battery change and still on the trail we decided the deer wasn't down. Reluctantly I decided to abandon the search for the night. I really wanted to find this deer, Dubya deserved it! After the next morning's hunt I decided to give Dubya a shot at closing the deal. The track now 17 hours old we headed back to the CRP and picked up the track. Dubya continued to the track another 400 yards to the property line, where we couldn't get permission to continue so we were forced to stop. Right on the fence line we found a spot of blood about the size of a nickel to confirm he had indeed taken us on the right track all the way. It was bitter sweet, I certainly couldn't over look the fantastic work Dubya did but at the same time I was very disappointed the track didn't end with a deer. We are pretty convinced the wound wasn't immediately fatal.

In total Dubya took the track 1200 yards! I never could've imagined that was possible for this 13 week old puppy! I believe this speaks to the quality not only of this litter but the quality of the breeding program you and John have established. I don't believe enough credit can be given. I can't thank you enough for all you've done! I have included pictures of different parts of this track. The "bloodsign" photo is an example of the average blood spot found during the track. The "dubyaview" photo is an example of the CRP Dubya tracked through. I hope the rest will be self explanatory.

End of track

The next night Dubya found his first real deer at the end of a 50 yard track. This track was 2 hours old and went across a creek with lots of blood. He had no trouble. He approached the deer cautiously, had a smell and was ready to move on. I have included a picture of this find.

Dubya's first deer

The final picture is of Dubya from yesterday. We hope all is well with the two of you and look forward to keeping up with the next couple litters!

Dubya at five months

Best,

Matt Willis

Thank you Matt and Jenny for such a great report and all the work you have been done with the pup!

Happy 12th Birthday to Jackson (Arko von Moosbach-Zuzelek)!

2012-01-18T21:58:00.000-05:00

This morning Arlene and Jerry Davis from Kitty Hawk, NC, sent us this e-mail:

Jackson "Arko", arguably the best dog ever, turns 12 today! Born Jan 18, 2000, he is the son of Kuba and Branie, and littermate of Elli's mom. He's fit and fine and still tracking. Happy birthday, Jackson!

I cropped Jerry and Arlene's Christmas picture showing Jackson (left) and Jezy (a 2010 Joeri/Keena daughter), who look like twins in this frame:

Also Happy Birthday to Agata, Elli's mom and Jackson's sister!

Hello from Julie Weidner, a teckel owner in Basel, Switzerland

2012-01-18T14:13:00.000-05:00

Few days ago we received this super nice e-mail from Julie Weidner from Switzerland. What a treat!
It was wonderful to hear from you Julie - best of luck with Freddie and a future puppy! Keep in touch. We are very happy to be of some help to you.

Dear Jolanta and John,

I commented on your wonderful story of Elli the other day and realized that I should really just introduce myself/write you a little note. I've been reading your blog on and off for the past 2-2.5 years... ever since my partner and I decided that we wanted a Wirehaired Dackel for our very own.

I'm originally American (from Wisconsin) and I'm currently working towards my PhD in Molecular Biology at the University of Basel, CH. Anyhow, I convinced my Swiss boyfriend (also a PhD student at the ETH Zurich) after a couple years of being together that we really needed a little something in our lives to take away the lab stress. I have to admit, it was the best decision we ever made. We decided after a number of months and meeting the wonderful dogs from Kennel Barbwired (colleagues and friends of ours) that we wanted a Dackel.

In summer of 2010 we picked up our first puppy (Fallilou du Sangre Bleu, aka Freddie) from a new breeder outside of Paris. He had a nice pedigree and we were optimistic of what the future would bring as his parents (Kobeddus Effendi x Canaille de la Meute à Chéops) have both show and hunting backgrounds .

We have been super active with Freddie and participate in obedience and BHP training as well and Jagd training here in Switzerland and Germany. Your website has really been my go to for a LOT of tracking/spurlaut, etc... questions! My German is nowhere near fluent and having an English blog at my disposal has been so fantastic. All the literature up until I found you website was German or Swedish or Italian and very frustrating when trying to learn all about tracking, and general tips on training the dogs.

Freddie was born in France and now lives in Switzerland

I recently picked up John's book on blood tracking and am super excited to read it. We recently took part in our first 1200m/20hr Schweissprüfung this autumn, which went off better than we could have hoped for our first trial with our first dog (82pts, 2nd prize). We are planning on getting our second dog this year and I'm planning on using some of the info from the book for training. I love hearing about how the Field trials, shows, tracking, etc... works in the US (since I'm now very accustomed to the rules in Europe and FCI).

Anyhow, I'm sorry to bore you with so much background, etc... I really just wanted to show my appreciation to you for what you have done for the breed. I think it is really great to have such a knowledgeable and active set of Rauhaar breeders in the US. I wish you the best with your two new little ones (I just saw all the S litter pictures) and wish you a happy, healthy and successful 2012!

Best regards,
Julie Weidner

----------------------

Some of you might have not seen this kind of color in wirehaired dachshunds. You can read more about its genetics here. Chocolate (or brown) color is controlled by a recesive gene b and, a wild boar dachshund can carry this color. We had a big surprise when we bred a wild boar FC Gela von Rauhenstein to wild boar Drake von Moosbach-Zuzelek (a son of Alfi von der Hardt-Höhe). This was our "H" litter. As it turned out, both Gela and Drake had a recessive gene b (their genotype was Bb) and they produced three chocolate pups and three wild boar pups.

Hobbit at the age of 8 weeks

Hickory at 14 weeks

2011 Dachshund Club of America Field Champion Merit Standings

2012-01-17T21:44:00.000-05:00

Tracy Freeling, Dachshund Club of America Merit Points Tabulator, released Field Champion Merit Standings for 2012. Congratulations to Cheri Faust whose Danika placed first by earning 401 points and 21 placements.

You might ask how the merit points are calculated. If a field champion places first in a stake of 20 champions, she gets 20 points. For the 2nd place a dog in this particular stake would get 19 points, for the 3rd - 18 points and for the 4th - 17 points respectively. The number of points collected is also a function of the number of trials that the dog participates in. The more, the better. Another factor is the number of entries in a field champion stake. For example, in the Northeast field champion stakes combine both genders and tend to be large. In the Midwest field champion males and females are usually run separately so there will be twice as many dogs with placements but they will earn fewer points as stakes are smaller.The bottom line is that the dachshund has to be good and has to participate in a lot of trials.

The names in bold designate wirehaired dachshunds out of European bloodlines (it might be an oversimplifications as Buster is a shorthair out of wirehaired parents). The names in italics are descendants of our FC Asko von der Drachenburg (7 dachshunds out of top 20). There are 3 "von Moosbach-Zuzelek) wires: Auggie and Dixie owned by Sherry Ruggieri and our own Billy.

Paika with 82 points and 3 placements was 27th. BTW, I attended 3 weekends of field trials in spring and 3 weekends of field trials during the fall 2011. Billy got two Absolute wins and Paika got one. Tommy placed 3rd at the Buckeye Dachshund Club Invitational trial.

When I have more time, I'll update this post with pictures. Now because of the renovation my Internet connection is rather slow and not reliable.

1 Danika FC Danika vom Nordlicht TD ME, 401 points, 21 placements

FC Danika vom Nordlicht TD ME was bred by Larry Gohlke and is owned by Cheri Faust. She is a daughter of "Buster" FC Clown vom Talsdeich and FC Fredrika von Moosbach-Zuzelek.

2 Carmen DC Siddachs Carmen MW 282 12

3 Zuni DC Rellih's Little Indian MW TD SE 219 11

4 Buster FC Clown vom Talsdeich 204 7

5 Darter FC Melwyn Under Wing Darter ML SE 192 7

6 Lily FC Diamant Lily von Lowenherz 174 8

7 Dieter FC TownFarm He's So Fine 163 5

8 Auggie FC Augden von Moosbach-Zuzelek RE ME 147 10

9 Dixie FC Anja von Moosbach-Zuzelek RN SE 145 7

10 Ana Maria FC Hurricane Ana Maria v Czar SW JE 140 8

11 Duditz DC Melwyn Dreamcatcher ML RN 134 8

12 Oslo FC Audi Oslo Von Dorndorf 133 10

12 Trooper FC Rosie's Little Trooper 133 4

14 Guinness DC Amtekel’s Guinness ‘N Harp RA 130 5

15 Nix FC Nix vom Nordlicht JE 129 10

16 Bonnie FC BG's Jive Talkin' MS 125 6

17 Gypsy DC Short Shadows Runaround Sue CD RE TD AX OAJ NAP OJP JE 118 8

18 Billy FC Billy von Moosbach-Zuzelek 113 4

19 Rose Bud FC Westrose Guns & Roses MWD 112 9

20 Rainey DC Lockshire Rain Shadow SW JE 102 9

Points are earned for placements in the Field Champion stakes at AKC licensed or member trials. They are tabulated using the Delaney System +1 for first through fourth place, based on the number of starters. In the case of ties, dogs receive the same place award, with the next place(s) being skipped. A minimum of two placements in Field Champion stakes during the award year are required to earn an award, and / or be included in preliminary listings.

A mini long dachshund puppy Reilly benefits from an older dog's experience

2012-01-16T13:41:00.000-05:00

Teddy Moritz wrote recently "I sold a pup to a Canadian falconer and he has successfully introduced her to hawking. He has an eleven-year-old miniature longhaired I sold him, a dapple called Emmie. She has taught the new pup, Reilly, about rabbits and field behavior. The falconer, Steve Dickson, sent this photo early in the season. Nice when a pup works out well."

Moose and Chuck - a superb deer and bear tracking team from Hillman, Michigan

2012-01-14T00:18:00.000-05:00

It was good to hear from Chuck Collier whose tracking partner is a four-year-old Moose. Moose's regsitered name is Nurmi v Moosbach-Zuzelek and he is a son of FC Clown vom Talsdeich "Buster" and FC Asta von Moosbach-Zuzelek "Emma". Moose is a highly trainable versatile hunting dachshund who excels in blood tracking. We are very grateful to Chuck who put time and training into developing Moose; they both have an exceptional relationship. By the way, one of new ventures for Moose in 2011 was siring two litters, including our own S-litter.

In Chuck's own words:

This is Moose's synopsis of 2011. It has been a thrilling year as it was his first as a father. There has been nothing but positive feedback from the puppy owners so far.

As far as tracking it was a tough year as I was really busy working on some serious matters during prime tracking time. I was able to refer many tracks to other trackers as more and more trackers become available. Moose and I have become members/trackers for Michigan Deer Track'n Hounds as well as UBT. I'm proud to be a part of a Michigan based team as well as a national group such as United Blood Trackers. We need to promote unity in tracking. If we stick together, we can promote the awesome thing we do.

As of the second doe season which was the last track we attempted we went on 16 deer tracks recovering 7 and 3 bear tracks recovering 2. This puts Moose at 43 deer and 6 bears recovered so far. My working so much holds him back. What makes Moose more special to me is he does whatever I ask him to do. He is a 365 day a year dog. He is an awesome house dog/companion. He pheasant hunts and did great again this year. As far as rabbits he runs a rabbit almost every time we walk out to the barn. If moles are in the yard he is on them. We went out to the pond the other day and he was trying to dig out a man eating muskrat.

I've attached seven pictures and will explain them as we go.

The first was a short track in very dense (as usual) bear cover. It was about fifty degrees and there was a light rain. It was his first track of the year and as John said in his book I could tell Moose knew what we were doing was on the edge. Moose looked as me over his shoulder as if to say "Hey dad I'm on this but this is one of those big bad stinky bears and we're a team right?"

The second picture and bear was a liver hit the morning after the shot. We tracked from the hit site about a hundred and forty yards into the thick again. Moose did great. The hunter was a young boy. His grandfather was an experienced hunter, and the bear would have been found eventually but Moose made it a lot easier and quicker.

I don't have a photo of the best track he made on a bear this year. I had worked two jobs from 5:30 am to 11:30 pm. At the end of my shift a good friend showed up at my house and requested help tracking a nice black bear he had shot that evening. We were tired but started tracking at 11:45 pm. We worked hard and Moose tracked it between 800 and 900 yards by 2:30 am before we quit. After approximately 850 yards of dense cedar and spruce hell and crossing a creek we got to a small opening. The bear had stood there for a while with drops here and there as it circled around. I am convinced the archer made a high hit and the bear was getting tired of being tracked. I called the track. It was beautiful track with occasional confirmation blood but the bear was not dead.

The third picture was a beautiful 18 inch inside spread 7 pt. It was one of the best tracks Moose has ever done. It was shot the night before and we took up the track the next morning. It took about an hour and a half to work about 300 yards to where the buck had bedded for the night. He jumped up and Moose squealed and away we went. An amazing thing was even though Moose was squealing and we jumped the buck a second time Moose still took the time to smell a badger hole as we cruised by. The buck had a broken front left shoulder from a rifle shot. The buck was tough and would run a few hundred yards at a time and lay down. We tracked 2.9 miles before locating the deer. The deer was in a low bushy area.

The fourth picture was a gut shot buck that bled little but fell in a tall grassy area. The hunter was thrilled with watching Moose at work.

The fifth picture is the biggest state land buck he has helped recover. The buck was hit back in the intestines as it surged forward as the shot was taken. It was shot the morning before with a rifle by a very experienced hunter. It was in a beaver pond marsh area and was very wet and hard to traverse. The hunter, his brother and father had tracked about three hundred yards before deciding to contact Moose and I. We all went out and Moose did a great job of retracing the first three hundred yards before veering towards the tall grass of the beaver flooding. We went up to the edge of the deep water and Moose looked at me with the "He went across" look on his face. I advised the father of the hunter of my theory. He went around the twisted wet misery to the right and I went to the left. Within minutes he was yelling for joy as the deer was dead on the other side edge. According to my GPS he was on a direct line from where Moose and I hit the water.

The sixth picture was not a considered "find" for records purposes as I shot it well and knew it was going to be laying a short distance further. But it was special to me as my dog and I got to find it together. Me and my boy.

The last picture is a picture of my wife's first deer (a mature doe). It was shot with a muzzle loader in the last moments of the last day. I was in the blind with her when she shot. The smoke caused me not to see the deer's initial reaction to the hit. It ran 60 yards across a food plot and crashed full speed into a spruce cedar nearly impassable swamp. I checked and saw absolutely no visible blood and there was an inch of fresh snow. I believed she might have missed. She declared that she was on it and although a steep angle she was sure she made a good shot. She was not going to hunt deer again if she missed as she was so sure. We went and got Moose for the final say. Moose went in. It was so thick the snow didn't reach the ground in the thicket. I had to belly crawl as it was too thick to be on my knees. After about forty yards I felt the familiar tug as if it were a fish biting. Although I couldn't see it I knew what it was. I yelled to Kim that Moose had found the doe and was getting his chew on it. Needless to say she advised me she knew she had hit the doe well. It was very fulfilling to have the "Moose man" ready in the pickup.

Unplugged

2012-01-12T19:56:00.001-05:00

This is just a short post to let you now that we are going through a major renovation of the lower level of our house. Because of the tropical storms Irene and Lee some water came to our house. Now we have to get rid off the mold growing in the walls. My office/den and our dog room are most affected, and new drywall has to be put in. The bottom line is that unfortunately my access to the internet and my main computer are limited, and I will not be posting as often for the next three weeks. I'll do my best.

Remembering Elli

2012-01-07T23:00:00.003-05:00

Regular readers of this blog know that our Elli was diagnosed with Congestive Heart Failure at the end of January 2011. She did very well on medication, but 5 weeks ago she developed inguinal hernia, which had to be corrected surgically. It was a high risk procedure because of Elli's heart problem, but she survived the surgery and for a while was doing well.

In the last week, however, she started to decline. On Thursday night she was in a bad shape - she was having problems with breathing and was becoming progressively weaker. There was no additional treatment available, and on Friday we decided to let her go and took her on the last trip to a vet.

I miss Elli terribly. In the last year she was my shadow, and I am not used yet to not having her around me. She was the only dog that slept on my bed. Many tears have been shed and my heart is broken, though it certainly helps to have her family around us - her sire Asko, half-sister Gilda, sons Billy and Bernie, granddaughter Keena, great granddaughter Paika and great-great grandoffspring Sky and Summer. So as some pointed out, it is very true that Elli is not gone - not gone from our hearts, and not even gone physically as we will see glimpses of her in her descendants.

I spent most of Saturday going over her pictures and videos, and I chose some to include here as they have a special meaning for me.

It all goes back to "Kuba" (FC Zuzelek's Globetrotter SW 1991-2005), the dog I bred and loved like no other. He was not without his faults, and we used him for breeding only once. On January 18, 2000 Branie vom Dornenfeld produced 4 puppies sired by Kuba: Agata, Amos, Arko and Albrecht, and we decided to keep Agata for ourselves.

Agata v Moosbach-Zuzelek SW at the age of 4 months

All this was happening around the time when John and I were starting the North American Teckel Club, and we were trying to reduce the size of our dogs. While Kuba was a very handsome dog with correct proportions, he was also a big dog, and in his middle age his weight was around 27 lbs. Agata, even when young, looked like she was following his steps.

Then on May 12, 2000, a friend of ours, Duane Bush from Erie, PA, brought his friends Mike, Kathy and Michelle Vincent to our place as they were interested in a getting a puppy for tracking. The only pup left from our "B" litter (Skyder x Sabina) did not appeal to them as he growled too much at the end of an artificial blood line while defending a piece of deer hide. On the other hand, they liked Agata very much. A plan was developed to let the Vincent family have Agata on a co-ownership agreement until her first litter. We retained the right to choose a sire for Agata's first litter and we would get two pups. After that we would transfer Agata's ownership to the Vincents.

Agata went to live with Mike, Kathy and Michelle, and it looked like it was a right match. Deep down I had this ache that the only daughter of Kuba was not ours any longer. But I reminded myself that when you are a breeder you can't let you heart make breeding decisions. This is something that I still think about often.

For Agata's first litter we chose Asko von der Drachenburg, who was imported in 1999 from Germany. Asko is on a small size, under 20 lbs, and it looked to us like he was a really good match for Agata. Eight puppies were born on May 13, 2001, and Elli was one of them. When I went to McKean, PA to evaluate the pups, they were very young, just 8 weeks old. I could not decide which ones to take and decided to take one female (Elli) and two males (Elton and Erik).

July 9, 2001 - Michelle Vincent (left) and I (right) are holding three pups that traveled with me to Berne, NY on that day: Elli, Elton and Erik

Elli on her first day at her new home with us. What appealed to us about Elli's conformation were her long legs as our dachshunds tended to be too low to the ground.

The three pups together: Erik, Elli and Elton, at the age of two months

Elton and Elli at the age of four months

In the end we decided to keep Elli and let Elton and Erik go to tracking homes. And the Vincents have kept Elli's sister Kirsche.

Elli matured nicely. On August 24, 2002 she was shown at the NATC Zuchtschau under Judge Wördemann, and her conformation was rated as "excellent". Her weight was around 20 lbs. She was a calm and relaxed dog, and her type was described as "elegant and strong". Her gait was ground covering. We loved her disposition, but her temperament could be described as somewhat soft. This changed subsequently when she matured fully and claimed her position as a leader of our pack.

Elli proved to be a talented tracker and excellent field trial dog. She finished her AKC field championship on May 8, 2003 (after her first litter of pups). We liked her responsiveness in the field and her working style. She would come back to the point of loss and had perseverance and determination to work out difficult checks. Her strong voice on rabbits was her hallmark. Elli's field trial career really started after her last litter and she was #3 field trial dachshund in the country in 2007 and #8 in 2006. She won three Absolutes, and earned 483 DCA Field Trial Merit Points.

She proved herself as a blood tracker with several difficult finds of wounded deer.

John with Arlo (elli's son), Jolanta with Elli

One unusual thing about Elli was the long interval between her heats. The first one came when she was 10.5 months old. When her second estrus came on January 2, 2003 we decided to breed her to Alfi von der Hardt-Höhe, a tough-as-nails, multititled male we imported from Germany. We ran this breeding three times, and altogether Elli and Alfi produced 26 puppies. She was an exceptional brood bitch and a super mom to all her puppies.

1st litter born on March 11, 2003: Archer, Attila (Bear), Asta (Emma), Augden (Auggie), Arlo, Acorn (Zora), Amy, Anja (Dixie), Ariel
2nd litter was born on February 08, 2004: Baldur (Blitz), Bastian (KC), Billy, Bodie, Boss (Daryl), Brix (Toby) and Bonny
3rd litter was born on October 15, 2005: Darin (Bernie), Dylan, Danica (Dita), Danka (Maggie), Dee (Blaze), Demi (Cretchen), Diestel, (Anna), Drossel (Della) and Dyani

Of the 26 pups, 25 went to blood tracking homes. Eight were field trialed and became AKC Field Champions. Some have been very successful in other performance events; good exmples are Sherry Ruggieri's Auggie (two times winner of the Buckeye dachshund Club Invitational trial) and Dixie. We could probably write a book about Elli and Alfi's offspring. Five of them have been used for breeding and subsequently have passed "a piece" of Elli to next generations.

She raised not only her own puppies but was good with other females' pups too. She could put a stop to puppies' foolishness and pushiness with one stare or quick gentle nip. They would get a message right away.

Elli has aged with grace. Her favorite spot was on the top of the old picnic table in our dog yard, and from this place she was monitoring the situation while basking in the sun. Her favorite dogs were her son Billy and Joeri, for whom she had a special affection. To the very end she loved running rabbits in our field, and our last outing took place on December 31.

I will miss Elli's soulful eyes as they followed me everywhere.

I will remember Elli mostly as my personal companion. We had together such a good time: Our walks in the field, her almost constant presence at my feet when I was working, her routine of putting me to bed - licking my face before I turned the light off.

Good night Elli, sleep tight.

PS. After Elli's death we received numerous letters and notes from our friends and people who knew Elli. There are too many to post them here so I will just include several.

1. From Sherry Ruggieri

Your post on Elli was wonderful and it is difficult for me to type through the tears, I can only imagine the pain you are suffering. I am so deeply sorry. As you know, I was especially fond of Elli – she will always have a special place in my heart. She not only produced the dog that I love beyond words, Auggie (I love Dixie too), she reminds me of what a wonderful dog should be. I am proud to say that in many ways Dixie is so much like Elli, wonderful temperament and in looks too – with that beautiful face and soulful eyes. I have many wonderful memories of Elli – especially the time when I was visiting and she “claimed” me – she was such a loving dog. I also got to watch her in the field and saw (and heard) some beautiful runs! I remember too when I was visiting and you took me to the beagle club there – she ran with Auggie – she took one rabbit all over – it was lovely! I also remember her outrunning both Auggie & Dixie at field trials – they could never match their mom!

I wish there were words to say to take away the pain you must be feeling and the loss. I know the deeper the love, the deeper the loss and that it why it is so heartbreaking. I will always remember Elli and she will live on through her legacy and our memories – it’s just a shame they can’t live longer than they do. My heart goes out to you.

Hugs,

Sherry

2. From Mike Martien

Just a quick note to let you know that your loss has been on my mind… My deepest sympathy on the loss of Elli. I was saddened to hear the news. I found the following, and refer to it from time to time. I guess the quote (unknown) is about as real and true as it gets…

“There are things that we don't want to happen but have to accept, things we don't want to know but have to learn, and lives we can't live without but have to let go. Death is unavoidable and a given, however, love and relationships create memories that death or no other can ever steal.” R.I.P. Elli…

Take care and may God speed the healing process and fill the void.

3. From John Merriman

I'm so sorry to hear about dear Ellie's passing; she was an amazing dog and I will always remember the great runs she had--especially with Buzz. I bet they are having a great time with rabbits in Heaven right now, with God finally yelling "pick them up" when they are happily exhausted from hunting!

Please let me know if there is anything I can do ... You and John will be in my prayers and Adam sends his best.

John

4. From Michael Polavin

Jolanta & John, so very sad to hear about Elli. You mentioned "an amazing legacy" Elli has left. As you know my dog Maggie is one of those 26 puppies that make up Elli's legacy. Maggie is in a working home and has most definitely changed this owners life. The absolute joy I see on hunters faces when she recovers a deer that they couldn't find. I too consider Maggie a great hunter, however it's so many of the other personality traits that Elli passed on to Maggie that makes her such a true companion and part of the family.

Thank you Elli.

5. From Henry Holt

I'm very sorry to hear about Elli Jolanta. She produced some great dogs including the one sitting in my lap.

We have a beautiful spot on our farm where we bury our dogs that we visit often. There's a bench there and in the spring there are daffodils and a grove of redbud trees I started from seed. I hope you have a place like that for you dogs too.

May she chase rabbits forever in her dreams.

Dachshunds getting exercise on a cold wintry day

2012-01-05T22:16:00.001-05:00

It was a very cold and windy day, and young dogs needed exercise. With the wind chill of -3F (-19.5C) I was not willing to take multiple trips so I let Paika, Bella (first row) and Summer and Sky (second row) go together. The picture was taken just after I had let them out of our gated yard to the field. They were crowded by the gate waiting for me to open it and when I did it, they ran in one direction (where usually rabbits are). This is why they are so close together, and obviously Paika and Bella took the lead (as they are older, bigger and faster).

They Call It Blood Tracking

2012-01-04T22:48:00.000-05:00

by John Jeanneney for Full Cry

They call it “blood tracking”, but the name is certainlymisleading. Hunters, especially men of my age, sometimes say “If there’s bloodto track, what do we need a dog for? Dogs and deer hunting don’t mix. EVER”.

For manyyears I’ve been tracking wounded deer after hunters gave up on them becausethere was no more blood. I even do my advanced training with tracking shoes,deer feet attached that lay a scent line produced by the interdigital glandsbetween the cloves of the hoofs. This works, but my deer hunting experiencethis fall reinforced my faith in the capability of a dog to follow a designateddeer, even an unwounded one, just as a police bloodhound can follow anindividual “alleged perpetrator”.

I washunting on a food plot in my own woods when a doe came in. Following her was abuck, a big six of the sort that never has a chance to get much better in mypart of New York.I had caught him on my trail cameras and he was distinctive; there was nothing elsearound like him. I waited and finally I got the “perfect” shot down into theoat plot 50 yards below me. The crosshairs were just where I wanted them, and at the shot the buck took a big leapinto the brush and disappeared.

I went down quickly to the hit site.No blood, no hair. I knew this does happen sometimes. I knew my gun and I was confident/superoptimistic as even experienced hunters can be when it is their own deer and agood one. What I did not see, until several days later, was the top of the logbehind which I had been sitting as I shot.

My scope had shown a clear shot, but the rifled slug barrel,an inch and a half lower, had been in line with the top of the log as you can see. Theshot had been deflected, and I had never hit the buck at all. All this I did notknow until I went back to this stand several days later.

It wasgetting dark and I didn’t have much time to look for sign in the briars andlogging slash. I had seen nothing, but I knew that my tracking dog would makeshort work of the problem after supper. And we would get there before thecoyotes.

Aftersupper I took Joeri down to the woods. My plan was to work the woods roadsaround the five acre block the deer should be in. I wanted to make sure thatthere wasn’t a blood trail leading out of it and down into the valley. NormallyI begin at the hit site, but I had already checked this thoroughly, and Ididn’t want to work through the thick stuff again if I didn’t have to.

On thecircuit around the block Joeri indicated, at one point, that a deer had crossed the woods road, but there was no visibleblood; Joeri was willing to leave this line, so I just marked that point withtape and continued around to the hit site.

I put onthe long, stiff tracking leash, said “Find him!”, and Joeri began to work downthrough the briars and logging slash. He had a definite scent line, but I neversaw a trace of blood. Oh well! Once you get started, you don’t quit. If ahunter had called me from 30 miles away to say that he had shot at a nice buck,but had no evidence of a hit, I would have gently turned down the call. Butwith my own deer on my own land it was different. More about this later.

Joeri cameout of the slash, crossed the wood road exactly where he had previouslyindicated scent and I had marked thescent line. Still no blood, but the scent line was only two hours old and Joerihad no problems. He is a slow, careful worker, which is just what a 76-year-oldguy needs.

We workeddown into the valley and on to property whereI had permission to track. Now it was not so thick and with my coonhunter’s headlightI could see 50 yards ahead. We had gone about a half mile on the steep timberedhill and there he was! He got up and he flagged as he took off. I coulddistinctly see the high rack. I’m not too sure about why he was lying down andlet me get so close, but there was no blood in the bed where he had been. Andhe had raised his white tail as he took off. Not good! But we continued foranother 3/4 mile over hay fields and across a creek. Sometimes I could see histracks in the frosty grass. I’m sure we crossed the scent lines of other deer,but it made no difference to Joeri. He was on his designated deer.

We crosseda state road, and I had no permission for the property on the other side. Imarked the crossing and the next morning we were back with the necessarypermission. We tracked another half mile, which was much more difficult. Therewas still no blood or bloody beds. When we came to another creek, wide and deepthis time, I gave up. I still had my doubts, but Joeri and I had done all wecould.

When Ilater returned to my stand and saw the log in the photo, I felt better. I knewthat I had not killed that buck for the coyotes.

As I said earlier I would have turneddown this call if someone else had called me from a distance with theinformation that I gathered at the start of my track. The problem is you cannever know for sure as you screen calls. Earlier in the bow season a bowhuntercalled me on my cell while I was having lunch at Subway. All he had was acouple of drops of blood, and he had searched in vain all morning. Since he wasvery close by, I said, “All right, I’ll check it out for you.” It didn’t soundgood.

Joeri tookthe line. No blood for 300 yards. I told the hunter and his buddy, “It doesn’tlook like we’ve got anything here. Everyone agreed but Joeri. When he saw we wereready to turn around he yelped and pulled. “All right” I said, “I’ll give itanother 100 yards.” Fifty yards farther on, there lay the deer.

In mostEuropean countries, where tracking dogs and handlers are much more numerousthan here, it is the custom, and often the law, that all shots, which are notclearly a miss, have to be checked out with a tracking dog. These are called“control searches”. One study of control searches for roe deer shot in Denmark showedthat 25% of the control searches there led to finding the deer.

We are ageneration away from anything like this over here. Tracking dogs and handlersare still spread so thinly that we usually have to screen our deer calls andonly take the ones most likely to produce a dead or mortally wounded animal. Welike to learn that there is a good amount of blood at the start. But once weare at the hit site, a good dog knows that there is a lot more to bloodtracking than blood.

How did Darren spend his birthday? Tracking, of course.

2012-01-03T22:27:00.000-05:00

On December 27, 2011 Darren Doran wrote:

I took today off from work to celebrate my birthday. I was actually going to practice with my new bow and put out some trail cameras. I was sitting at the table working on the puppy questionnaire when the phone rang. It was a friend that had shot a deer with the muzzle-loader this morning and couldn't find it. The hunter told me that he had white hair at the hit and tracked for about 100 yds and lost it.This guy is a responsible and good hunter and I thought we stood a chance either finding the deer or proving a non fatal hit. Karl and I haven't had any work since Dec 1st and I jumped at the chance to track.

We met up and proceeded to get started. I was actually surprised with Karl's actions during the ride. He knew we were going tracking but acted much calmer than usual. We got to the hit site and it was as the hunter said. There was white hair at the hit site and the blood started about 30 yds away. He had the line flagged and Karl started right down it. He got to the last blood too quick for my liking and proceeded to track to a small creek. He was still pretty worked up at this point and rather than cross the creek, I restarted him at the last blood hoping he would take the same route to the creek as before. That didn't happen and I restarted him again.

The third time was the same as the second so I crossed the creek and Karl tracked to an empty bed. This was a good sign as the bed was only 200 yds from the hit. Karl tracked on from the bed down a deer run towards a heavily traveled main road. If the deer crossed the road we were done. A one point Karl acted like he didn't have it and I brought him back to the bed. He restarted and tracked through some stick trees and towards an open field. Just as we entered the field I saw a drop of blood and knew he was right. He tracked across the field over a black top driveway and into another woods. We came to another bed and I think we put the deer out. Karl was tracking hard and digging in. I was finding blood and the occasional bone fragments on the line now.The deer had started to make a big loop and was heading back towards the area it was shot at.

We had tracked a little over a mile and we were heading towards the Matchaponix Brook. This river is not wide but is deep with steep mud slick banks. I could see the deers tracks leading up to and along the river. All of a sudden Karl turned and went right down the bank into the river. The next thing I see is a deer swimming up the river with Karl trying to over take him. I yelled to the hunter that I found his deer and he was alive. I got Karl out of the river and the deer pulled its self out and crossed a bend in the river and went back in.We didn't bring the gun so the hunter sent his boy back to the truck for the muzzle loader. We just kept an eye on the deer without getting too close and waited. When the gun arrived the hunter finished the deer. The first shot had entered low on the left side and raked a lung. When it exited it destroyed the right leg at the first joint from the shoulder. This deer would have died but after the first bed, and until we got the deer up the blood trail was very sparse. The hunter admitted he would not have found this deer if it wasn't for the dog.

Buster and the Lady Tracker

2012-01-01T09:32:00.003-05:00

We are starting this New Year with the excellent article written by V. Paul Reynolds, who is an editor of the Northwoods Sporting Journal. I think this is one of the best articles on the use of dachshunds for tracking wounded game. Many thanks Paul for letting us post it on the blog. And congratulations to Susanne Hamilton and her tracking teckels Buster and Meggie.

Susanne Hamilton with Buster and one of the many deer that they recovered in 2011.

Buster and the Lady Tracker

By V. Paul Reynolds

The last thing any deer hunter wants is a wounded deer, but it happens - even sometimes to the most skilled hunter. The buck that Tim McClusky wounded came trotting by his treestand from left to right, and presented a quartering away shot at about 60 yards. With his .50 caliber blackpowder gun, McClusky took the shot. The deer bolted. There was some hair and blood, but after a while no blood, no deer, nothing. An ardent and ethical outdoorsman and hunter, McClusky was sick at heart. But he had heard about the lady deer tracker from Montville and her dog tracking dog Buster. The woman, Susanne Hamilton, has developed quite a reputation in the Maine hunting community. She and her dog, licensed by the state, have been racking up a very good success rate in locating wounded deer for hunters like McClusky.

On opening day of the Maine muzzleloader season, Hamilton took McClusky's call and agreed to meet him shortly at his home in Orono. A German native who emigrated to the states in 1984, Hamilton, who is an internationally known horse- training expert, and Gold Medal winner in dressage, decided to get into tracking as a sideline. This came about not long after she and her husband decided to share their 65-acre farm with a wire-haired male dachshund. Buster, who is also a German native, has brought home medals in field trials. He also has found many wounded deer.

This same day, about a week after Hamilton was a studio guest on my radio program, Maine Outdoors, my phone rang. "Hello Paul, this is Susanne Hamilton. I'm on my way to help a hunter find a wounded buck in Orono. Want to join us?" she asked from her cell phone.

It was the first day of Maine's two-week blackpowder hunt. "Love to," I said.

Forty minutes later, Hamilton, Buster, Tim McClusky and his hunting friends - Tom Davis and Scott Abbott - and myself were on the track. McClusky walked us through the shooting scenario with his buck and a few minutes later, Buster was on the scent and moving out. And move out he did. Buster was attached to a 20-foot long, hunter-orange leash that snaked through the fir thickets behind Buster as this tracking dog sniffed, bobbed and weaved over rocks, under blowdowns and through swale swamps. All the while, Hamilton, by some miracle, stayed with the dog, occasionally giving him words of encouragement. As it turned out, the challenge was for the rest of us to keep up with Hamilton and her dog.

For a short-legged little critter, Buster is a canine dynamo with an uncanny nose. During the first half hour of the tracking, when we ran out of blood drops on the leaves, I could sense that a couple of the hunters were growing skeptical, worried that Buster was on the wrong deer track. Suddenly, without fail, Buster's track would once again lead to small blood droplets. "You gotta trust the dog. This is not his first rodeo," I told one of the skeptics. ( Before this day, Buster had located 11 wounded deer during the 2011 deer season).

As it turned out, we never got the McClusky buck. We jumped him just once, but there was no chance for a followup shot. By nightfall, we knew we were beaten. We tracked the buck for eight gruelling woods miles over a six-hour period. As bucks will do, he knew we were on to him and he tried to lose us by taking us through alder swamps, water holes and dense fir thickets. Halfway through this deer-tracking adventure, a couple of our dog-tired hunters dropped out of the race, and Hamilton elected to give the intrepid Buster a well-deserved rest. She brought in Buster's daughter Meggie, attached her to the long tracking leash, introduced Meggie to the trail scent, and we were off and running, literally.

For a youngster, Meggie proved to be as persistent and determined as her master and there was no let up. But we ran out of blood signs altogether as darkness came on and it became disappointingly clear that it was not to be. The buck's incredible stamina, despite his wound, was more than a match for our tracking team.

A tired McClusky, though crestfallen, was nonetheless deeply appreciative of Hamilton's Herculean effort to find his wounded buck. As much as Hamilton wanted her Meggie to find the deer, she remained upbeat and philosophical about the whole affair. "I'm sorry we didn't find the deer, but we did all we could do. And Meggie did wonderfully today. I'm so proud of her!"

The dogs impressed me. Although I have had some exposure to working hounds on bear and bobcat, I never realized the incredible noses and true grit possessed by these little dachshunds. As for Hamilton, she is a one of a kind - a meticulous professional with a solid working knowledge of wounded deer behavior. Couple this with her enthusiasm, unbounded stamina, and skill in dog handling, and you have a true tracker in every sense of the term.

If you are a deer, bear or moose hunter, you know that sooner or later, you may unintentionally wound an animal that can't be found. When it happens, call Susanne Hamilton at Leashed Dog Tracking: 207 249 8078.

________

The author is editor of the Northwoods Sporting Journal. He is also a Maine Guide, co-host of a weekly radio program "Maine Outdoors" heard Sundays at 7 p.m. on The Voice of Maine News-Talk Network (WVOM-FM 103.9, WQVM-FM 101.3) and former information officer for the Maine Dept. of Fish and Wildlife. His e-mail address is paul@sportingjournal.com and his new book is "A Maine Deer Hunter's Logbook."

A walk in the woods on the last day of 2011

2011-12-31T16:50:00.000-05:00

Today I have been reminiscing about the year that in seven hours we are going to saying good-bye to. I looked at the pictures taken exactly one year ago and felt some sadness. Two dogs are no longer with us. Our beagle Rip died last May. The picture I took of him a year ago on December 31, 2010, is still one of my favorites.

Quenotte is no longer living with with us as she is with the Wilson family. Her life is to be envied - she has a chance to track wounded deer, but she is also loved and showered with affection.

How different this day is from the one a year ago! No snow and the temperature peaked today at 47F (around 8C). For me this has been the first quiet day in a long time. Our tracking/hunting season ended just 11 days ago. And then there was Christmas, which is always a busy time of the year. It was great to see family and friends that we don't get to see very often.

So today I made two trips to the woods - first with our two oldest dachshunds Asko and Elli, and then with the youngest - Summer.

Our pond today - a little bit of ice on the surface.

FC Asko von der Drachenburg is 12.5 years old, and his age is starting to show.

FC Elli v Moosbach-Zuzelek SW is just over 10.5 years old, but she was diagnosed in Jan 2010 with congestive heart failure. Unfortunately her condition has been worsening lately.
Are you going to be with us on December 31, 2012 Elli?

Summer was born on August 4, 2011, and she is Asko's great-great-great granddaughter. Full of spunk and energy, she really enjoyed her solo walk in the woods.

Wishing Everybody a Very Happy New Year!

Craig Dougherty's terrific review of Dead On! on OutdoorLife blog

2011-12-28T16:09:00.001-05:00

This year we got a really nice gift on December 23 as this is when Craig Dougherty's great review of John's book Dead On! was published on OutdoorLife blog under the title "New Book Suggests Revolutionary Approach to Blood Trailing Deer". Thank you Craig!

The review starts:

John Jeanneney tracks more wounded deer in a season than most bowhunters do in a lifetime. He is widely respected within the hunting community as one of the top trackers and blood trailing dog breeders. That’s why his recently released deer tracking book Dead On! raised more than a few eyebrows.

The book covers blood trailing and tracking from top to bottom, but one of Jeanneney’s most interesting points is that he encourages bowhunters to re-think the conventional wisdom of waiting (at least a half hour) after the shot to follow up on a deer. No more automatically sneaking out of the woods to let bowshot whitetails “lie down and stiffen up.” No more coming back after supper to pick him up.

Jeanneney admits that his “don’t wait” advice flies in the face of conventional bowhunting wisdom. Wisdom that is still taught in bowhunting education classes. But he has solid reasons for his recommendations.

To read the rest of the article click here. To purchase the book click here.

The Last Day Find

2011-12-26T21:05:00.001-05:00

by Gary Huber

Standing in my driveway, exhausted from the hunt on the last day of muzzleloader season master handler Dale Clifford said he got a call from a friend whose friend had shot a nice buck nearby. Dale gave the call over, he needed some sleep.

I called the hunter to see what he had. It sounded good because he had “jumped” the buck off its bed 80 yards out. The hunter begged me to come that night because he had lots of coyotes around. Who doesn’t now days? I then called new handler Tim Pence who needed one more sortie to become a Deer Search certified handler. He agreed to meet me in the morning as soon as he could; he works third shift. We met the hunter around 11:00 am. This time the weather people where right. They said heavy rain by 7:00 am. And boy where they right, it poured hard. The hunter was upset with us because now it was raining and all sign was gone. I told him “rain or shine”, the deer needed some time. If we came in to soon we would have pushed the deer to the next county.

The trail from the night before was marked nicely and we worked in some mature hardwoods. I chose my Dachshund “Kita’’ for the job as she is the senior dog, and Tim is used to working with Dachshunds. Tim took the trail at the hit site and handled Kita just fine. When we passed the last blood marker we hit a deep ditch. Then Kita went cold on us and started doing circles. She took on a false line for 80 yards. I decided to have Tim pick her up and go back to the marked line and give a try again. This time Kita went more to the right to the edge of the 18 mile creek gorge. We carefully walked the edge looking into the gorge. I noticed a steep deer trail going down with kicked up leaves. Well that could be from any deer traveling last night.

I scanned the river below and its banks when the hunter said to me, “doesn’t that one rock in the middle look like a deer”? Where? I asked .“There, the middle”. I saw what he was looking at and called Tim over. Tim said “it kind of does”. I could just make out an ear sticking out of the water rushing over its body. I asked then the hunter “I thought you said the deer you shot had a huge rack”? I don’t see a rack! But the head is under water. It might be another deer, perhaps a doe. The hunter had bad knees so I looked at Tim. Tim said “don’t look at me, I am scared of heights and water”! So I guess it’s going to be me going down too see. I put together a rope and my tracking lead, and headed down the cliff. I had to see if that was the deer. At the bottom I had Tim yell down which way to wade across to the deer under the water. The current was getting stronger and deeper as I approached the deer. Still I could not see a rack. Standing now over the sunken deer I could make out a bullet hole. I reached under its head and lifted it up and out. “It’s a buck"!

2011-12-23T20:10:00.000-05:00

The girl in our logo

2011-12-22T23:58:00.000-05:00

In case you ever wondered about identity of the dog is in our logo and what happened to her - it is Wynona von Moosbach-Zuzelek. She was born on April 5, 1998, and her parents were FC Zuzelek's Gold-digging Gita SW and Upton von Moosbach-Zuzelek. The logo was done by Marilyn Wood based on Danny Horner's picture. Below is one of the latest pictures of Danny and Winnie. It is a fantastic photo - thank you Danny!

Danny Horner and a 13.5 year-old Winnie

Updated pages

2011-12-20T22:57:00.004-05:00

Two pages listed in the right column have been updated:

Look what Quenotte found!

2011-12-20T22:13:00.000-05:00

Few pictures from Kevin Wilson showing Quenotte with her finds. Thank you Kevin!

Gusto's track and recovery: a nine-pointer that bedded four times

2011-12-17T13:10:00.000-05:00

Another excellent tracking story from Bob Yax, a member of Deer Search in the Finger Lakes Region. His tracking dachshund Gusto von Moosbach-Zuzelek was nine and a half years old when he did this track. Thank you Bob!

Hunter (Steve) called into the Deer Search hotline at 1:40 PM Wednesday of November 2.   He had hit an 8 – 10pt Buck at around 8 AM that morning from a tree stand. He had a complete pass thru, but couldn’t find the arrow after it deflected off a rock on the other side of the deer.    Steve described the hit as a broad side hit, low in the lung area - a few inches behind the front leg and 4 to 5 inches up from the bottom of the deer. With the distance and tree stand height, it would have been a pretty level hit on the deer.   After hitting the deer, Steve backed out immediately . After a 3 hour wait he followed a decent trail of dark blood about 150 yds and then jumped the buck from its bed. After finding the bed, he went a little past it and noticed that the deer was continuing to drop a little blood. He then backed out again and called Deer Search.
        After hearing Steve’s call into the Deer Search answering system, I called him back at about 5 PM on Wednesday. After he described the circumstances, I thought that this might be a deer we could recover. The fact that the buck had bedded pretty quickly and that the deer was still bleeding when he was jumped up 3 hours later, offered some hope.   Steve not pushing this deer past the 1st bed also meant that the trail beyond would not be mucked up with the hunters' bloody boot prints.   I was concerned however that this might have been a 1 lung hit, which in the past have proven almost impossible to find.   I had semi planned to take a vacation day on Thursday to hunt and or track, so I told Steve that I could meet him at 8:15 Thursday morning after dropping my daughter off at school.
         After meeting up with Steve Thursday morning at the Geneva Thruway exit, we drove a few miles to the farm near Phelps.   It was a cool clear morning as we walked the half mile through cut soybean fields to the hit site just inside the hardwoods. Once at the hit site Gusto followed the dried blood trail about 40 yards to the edge of the woods and then about 75 yds across a cut soybean field. At this point we entered a thick wooded/ brushy area where the deer had first bedded. Gusto took us across the first bed and then past it till we came out to another cut soybean field. On the other side of this open field was a 10 acre brushy and swampy area surrounded by standing corn and more cut soybean fields – it looked like the perfect place for the Buck to bed again. Steve said that the area hunters treated this thick, swampy patch as a sanctuary.    Once Gusto got about halfway across the 2nd open field he changed direction and headed to the far corner of the sanctuary where it met up with a huge standing corn field.   Since we had left the 1st bed, 100 yards behind us, I hadn’t really noticed any more blood, but once we began tracking along between the standing corn and the sanctuary, we began to notice drops on the ground and smears about 2ft up on some of the corn stalks – Gusto was definitely still on the trail!
        At one point he did a 50 yard loop into the cornfield, but then ended up back where he started at the edge of the corn. He continued along the edge of the sanctuary, which now became a grassy swamp. Gusto was sometimes paddling through water about a foot deep and other times back into the grass along the edge of the swamp. It seemed like the deer was just skirting the edge of the swamp and not going directly into it – lucky for us. Just before we got to a thicker brushy area along the edge of the swamp the blood trail started to pick up. The blood up off the ground was dry, but the stuff on the ground looked fresh in the wet grass. At this point Gus started heading straight into the middle of the swamp, but then stopped and backtracked about 10 yards. After a little searching in the area, he continued along the edge of the swamp heading to the thicker brushy area. We again found blood going in this direction so I knew Gus was back on the trail again.
       A few moments after entering the thick brush Gusto started barking wildly and we heard crashing. I was behind a large bush, but Steve saw the flash of the Buck as it took off ahead of us. We were less than 10 yds away when he jumped up. Gus continued pulling and barking wildly as I crawled on my hands and knees to get to him in the heavy cover. Not far ahead,   I found the 2nd bed with a little blood in it. It was about 9:30, 25 hours after the hit, and we were about 300 yards from the 1st bed.   Gus followed the trail for another 40 yards or so until we came out on the far side of the sanctuary area into another large cut soybean field. We continued another few yards along the edge of the open field and could see the bucks tracks in the soft dirt, we didn’t see any more blood after the deer got up from this 2nd bed.   Straight ahead of us now was nothing but cut soybean fields for 200+ yards. The brushy part of the sanctuary to our left ended about 50 yds ahead of us.   It seemed that the buck either has made a left back into the sanctuary or it continued along the brush and then made a left around the end of the brushy area 50 yds ahead of us.
        At this point I told Steve that we should just stop here and give the Buck more time to die in its next bed. I told him I would come back at 4:00 that afternoon to continue on the trail. We hung some flagging tape on a bush at the edge of the field then proceeded to take an escape route that led us around the area we thought the buck went to. When we got far enough into the open field to see around the end of the sanctuary, Steve spotted a brown patch in the middle of the open soybean field - it was our buck laying on the ground in the open field about 150 yds from us.   The edge of the hardwoods was about 50 yds ahead of him, but it seems he couldn’t make it to the woods.   He had traveled about 150 yds from the 2nd bed that we just kicked him out of.    I told Steve that we’d stick with our plan to come back at 4:00. With any luck he’d be dead in this 3rd bed.   To keep from spooking him up,   we headed further out on a path that would keep us out of sight as we exited. About 5 minutes later, when we were about 250 yds from the Buck, we peeked back at him again just in time to see him get up and walk slowly into the hardwoods ahead. With any luck, we’d find him dead at 4:00 just inside the hardwoods.
        To kill time until our return at 4:00, we took another call in Avon.   It was a not too promising shoulder / one lung type hit. I just hoped that it wasn’t too brutal of a call that it wiped out Gusto for the day – he needed to be on his game when we came back at 4:00. As it turned out, this call could not have been worse! As soon as we got on the trail, Gus stopped and started plowing his face into the ground – what the hell was he doing ? When I checked him out, I found that his face was covered with burdocks! He had one clump that totally covered his eye. I tried pulling them out, but it was hopeless. It seemed he couldn’t go 5 eeft without picking up more. For most of the next hour on the trail he was either plowing his face into the ground or biting at his legs trying to get them out. Tracking this deer was the last thing on his mind.   We made a big sweep around the area that the deer should have bedded in the hopes that Gus would have winded the dead deer if it was there. With no sign of the deer and little hope that it was a fatal hit, we finally got out of there after the worst hour and a half of our tracking career. Now I was just hoping I could get Gusto somewhat back to normal so that he would be on his game at 4:00. I stopped at Walmart on the way back to Phelps to get a pair of scissors and then tried to cut out as many burdocks as I could. By the time we were ready to track again at 4:00, the burdocks that were still buried in his fir didn’t seem to bother him.
          After I had met up with Steve again, we made a plan to have him post at the back side of the woods that we saw the deer enter earlier in the day. Meanwhile I would circle around and get back on the trail as it headed toward the bed in the middle of the open field. If Gus and I pushed the deer out of the woods Steve could at least see which way it was headed – hopefully the deer wouldn’t be going anywhere.   As soon as we began our hike back towards the last bed, we were passing the far end of the woods that the deer had last entered. At one point Gus stopped and stuck his nose up into the steady wind several times. The wind was coming directly from the area that the deer had entered the woods about 150 yards down wind.   I was pretty sure that he was air scenting the deer. After I pulled him along a bit, we continued back towards the last bed with no more air scenting.
      My plan was to try to pick up the trail in the cut soybean field at the corner of the sanctuary, where the deer had turned to head to the bed in the field and then continued onto the woods.   The corner was about 100 yds from the bed and I hoped that Gus could find the trail again and follow it to the bed and then into the woods. When we got near the corner of the sanctuary, Gus again started air scenting wildly. I quickly figured out that the 2nd bed, that we had kicked the deer out of earlier, was about 75 yds up wind of us – Gus was again air scenting our deer.   I led him along the path I figured the Buck had taken and he quickly picked up a line that headed toward the bed. Along the way we began seeing deer tracks heading toward the bed, but no blood. I was hoping we would be able to find where the deer had bedded, but was totally surprised when we came upon a patch of blood the size of my boot. Gusto spent a few seconds licking the bloody dirt and then continued onto the woods, 50yds away. Amazingly, after the deer got up this 3rd time, he again began laying down a blood trail. We were soon at the edge of the field heading up a trail into the woods.    Just 5yds into the woods there was a 4th bloody bed, but no deer.   Before I had a chance to consider what might lie ahead, Gusto headed to the left and there 10 ft ahead of him was the dead 9pt, just 10 yds from the 4th bed.   I yelled up to Steve and he quickly made his way down thru the woods to check out his prize.
        The wound on the Buck was just about where Steve had thought - about 6 inches behind the front leg and about 5 inches up from the bottom. The entrance and exit wounds were just about directly opposite each other. When we checked out the internal organs, we found that 1 blade had put a 1 inch long 1/8 inch deep slice on the heart near the small end. There was also a cut through the edge of 1 lung. Neither the liver or stomach was touched.

Steve Hurlburt & Gusto - Thursday 11/3/2011

Tracker Barbie spreads her wings!

2011-12-14T16:14:00.002-05:00

If this video does not make you smile, I don't know what will! It is obvious that Barbie has had some serious experience in the field. Many thanks to Willette Brown! You made my day.

Paulene Eggers, a Deer Search handler from the Finger Lakes region

2011-12-13T00:30:00.000-05:00

What a great article on Paulene Eggers and her wirehaired dachshund Braylee, a Deer Search tracking team from the Finger Lakes region. Paulene said on her FB: " The article had some incorrect info..like how many deer she has recovered. She has been on 16 calls with 6 recoveries, not all 16 being recoveries! It is a great hobby and just as much fun as hunting and fishing!"

Paulene Eggers with Braylee.

Sally Marchmont and a wirehaired dachshund Petey from Vermont

2011-12-12T08:33:00.000-05:00

One of 11 deer that Sally and Petey recovered in 2011

It was a treat to get this e-mail from Sally Marchmont, who is a licensed deer tracker in Fletcher, VT. Sally tracks with Petey (Matthias v Moosbach-Zuzelek), who is a son of FC Keena v Moosbach-Zuzelek and Susanne Hamilton's Buster (FC Clown vom Talsdeich). Petey at the age of four and a half is getting into his prime, and this is what Sally wrote:

Hi Jolanta and John -
I see you've been following the Facebook page, but it's been a long time since you heard from me and I thought you'd like to hear a little more about Petey. We just finished our best season yet, as far as numbers of calls (33) and finds (11) as well as the work Petey has been doing. We had a couple of impressive 24-hour finds with little to no blood, a few frustrating tracks where we didn't get any further than the hunter, and then everything in between. Petey has not lost any of his enthusiasm and still puts out a lot more energy than he needs to, but his eagerness doesn't seem to interfere with his thinking process as much as it used to. He's very focused and intent on his tracking. He's become much better at figuring out the difficult spots and it may not always be quick or graceful, but given the time to work it out on his own, he usually will. I think he's learned a lot from my interfering with him less and giving him the time he needs to do his work. I understand his body language a lot better now and I trust what he's telling me, though it's not easy to convince the hunter that Petey's right when we aren't seeing any blood, and sometimes finding that one drop is almost as good as finding the deer.

We found our first bear last year and he took to that without a problem. I had to use my gun for the first time this year and in a classic case of beginner's luck, I hit the deer just right and it died almost instantly. I didn't like it one bit, but this deer would have suffered and died anyway and it had to be done. We had a warm season and only just got snow a few days ago, which might account for the higher number of calls this year. Over the last couple of years I've been getting more calls from people I've tracked for before or their friends and family, so the more calls we take, the more calls we get and I'm hoping for even more next year.

Petey is a very healthy, active dog, full of quirks and an absolute pleasure to live with. We both thoroughly enjoyed ourselves this season, learned a lot and we're looking forward to many good years ahead. Hope you both had a safe and successful tracking season.
I'm attaching a couple more pictures - the bear was from last year but it's one of my favorites. Petey was the proudest I have ever seen him when he found that bear. The other one is an 8-pointer we found on opening day this year. All the blood had been rained away, not too difficult for Petey but impossible for the hunter.

One more calendar!

2011-12-10T22:40:00.001-05:00

One more calendar to consider as a Christmas gift! To see images in this calendar click here.
To order the calendar go here.

Fresh snow, magical winter light, and first coyote tracks

2011-12-08T20:01:00.001-05:00

Last night we got 4-5 inches of fresh snow, and this morning I took a walk in the woods. I saw a lot of coyote tracks, and some of them were pretty large. Now I know their route on the edge of our property.

The sky was pretty dramatic - some sun and blue sky, and some dark clouds. The sunset was magical. I love living here on the top of our hill. I grew up in a big city (Warsaw, Poland) with a lot of traffic and noise so living in the Helderberg Hills is like being in heaven.

Congratulations to Fred Zoeller and Rommel!

2011-12-07T21:59:00.001-05:00

Fred Zoeller's seven-month-old Bavarian Mountain Bloodhound Rommel with his 17-hr-old find (156 lb. 9 pt.).

Rosette is an accomplished blood tracker at a young age

2011-12-05T22:32:00.001-05:00

Some of you might remember that Rosette is Joeri and Gilda's 18-month-old daughter who lives with Lynn and Anne Pierce in Cut Off, LA.

Recently we heard quite a bit about Rosette's accomplishments.

December 5

We really had fun with the kids this weekend-- two older ones are not in the picture -- playing in the woods somewhere.. :) . Rosette had a great track on the doe that is in the picture, which traveled about 100 yards, but no blood in food plot except for the spot the arrow landed. Rosette tracked the doe about 60 yards before we saw blood again at the edge of the woods.

Rosette then tracked in the open woods about another 40 yards, which was an easy track because the doe really started bleeding a lot and left a great blood trail. She really made it easy for us and recovered the doe quickly so we could go see the second half of the LSU / Georgia game.

I wish we would have missed the first half they were terrible, but came back strong the second half. Rosette is doing great and loving the hunting and camp atmosphere.

Thanks for your emails and have a blessed week.

Lynn & Ann

Geaux Tigers....

November 29

A friend of mine gut shot this doe at gut-busters, the hunting camp, on a dark, cold, windy, and rainy night.. the brush was very thick and Rosette found the doe quickly. It was not a long track but it took us about an hour to get in and out of there. Lots of thorns on all of us...Rosette handled it very well and made it a whole lot easier for all of us. It would have been rough going if we would have had to search for the doe in the blind with no blood trail. It made my friend and all of us very happy that were helping in the search. :) We are having lots of fun with Rosette.

November 28

I hope y'all had a great Thanksgiving. Not sure if I sent this pic or not.

It was a nice track about 16 hours old and the deer was gut shot and no blood at all. It was open woods and we could see far into the woods so I let her off leash.. it was fun watching her work... She is doing great,

Also, Rosette did a night track in a misty rain in very heavy cover, it was another gut shot with very little blood. She went right to the doe and she got us out of there quick as the weather was getting really bad. It took us about hour to do the track it was so thick. Our boys need to work on their shooting...

This is her 4th gut shot deer, but she found all of them...

Axel, a blood tracking dachshund from Louisiana

2011-12-04T20:37:00.001-05:00

Greg Accardo from St. Francisville, LA, reported that "this 12 pt was gut shot yesterday morning, Saturday, around 9 am. The hunter knew the deer was gut shot and he determined it was best to back out and leave the deer alone. He called me around 4 pm Saturday while I was out of town. We both agreed to meet about 12 noon today, Sunday, and pick up the track from the hit spot, which put this track at about 30 hours old. The buck traveled roughly 300 yards where Axel found him lying dead flat on his stomach. As a side note, this it probably the biggest buck I've tracked with my dogs in 6 years of tracking, and good trophy."

Congratulations to Greg and Axel!

Hercules' training is on a right track

2011-12-02T08:54:00.001-05:00

We got a nice e-mail from Johnny Walker, who found John's book useful:
John: After reading you book several times and about four different tracks using bottled blood and liver and a green hide over the past three weeks I finally got a chance to track a buck on the farm tonight. The buck ran about a hundred yards in real thick stuff( heath) with a very faint blood trail. I am not sure that it could have been followed by eye. I gave it about one and half hours to settle down and not sure about how hard the buck was hit. A light ran came as we waited. I went back to the barn and got the hound and loaded him in the ATV. I stopped about a tenth of a mile short of the spot where a saw a drop of blood near the location where the buck was shot. I lead the dog with the rope and collar we had been working with as described in your text. He picked up the trail at the point of impact and we took off into heavy cover. I could see no blood and slowed him down and got on my hands and knees as we went and I cannot express the joy when I saw a tiny droplet of blood on a leaf, with a boost of confidence we continued for a distance of about a hundred yards in thick tall grass and brushy trees to find the six pointer laying dead. At first the hound (Hercules) acted surprised to see an animal at the end of the track but in short order was licked the wound and worrying the carcass a little. I made over him as never before and fed him a tiny piece of liver. He was as proud as it he had found a bull elephant and I must confess so was I. Thanks for putting all the information in your book that I was able to work with Hercules on to achieve this goal.

Thank you Johnny and congratulations!

Ohio bucks recovered by blood tracking dachshunds

2011-12-01T17:46:00.001-05:00

Both handlers, Ben Byington and David Bell, are United Blood Trackers members and live in Ohio. They also own litter mates Quella and Quint (Buford), who are now 18 months old.

Ben, who lives in Sandusky wrote:

I got a call from an Ashland hunter (hour and 20 minutes away) to track a deer he shot the night before. We started the track at 11:30 the following day and Buford struggled some but he managed to take us up over a hill a couple hundred yards and there the buck was laying. The track lasted only about 20 minutes until Buford found the buck.

Just wanted to touch base and let you know how well he is doing.Thanks!

A nice buck recovered by Ben and Buford

David Bell who lives in Hamilton, Ohio reported on his blog:

This buck my dog found was for a man and good friend who took me out several times to hunt on some real nice whitetail property, in which I was fortunate enough to take two nice ten pointers in just a handful of times going. In return, when I got his text about his unfortunate shot that was too far back, it was a no brainer on what to do. I left my deer stand to track up his lost buck, something I will only do for my very close friends and family.

My buddy was nervous about finding the deer on the phone, but I told him," If your buck is down, Quella will find him". The blood trail was non existent after 30 yards until we got several hundred yards or so, into it the track. My dog only made one error on the track, but that was because the dog was following blood from the hunters shoe, but it was easy for me to read her and know that she was off the track. Once I restarted her on last blood, Quella dropped down real low and started to dig into the ground with her over sized paws, but as usual I slowed her down, so she wouldn't overshoot any missed scent. I knew from here that she was locked on this buck from her soft whining that she always does. 500 yards into the track and through a lot of thick honeysuckle, we walked up on another monster buck. I was short on time on this track also, because I had to work in less than two hours, but we ended up having the buck tracked, field dressed, and back at his house sitting on ice in less than 1.5 hours. I even had time to squeeze a meal in before I went to work.

Quella with her buck.

One Tough Buck by Bob Yax

2011-11-30T23:19:00.001-05:00

Elli is recovering well, but it will be a while before she heals completely. Due to her surgery and my bad cold, I am running behind. If you sent us an e-mail recently, we will respond as soon as we can. This is the busiest time of the year for us, and your patience is appreciated.

As you know Bob Yax's Gusto was killed recently when he got loose and was run over by a truck. Bob shared with me a couple of stories that he wrote up this year on more interesting recoveries. Thank you Bob!

------

One Tough Buck

by Bob Yax

Hunter (Eric)called into the Deer Search hot line late morning on Sat 10/29. He had hit a big Buck Friday evening at 6:00from a tree stand. He was using RAGEbroad heads and had a complete pass thru. He said the arrow had solid dark blood on it, but no food particles.   He described the hit as a broad side hit,about halfway between the front and back legs and about halfway up, top tobottom. It sounded like a possible liverhit. After hitting the deer, Eric andhis hunting partner Todd, backed out immediately and planned to come back onSaturday morning to track – (exactly the right thing to do for a liver / guthit). On Saturday morning, Eric and Todd followed a decent 150 – 200 yard blood trail until the bloodstopped.   After that they did a visualsearch for awhile in the direction of travel. They then backed out again and called Deer Search.

After Gustoand I arrived at 1:00 Saturday, we inspected the arrow and found that it wascovered with a thick layer of dark blood.  It also contained some small food particles and some white hair (itlooked like a liver & stomach hit with the exit wound low on the deer). On an anatomy chart, Eric indicated a hitmore than mid way up the deer from top to bottom and slightly further back thana liver would be located – I worried that the hit may have been to theintestines & stomach only – that may have explained why they hadn’t found the deer in its 1^st bedafter the overnight 13hr wait.   We put Gusto on the blood trail at the hitsite and he was off.    He breezedthrough the first 200 yards where there was an easy to follow blood trail. Once the blood ended, he continued on throughthe open hardwoods heading downhill at quick pace – he definitely was on thetrail. After a hundred yards or so inthe open hardwoods we hit a row of Posted signs.

At that pointwe hit the brakes and Eric made some calls to find out who owned the land andif we could get permission to continue tracking. Gusto wasn’t at all pleased with this suddenstop. He tugged at the leash and barkedcontinuously. I’m sure he thought “ hey! - what’s the deal – he’s getting away”.  Well, after waiting about 5 minutes we got the permission we were hopingfor. I let up on the leash and Gusto wasoff again heading down hill through the open woods. We ended up going about 100 yards into theposted land and soon after found ourselves coming back out of the postedarea. By now we were at the bottom ofthe wooded hillside walking just inside the woods on a straight / level pathtowards a large field.   All along sofar, Gusto seemed to be hot on the trail, very confident of where he wasgoing. Once we broke out of the woods,we had a large / thick goldenrod field in front of us.    Probably 300 yards long and 150 yards continuingdown the hill. Gusto jumped into thefield and started downhill. Thegoldenrod was about 4 ft high and very thick. Gus had a hard time getting through it at ground level especially withthe 25 ft leash trailing behind him. Hecontinued to make his way downhill through the goldenrod by burrowing under itor jumping over it. He often put hisnose high in the air, trying to air scent the trail / deer. This is always a great sign that something“interesting” is ahead.   Several timesduring the 15 minute trip though the field I thought “he just wants to get tothe woods on the other side”. We finallydid make it through the field and he headed straight into the brushy woodedarea that continued downhill ahead of us.

After 5 yards intothe new area, now on my hands and knees, I said to myself “now we’ve got therosebushes – we always end up in rosebushes!”  This hillside was thick with blown down trees interspersed withrosebushes and brush. Gus was still hoton the trail and I was amazed at how long he had been so hot on this trail –probably a half mile so far.    Now thatwe were about 10 yards into the thick stuff, Gus turned and started headingparallel to the bottom edge of the goldenrod field. I was just trying to keep up with him – hecan go under and through the blow downs and bushes while I have to go aroundand over them.   Not long after I thought“this would be a great place for a deer to bed down” the sound of a breaking branch caught myattention. I looked up ahead to see atall rack with the backside of a deer under it taking 2 jumps beforedisappearing in the brush.    The Buckgot up only 30 yards ahead of us and was gone just about the time I startedbringing up my side by side 20 ga. Something in the way he ran said he was hurting. Meanwhile Gusto was barking and running afterhim. Luckily I had a good grip on theleash. Eric, who was up above me, alongthe edge of the field heard the commotion but didn’t see the deer.   After going about 25yds past where the Buck had jumped up, I stopped Gusto, who was barking wildly, andsaid to Eric, “now we’ve got a decisionto make – keep going after him, or toback out till later”.

It had been 20hours since the hit and the deer was still able to get up and run, but he stilllet us get within 30 yards of him.   At thispoint I was thinking it had to be a gut or intestine hit and the deer could possiblysurvive another 12 hours, especially if it was intestine only. I told Eric our best chance to recover thisdeer was to back out till Sunday morning and to avoid pushing him any furtheraway. He totally agreed, but wasn’tlooking forward to another sleepless night. At that point we marked the trail where we had stopped with some orangetape and I pulled the still barking Gusto off the trail. We also put some tape along the edge of thewoods before entering the big goldenrodfield.   Luckily we found a 4 wheelertrail to easily get back up through the thick field. Immediately after we started heading back upthe long hill to the truck, Gusto was out of his “tracking mode” and was justcasually walking back with us. It amazedme how he could suddenly turn off the excitement of the past hour and I waswondering what was going on in that head of his – did he somehow know that weweren’t finished with this deer yet ?  Once back at the truck (2:30 PM)we arranged to meet again on Sunday morning at 9:00 – 39 hours after thehit. He should definitely be dead bythen, but how far away would he be ? And how well would Gusto pick up the trailagain ?

On Sundaymorning it was 29 F and clear. I metEric in Cohocton, and Gus and I drove in his truck with him back to the Avocafarm and then the mile through farm fields back to his stand location. There, we met up with his huntingpartner Todd and his 15yr old son Zack. It was a beautiful, crisp, calm and sunnymorning as we headed back down the hill through the open hardwoods and thenonto the 4 wheeler trail through the goldenrod field. Along the way, I pointed out to Eric and Todd how casual Gus was as heheaded down to where we ended on Saturday.   He wasn’t yet in “tracking mode”. The previous day Eric had asked me “how do you know when he’s really onthe trail and when he’s not” . Gusto wasabout to demonstrate the difference.

When we got near the point we marked the previous day, I put Gusto on the trail about 20 yards backfrom where we ended on Saturday. Iprayed that he would regain his previous enthusiasm for this deer. I wasn’t disappointed. He immediately got hot on the trail again andblew by our last piece of flagging tape. After about 25 more yards in the thick brush he came out into theopen goldenrod field again for a short time and then headed back down thehillside into the thick stuff. It washard keeping up, and at one point after letting go of the leash, I found myselfrunning to catch up.   Gusto was gettingclose and he wasn’t waiting for me.  Then something caught my foot and the next thing I know, I’m sliding face first on the ground reachingfor the end of the leash.   To mysurprise, I caught the end of the leashand didn’t hurt myself. Gusto was nothappy with the brakes being put on, and once I picked myself up, we were back in pursuit.

At this point Gus was pulling, jumping andair scenting with his nose high in the air. We were now in a patch of 4ft high goldenrod within the brushy woods.Just ahead I saw a small flattened clearing in the goldenrod. When we got closer, I peeked into it and sawa half a rack poking up from the ground. I stopped Gusto about 10 ft from the clearing and yelled up to Eric,Todd and Zack who were 30 yards uphill -“So how big did you say this buck was ?“ - Eric said “about 140” – I said “wellyou better get down here and score it “.    After a short confused pause, Eric came running down the hill in aflash. The high fives and celebrationensued.   All toll, we had traveled onlyabout 150 yds from where we had jumpedthe buck the previous day. He must havebeen hurting pretty badly to only travel this short distance after beingjumped.   The Buck sported a very high8pt rack that we estimated at 130 – 135inches. The arrow entered about halfwayback on the deer and about 8 inches up from the bottom. It looked like it could have been a liverhit, but I didn’t think that was possible since he was still alive and running20+ hours after the hit. When Ericgutted it, however, I was shocked to seethe clean pattern of a Rage broad head right through an inch thick section ofthe liver - Amazing!!! - You learn something new on every track.

This was one toughBuck ! - that led us on a memorableadventure.

Bob Yax, EricZastawrny & Gusto - Sunday10/30/2011

Update on Elli. Calendars by Jolanta.

2011-11-28T23:53:00.001-05:00

So far the news about Elli has been good. She made it through the surgery! Apparently the whole thing was more complicated than they anticipated. Elli turned blue at the beginning of surgery, but when they repositioned her she got better. The hernia was big and tricky to repair. She is staying at the vets overnight. She is doing OK, but I don't think she is out of the woods yet. I would like to thank everybody who e-mailed or called with concern about her your support means so much to both of us!

_____

For the last two weeks I have been working on a new project, and finally it is completed. When I signed up for Facebook I started to post my pictures there as picture sharing is extremely easily done on FB. Here on the blog I can only post a small sample. I got a really good feedback from my friends, and they encouraged me to publish some of the pictures in the form of calendars.

I came up with two calendars, which are going to be printed and sold through cafepress. The first is on wirehaired dachshunds.

To see images from this calendar click here. To order it from cafepress (it is $20.99 plus shipment), click here.

The second calendar shows the beauty of nature in the Helderberg Hills, NY (this is where we live). This is a cover:

To see images from this calendar go here. To order the calendar click here.

If you order them, let me know what you think. I have never done anything like this before, and hope that people enjoy my photography and that the quality of printing is good.

Beware of fraud!

2011-11-27T23:41:00.001-05:00

I have come across this discussion on Georgia Outdoor News. Since our blog is involved as a source of stolen images, I thought that a public warning is justified. Read carefully.

A big thank you to NGaHunter for recognizing images!

Pat McCaffrey and Zeus, a blood tracking team from Columbus, Ohio

2011-11-26T09:58:00.001-05:00

This picture comes from a very nice article on Pat McCaffrey and his wirehaired dachshund Zeus published by the Colmbus Dispatch. To access the article click here.

Elli in trouble

2011-11-25T23:37:00.001-05:00

Good thoughts and prayers are needed for Elli, a ten and a half year old matriarch of our dachshund pack. At the end of January she was diagnosed with congestive heart failure and she was put on medication. She has done really well on the meds and has had a very good quality of life. She is slowing down, no doubt about it, but she still runs rabbits almost every day, and is always ready for more.

About three months she got a small inguinal hernia, which last night got much larger and now needs a surgical correction. But because of her heart condition Elli has only 50% chance of surviving surgery. Today she was checked by our vet Kevin Baldwin, and he was impressed with Elli's attitude. Clearly the heart medications have been working. The heart still sounds awful but her lungs are clear, and she feels good. She walked into to the examination room wagging her tail.

Kevin tried to reduce hernia by pushing the "stuff" back but did not succeed. Elli is going to have a surgery on Monday morning, but if she gets worse in the next two days, he is going to do the surgery on the weekend (bless his heart!). Right now she acts normal, eats, her temp is normal, so I just hope that things stay this way until Monday.

Below are some pictures of Elli taken this (Friday) morning.

Happy Thanksgiving to All of You!

2011-11-23T22:21:00.000-05:00

Classic Deer Behavior from a Classic Poor Shot Selection

2011-11-23T21:49:00.001-05:00

by Andy Bensing
November 13, 2011

Here is the story of a track I had that encompassed many valuable lessons about blood tracking with a dog and hunting whitetail deer in general. When the call came in the hunter reported having arrowed a mature buck from 20 feet up and at the close distance of only 5 to 8 yards. When I got to the hit sit the distance was actually even worse. It was only 4 yards at best. To make matters even worse than that, the buck was facing directly towards the hunter when he shot. In that configuration, there is absolutely no chance of double lunging the animal and only an extremely very low chance of hitting the heart. This is a shot that never should be taken with a bow. The hunter did not see the arrow hit the deer but he reported a bright red blood soaked arrow with short gray or white hairs on it.

At the shot, the deer barely reacted and walked away 10 yards and stood wobbling for 20 seconds then walked another 15 yards away and lay down behind a tree in some brush. The deer laid there, with no window for a second shot, for 45 minutes with its mouth wide open panting. After 45 minutes the hunter reported the deer staggered to his feet and wobbled away out of sight without offering another shot opportunity. The deer left a solid 2 inch wide strip of bright red blood from a few yards past the hit site to the place it laid for 45 minutes. After it got up from the 45 minute bed there was not a single drop of blood found by the hunter or my dog the next day over the course of the whole track as seen below.

After hearing the hunter's account of the deer's behavior after the shot, I assumed he had hit back farther than he had aimed and gut-shot the deer. When I got to the hit sight I quickly discovered that the deer had been single lunged, not gut shot. There were 2 oak leaves in the 45 minute bed filled with coagulated blood still showing the typical hundreds of bird shot sized bubbles often seen in blood gurgling out of a deer from a lung shot. From that point forward there was not a drop of blood found.

In retrospect, what likely happened was the razor sharp arrow cleanly slipped between the ribs and pierced one lung without touching any bone and the deer barely knew anything happened other than a sudden shortness of breath and sick feeling. He walked over, laid down to rest, the lung collapsed and therefore stopped bleeding as Mother Nature had planned. Mature bucks are masters of conserving energy. They rarely panic. That's how they get to be mature bucks. Once the bleeding stops and the deer has been lucky enough to not go into shock (as a result of not panicking and running off all crazed and losing too much blood too fast) now all you have is a tired anemic deer with one lung. No different than a person who just came out of surgery after having one of his two lungs removed.

When I started my dog Eibe on the 24 hour old track she had a bit of difficulty getting going. I am guessing that with all the massive blood the first 30 yards the area was flooded with scent and she had a hard time figuring out what the deer himself smelled like. We knew what direction the deer had walked out of the bed but I let Eibe take 4 or 5 trial runs in several directions for 30 or 40 meters each until she finally locked into the deer's individual scent. There was no blood to be seen and she started poking her nose down into the fluffy oak leaves and checking hoof prints in the soft underlying ground. Once locked into the correct buck we tracked bloodlessly for 1000 meters through open forest and field and up a steep hill to a briar and laurel thicket. The trail went about 100 meters into the thicket on the top of the hill and then began to hook back.

At that point I said to the hunter that I believed we were about to find a dead deer or jump him still alive. This deer had shown typical wounded deer behavior. He had rested till he got his wits about himself and then headed efficiently back to a safe bedding area to hold up. Deer will often make a button hook, as indicated on the map above, before bedding down. This allows them to watch their back trail and see predators coming and slip away before the predator is right up on them. And that is exactly what this buck did. After hooking back 100 meters and laying on the edge of a bench 70 meters off to the side of his back trail, this buck saw/heard us coming and slipped away before we saw him. Eibe got stuck for about 5 minutes at his bed in the button hook I assume because of the abundance of scent there from being there all night. Once she got that worked out she shot off like a rocket and I suspected then we were on the buck's hot trail but could not be sure as there was no sign except for the classic pattern the track had been taking.

After 500 meters on the hot trail with no confirming sign I was starting to worry that maybe we were not on the correct deer's trail. Most of the hot trail showed no hoof prints or sign at all except I had seen some small fresh tracks that went with some very small, warm to the touch droppings. Not a good sign as these could not possibly have been from our buck. The small prints eventually disappeared and the trail then began to curve around to begin to make a circle and large prints from a running deer appeared on the line. I believe the buck initially just walked away from his button hook bed but we eventually got closer and he began to run and therefore started making easily visible tracks.

I still wasn't absolutely sure Eibe was on the correct deer but when I saw the path of the deer on my GPS circling back to his original trail from the day before my confidence level began to rise. What are the odds that some other random other deer would take this course? Not very high in my estimation. I told the hunter that if the deer we were following continued to loop back towards the button hook bed then we could be pretty darn sure it was the buck we were after. Deer, just like rabbits and other prey animals make circles back over their previous course of escape to confuse their pursuers.

Well this buck did not use that strategy but used another strategy that I have seen before. When he got to the place I expected him to circle back to the button hook, he instead ran right through an overgrown field filled with deer paths everywhere but took the exact course through the field that he had gone the day before but in the opposite direction for 250 meters. Clearly no coincidence. If I had had any doubts, they were gone. This was the correct buck that had been shot the day before through one lung. The other thing I was pretty sure of was that he was too strong to catch up to with a tracking dog on a leash. I forgot to mention the other strong, evasive maneuver he used that worked pretty well for him.

I am sitting here typing this out with my arm in a sling because at one point when he started the 250 meter retrace in the field, it appeared he purposely avoided an easy crossing of a 7 foot deep by 4 foot wide ravine and jumped across the ravine at an awkward spot. Well, his pursuer, me, fell into that ravine when a log he used as a bridge broke! But I am pretty tough too so I handed the leash to the hunter for awhile and hobbled along till I got my wind and could take the reins again. The buck continued back right past the original hit sight and eventually got on the back trail of the trail he had followed before he was shot. At this point I considered all the following information I knew about the deer:

1.    One lung hit that collapsed and stopped bleeding.
2.    Hole out bottom of chest but not really that much blood likely lost.
3.    Was willing to go up a very steep hill within one or two hours of being shot the day before.
4.    Never let us get close enough to see or hear him even in some very open hardwoods after chasing him
1½ miles after the button hook bed.
5.    Appeared to be able to run through the forest at will without struggling 24 hours after the shot.
6.    Made a very large 500m circle and had enough wits about him to throw in a 250 meter back track.
7.    Tried to kill his pursuers (and almost did) by setting up a booby trap at the ravine :-)

I decided to give up the trail. As long as this deer can fight off any ensuing infection, this deer has a good chance to recover from his wounds. I hope my shoulder heels as quickly!

Just another day in Remi's life

2011-11-23T14:30:00.001-05:00

Justin sent a picture of Remi with this caption: "Just another day at the office - 3 cow elk, 3 men and one Dog all stuffed in the Polaris Ranger."

I have been actually asked by some of you how Remi is doing. He is doing really well, but Justin has been very busy with guiding as he is short of staff. He has not done as much tracking this year, but I am sure that we will hear more about Remi when the hunting season is over. Justin will be adding another wirehaired dachshund to his tracking team in 2012.

Sad news about Deer Search's dachshund Gusto

2011-11-21T22:31:00.000-05:00

Yesterday we received a very sad e-mail from Bob Yax, a member of Deer Search of the Finger Lakes. Bob reported that his tracking dachshund Gusto von Moosbach-Zuzelek got loose and was run over by a truck. Gusto was a son of FC Asko von der Drachenburg and FC Sabina von Moosbach-Zuzelek, and a brother to our Gilda. He was born on March 27, 2002, and initially was sold to a couple from Massachusetts. When about three years ago they had to move to an apartment, they wanted to place Gusto in a new home, and this is how Bob and Gusto were brought together.

Bob wrote about his tracking partner:

Gusto had always had a very “feisty” personality. He was not afraid of anything. He’s been known to attack vacuum cleaners, weed trimmers (while running!) and the tires on moving vehicles – that’s what happened on Friday.

This tracking season was another successful one for Gusto. In 24 sorties this year, Gusto had 6 fine recoveries (see photos attached). He went into every call with the excitement of a pup and could maintain it for many hours in difficult tracking conditions. We had a few weekends where he handled 5 calls with enthusiasm - although after that he spent a lot of time passed out on the couch!

These past 2 years, we had really matured as a tracking team. I had finally learned to correctly read his behavior in most cases. There were still a few instances where I mistakenly decided to trust the hunter rather that what Gusto was showing me. Eventually, Gusto would show me how I was wrong and together we were constantly improving. I was looking forward to a few more good tracking years with him. Gusto’s personality, was always a source of entertainment for our family – he was an interesting / funny little guy.

With a very heavy heart we are saying good-bye to this talented dog. Our deep sympathy goes to Bob who suffered a great loss. Rest in Peace Gusto!

First weekend of gun season was very busy for blood trackers from the Hilltowns.

2011-11-21T00:01:00.000-05:00

I have not posted yet all the pics and reports I have in my Inbox, and I apologize for that. This is such a busy time for us, and I really would like to squeeze this post in before I start catching up.
The weekend of November 19-20 was the first weekend of gun season in the Southern Zone of NY. We got a lot of calls, especially on Sunday. The weather has been nice, and a lot of hunters were in the field.

This year Dan Hardin from Greenville is helping us with tracking. You might remember that Dan was the hunter that Tommy found a buck for in the Fox Creek last year. Dan took a DEC exam last August. Now he is a licensed tracker, but he does not have his own dog. Every weekend he takes our Keena out tracking, and yesterday they recovered their first deer together. How exciting! A big thank you to dan for tracking with Keena and for really nice pictures!

Keena with a 6 pointer she found while handled by Dan.

Dan Harding is holding Keena - finally a successful recovery!

Keena on her way back from the recovery is enjoying a ride in the passenger's seat
-----

John took two calls with Joeri on Sunday and they receovered both deer.

This buck was gut shot and recovered 18 hours after the shot. The trail was around 200 yards, in Berne, NY.

Sunday afternoon - John and Joeri found this nice buck in Esperance, NY. The buck was liver-shot, the trail was 5 hours old.

We also failed to report Joeri's previous recovery on November 16:

On November 16 John and Joeri recovered a liver/stomach shot buck that traveled a long way. Joeri cold tracked for almost two miles, then jumped the deer. In the end the deer had to be put down (Knox, NY).

Craig Dougherty's article on blood trailing dogs in Outdoor Life

2011-11-20T11:56:00.000-05:00

The video shows Radar (Quentin v Moosbach-Zuzelek), a Joeri/Keena son owned by Craig Dougherty of NorthCountry Whitetails.

I have not seen Radar in person since he left us as a young puppy so this video is a nice treat. He is a talented, good looking wire. To read Craig's article on blood trailing dogs on OutdoorLife website click here.

Thank you Craig for such a complimentary article and for promoting the use blood tracking dogs in ethical hunting.

Foggy morning

2011-11-18T22:25:00.001-05:00

Kevin Armstrong's Karma recovers a wounded bear

2011-11-18T13:32:00.001-05:00

Exciting news from Kevin Armstrong from Naples, NY:
This Steuben bear was paunch shot late in the day on Thursday. It snowed several inches overnight completely covering the sparse blood trail. The bear went into a dense pine thicket where it took several beds. Apparently it died as we approached on Friday morning. It was still warm with no rigor mortis. This was Karma's first bear recovery.

Another nice buck recovered by Quella

2011-11-18T11:16:00.001-05:00

Few days ago we received this nice report from David Bell from Ohio. Quella is a 2010 daughter of Joeri and Keena, and it looks like she is an accomplished tracker at a young age.

This buck was gut shot, but the hunter told me he had shot the buck behind the leg. After arriving at the hit site I quickly saw evidence that the shot wasn't as good as he had thought from examining the blood. After driving for an hour I decided along with the hunter to set the dog down since I wasn't going to come back out due to my busy schedule. When I set Quella down, she quickly found the back trail that the deer made. The hunter told me that the last blood was found a few feet in a back yard and briefly stopped, but I didn't question Quella's nose when she started to pull to the right with great determination. After going 50 yards or so I found some blood, which confirmed my suspicions. I let the hunter know that I found blood and he made his way quickly to me leaving the spot that he was so sure that the deer had gone through.

I traveled across this 10-acre wood lot to another back yard where Quella paused for a second and lifted her head. This scared me for a second, because I didn't see any blood on the way over here and I thought she was frustrated or something, because she never lifts up her head. But as soon as the thought crossed my mind that we weren't on the deer track, my dog made a quick lunge for the rump of a bedded buck. From there we decided to pursue the jumped buck, so the hunter could do the ethical thing, which is put the buck down so he didn't have to suffer. The hunter manged to get a following up shot after we got into shooting distance, but the deer managed to cover lots of ground. Alltogether the track was a little over a mile to his final resting spot in a creek under a bridge. A man walking over the bridge saw the deer and notified the police, who came out and gave us a hand dragging the buck up the steep creek bank with a spare leash that I keep in my pack. The hunter happens to be my boss at work and I told him that he was very lucky that I took his call, because I wasn't taking any calls until I got a chance to hunt some for myself. After all it was the peak of the rut and I wanted to get out and get after one of those big bucks for myself.

Karl's first rabbit

2011-11-17T22:40:00.001-05:00

Just a quick note. We got our first rabbit Saturday. Had no tracking calls so I took Karl to the park by my house. I was dressed in my brush gear and I really wanted to see if we could get some rabbits going. Karl and I were working the briars when a rabbit shot out and went into another thicket. Karl was working so I just watched. Soon Karl was on the track and went into the other thicket as well. He opened and I saw a rabbit shoot out across the stick trees with Karl a couple of seconds behind .I was listening to his voice when all of a sudden everything stopped. I thought he was working a check and I moved to get a better view. I saw Karl across the wood patch laying down. I thought the rabbit went in a hole .He wouldn't leave so I went to get him.I was very surprised when I saw Karl had caught the rabbit. I slipped the rabbit into my vest and took it home for dinner.

Darren Doran

Andy Bensing's opinion about touch screen GPS

2011-11-17T21:41:00.001-05:00

A short intro to Andy's post is in order. Andy's love for detailed records of his tracks is well documented on this blog. And it is very impressive. However, very few handlers are interested in maintaining this kind of data. For what Andy does, a touch screen GPS is not an option and he explains why. For many other trackers, it might be a good, inexpensive alternative.

by Andy Bensing

On another forum we werediscussing using smart phones as a gps while blood tracking and theavailability of gloves that will work with a smart phone screen. The mainproblem with touch screen gps when tracking is the inability to very quicklyand easily use the screen while tracking in the field. If you just wantto record your path, mark the infrequent waypoint along the way and look at iton the map as you track along, no problem with a touch screen, but if you wantto mark a lot of waypoints for various reasons along the way and if you want toindividually record each restart you do if you have to pick your dog up andrestart, then a touch screen is very cumbersome, nearly useless in myopinion. At least for me and I have tried it.

I have a perfectexample of a track I did last night in the rain in rough terrain with steephills, nasty briars and a deep stream. Here are the maps that show how much Imarked and all the different restarts. It would have been impossible tomark all that easily with a touch screen. We got to a deep stream crossing andwhile making sure it was correct, I believe Eibe got on a second wounded deerand found blood and a piece of an arrow and it lead to a second place shewanted to cross. We had to drive around to the other side and sort it outover there with several restarts as well on that side. I mark eachrestart with a different color track and the dark blue is always where we werewalking not tracking to make the restarts. All that being said, when werealized we could not cross the deep stream, I whipped out my smart phone,brought up Google earth, and figured out the best way to get around to theother side.

Incidentally, we did not getthis deer. He was very lightly opened up across the belly (the hunterwatched him for 15 minutes with binoculars with intestines hanging but verylittle blood coming out even where he initially stood 100 yards from theshot). After almost 4 hours of tracking in the rain and wind and roughterrain and working 2 different blood lines and taking both slightly over 1mile from the hit site we decided to give up. This deer will surely dieand may have been already dead (we were tracking 24 hours after the shot) butthe hunter and I had had enough. My dog Eibe on the other hand still wasraring to go.

Pictures from the Ohio field trials

2011-11-16T23:36:00.000-05:00

Pictures from the Ohio field trials are posted click here.

Dachshund field trials in Ohio - November 11-13, 2011

2011-11-15T09:37:00.001-05:00

I am back from three days of field trials hosted on November 11-13 by the Buckeye Dachshund Club in Dundee, OH. Conditions were difficult due to the lack of rabbits so the trials were not as enjoyable as they were in the past. It was a hard labor trying to find rabbits in the dense patches of golden rod.

I took three dachshunds with me - Tommy, Billy and Paika. On Friday we competed at the Buckeye Dachshund Club Invitational trial. The format of this trial is different from a "regular" AKC trial. Twenty best field trial dachshunds from a previous year are invited to compete in this annual event. If some dogs are not available, then lower ranking dogs are invited. The dogs are braced for the 1st and 2nd series. Each brace is judged by two judges who determine which dog loses and which one wins a given brace. After the 2nd series, dogs with two losses are eliminated from the further competition, and remaining dogs get braced again. This process goes on until in the end there is only one brace and the dog winning that brace gets the title of Winner of the Buckeye Dachshund Club Invitational Trial.

Unfortunately, this year due to the lack of rabbits the format was changed and it was "a single loss and you are out" competition. Also there were only 17 competing dachshunds. Interestingly of the 17, ten were standard wirehairs (including Tommy and Paika), and many of them got eliminated in the first series. In the end Tommy placed third and received the Oscar Award. The winner of the competition was John Merriman's Carmen, and the second place went to Stan Knoll's Oslo (both of these dogs were one-time-winners of the Invitational in the previous years).

Final results: L means a loss, W means a win, and B means that a dog (because of the uneven number of participants) was not running in a given series and was a bye-dog. So for example Tommy had three wins, one loss and was a bye dog once.

John Merriman with Carmen, Winner of the 8th Buckeye Dachshund Club Invitational Trial, and judges: Bob Paige, Ashley Innis Dumas, Patsy Leonberger and Gail Paige.

Stan Knoll with Oslo, Reserve Winner, and Ann Deister from the Buckeye Dachshund Club.

Jolanta Jeanneney accepting the Oscar Award (3rd place) for Tommy

On Saturday and Sunday the AKC trials were moved to Briar Patch Beagle Club in Newcomerstown as there were more rabbits there. The running grounds consisted mainly of small, thick patches of golden rod and a big block of really dense briars.

Briars!!! I guess we know what was the inspiration for the name of the club.

Small blocks of thick golden rod.

I took quite a few pictures and I will post them to my smugmug site in the next few days. Today I have a lot of catching up to do, so will just post a picture of Paika who was the Absolute Winner of the trial on November 13. She was also NBQ on Saturday, while Billy was 2nd in his stake.

Congratulations to all the winners of their stakes!

FC Paika v Moosbach-Zuzelek SW was first in the FCB class and was the Absolute Winner of the Buckeye Dachshund Club trial on November 13, 2011

Pictures of recent deer recovered by blood tracking dachshunds

2011-11-10T09:57:00.001-05:00

I am just about to leave for field trials in Ohio, and I will be gone for five days.I am leaving you with the link to John's excellent article posted on the North American Teckel Club blog The Alternative to the Wiener Dog.

Also below are pictures of deer recovered by blood tracking dachshunds. Their handlers are very dedicated to tracking, and help hunters who need their services. I know that few days ago Susanne went on four calls! Congratulations and a big thank you for such a dedication.

Susanne Hamilton from Maine and her teckel Buster found this gut shot doe, 50 yards blood, then nothing for 300 yards through windy fields and apple orchards, saturated with deer.

Susanne and Buster found beautiful this 8 pointer, which was still alive ( leg/paunch hit).

Darren Doran's Karl followed a 300yd track past the point of loss and found this liver shot 8 pointer.

John Jeanneney and Joeri found the deer in Greenville, NY, few days ago.

Spider, a blue heeler pup, is showing a great potential for blood tracking

2011-11-08T00:01:00.000-05:00

What a nice e-mail from Scott Frye. Thank you Scott!

John,
Some time back I bought your tracking book, as I was really interested in training one for my family. I purchased a blue heeler pup, and began to train him using your methods and guides. Spider is 11 months old now. He has found 5 deer for us this year. Truth told, the first three we really didn't need his help, but he needed the experience.

Last night he completed his second night track, first one was several weeks ago, 300 yards on new ground, with very limited blood. Last night's track was about 175, good blood for first 25 yards, then very limited for 100, then decent last 50. He is learning very quickly, made that track last night in about 20 minutes. He sure made the job a lot simpler.

Thank you and Jolanta for your time and dedication to this sport, I would have really floundered without your book and wisdom given in it.

I have found there is a lot I have to learn as a handler to make him better. Big difference in handling competitive field trial bird dogs and a tracking dog. I am learning from my mistakes, and really enjoy it.

Hope your season continues to go well. My best to you and your bride.

Just bought the Dead On! book. Looking forward to it as well.

Another successful track for Spider!

A new blood tracking team in the Capital Region, NY

2011-11-07T21:27:00.000-05:00

We wrote about Eli Clement last summer when he was training his mini longhaired puppy Shyla. Eli passed a DEC exam for his tracking license, and this is his first tracking season. We got some good news from Eli!

His first find was a bobcat that he shot himself:

The 15lb Bobcat was shot at 25 yds and it ran 40' disappearing into very heavy wild rose. I knew the shot was good from the arrow. The blood trail was fairly good, but being color blind I was not able to follow it completely. So I got Shyla, our longhaired mini dachshund. She was not put off by the predator blood smell. She followed it along then into the heavy brush, taking almost all the clothes line into it. When she stopped pulling line I shone my light into the bush until I could see her. She was sitting and licking the ground. 3' above her head was the dead cat where it had climbed/perished into the huge rose bush. I was relieved she had not encountered a wounded cat!

Eli's second recovery was of his own doe:

The doe was shot at 4:15 pm. I thought my shot a little high. I got a fellow hunter to aid me in tracking. We found the arrow with blood on it. But no blood at the hit sight and none in the area. So I got Shyla. She found the first blood quickly on an over-turned leaf, 15' from the hit site. Then she tracked the general area clearly following the deer for 100 yds.

She seemingly lost the trail after this. She then crossed a road into a swamp. There she found the trailing quite easy, and even my color blind eye could pick out blood when ever Shyla stopped to sniff grass or leaves or brush. After 1/2 a mile she led me to the dead doe. Her first deer! She was all over it, tugging and happy as ever. A great start to her tracking season indeed. The arrow had passed through one lung and the liver.

And then another e-mail arrived with this wonderful picture:

Eli Clement is holding Shyla, a mini longhair.

Shyla has found another buck! The deer was shot at about 4:30pm. The hunter was unsure of the exact shot placement, but thought it has hit vitals from the blood on the arrow. So we gave the buck time. Four hours later I went out with Shyla. She was on the blood trail quickly; 400yds and we found the deer, in an opposite direction from where the hunter had though the animal had run. Chris the hunter was overjoyed, his first buck ever and first deer of the season.
　
　

Congratulations to Eli and Shyla!

The wind is an important factor in tracking

2011-11-07T20:42:00.001-05:00

Michael Harrell from Georgia has shared an important lesson he learned recently. Michael, thank you for writing!

I did not expect to write to ya'll again so soon, but I am. This time, it is a learning experience for me, not my Lab, Pi. I am located in South Georgia and this is Pi's first year tracking and I was able to put her on her third and fourth track of the year yesterday.

Well, I have over 40 years of hunting experience. Most of that is deer hunting. So I have had a lot of hands on, on the job training of tracking deer. I have also worked with various gun dogs in the past so I know to trust your dog. But occasionally I still have flashes of stupidity.

This past Saturday I shot a doe. It was a good hit and should have been an easy track for my dog Pi, except for the dope on the rope. First, the set up.

I was hunting the same stand I shot a buck eight days earlier. There was fresh hog sign up and down the logging road where the blind was set up. There was also a fresh hog wallow about 50 yards from the blind, on the side of the road. In addition, there was a good bit of wind coming from the Northwest. It was a steady around 10 m.p.h., with gusts up to 20 m.p.h.

Around 8 a.m., a mature doe stepped out from the left into the road. She was not interested in the acorns on the ground, walked straight across the road to the right. The doe was about 75 yards down the road. Just a couple of minutes later, a yearling stepped out at the same spot, went into the road then turned and went back where it came from. Almost immediately, the yearling and another mature doe stepped out. Both began feeding on the acorns, gradually moving towards me.

After a few minutes, I decided there was not a buck following them so I decided to take the mature doe. I waited until she was almost broadside at about 60 yards. I shot her with a 30-30 behind the shoulder. It was decent hit and the doe ran to the right side of the road, angling towards me. It hit the brush just before the hog wallow and ran into the planted pines. I lost sight of the doe but based on the direction she was running, I assumed the doe would continue to run to my right. Then, to my immediate right in some very thick brush, I heard it crashing through brush. I assumed it was the doe. By the way, the doe would have been running with the wind if it continued with a gradual turn to the right.

I waited about 20 minutes, walked down to where the doe hit the woods and found some drops of blood. I went back to the camp and got my dog for what I thought would be a short, sweet track. Excellent training for her. Turns out it was excellent training for me.

Once we got back, Pi went straight to the area where I had shot the buck earlier. I called her back to the new hit site and she made some sniffs, then followed the trail into the brush. I found more spots of blood. Then the dog, instead of turning with the wind, stopped and turned into the wind. Pi stuck her nose in the wind, did some big zig zags, occasionally sniffing the ground and occasionally smelling the wind. It was “obvious” to me Pi had picked up some hog scent or the scent from the first doe. I followed her for a bit, looking for blood but did not find any.

Pi went behind an old blow down tree that was covered in vines. I was only about 15 feet from the blow down and called Pi back to the hit site. She started again and repeated her behavior, but veered a little further off from the first track but headed back to the blow down. Again, I called her back, but this time, I took her downwind of the spot I thought the doe fell. Pi went through this area and found deer poop, turkey poop, fresh armadillo rootings and such. But no blood.

By this time, I was really frustrated with her. So I took her back to the hit site and let Pi go again. Again, she turned into the wind. I followed her again, but took a different route than I did earlier. As I went across an old thinned pine lane, I saw blood. Then, more blood. At this time, it dawned on me. Pi was following the scent the whole time. Finally, I got to the old blow down and behind it was the doe. The deer had only gone maybe 20 yards total. But as soon as the doe hit the brush and I could no longer see her, the doe turned directly away from me and into the wind. What I heard can only be a guess, but it could have been the other doe I observed earlier. I don't know.

Pi's behavior in tracking had to be due to the wind. I believe she winded the doe in the gusting wind. She did not follow the ground blood trail because she did not have to. The wind was bringing the scent right to her. When I tried to follow her, I was not on the blood trail so that is why I could not find any blood. When I did look for blood from the hit site, I looked in the direction where I thought the deer had run and couldn't find any. I was making all kinds of assumptions on why the doe was not bleeding.

When I thought about this experience. I realized if the hunter had told me the story and I put the dog on the trail and the dog went in another direction, I would have followed the dog. I would not have trusted in the hunter's opinion.

Pi must think I was an idiot, pulling her off the doe twice. Trust your dog, even if it is young and inexperienced.

By the way, late that afternoon, I had the opportunity to put her on another blood trail. A small buck was shot. It was a good hit and we did not need the dog, but it was a good training trail. The wind had quit blowing by this time and Pi stuck her nose to the ground and followed the short blood trail right to the buck.

The next time the wind is blowing, I must realize she might not be following the exact trail but the scent being blown by the wind. Saturday was a good learning experience, for me!

Blood tracking teckels and the deer they have recovered

2011-11-07T20:23:00.000-05:00

I apologize but I am running behind. This is a very busy time for blood trackers so submissions are coming in fast. Thank you, thank, thank you! You are a big part of the success and impact this blog has had. We will start with some teckels out of our breeding, but then ...there is so much more!

Let's start with Joe Walters from Indiana who wrote about Doc's (Buster/Keena son) third recovery on October 30:

Joe Walter's Doc

Hunter shot this buck between the shoulder blades with a mechanical broadhead. Doc took the track to a plowed strip, where he had problems.Finally got about 100 yards north, and it went through a tree line into a weed field. We found blood in the field and Doc took the track out and across a road where I determined he had lost the track and hunter said a doe was with the buck. We went back to last blood and Doc tracked right to the buck which was still alive. Before hunter could go back to his truck for his bow, the buck took off again. When hunter got back, we tracked it back to plowed area where Doc had problems again. He finally found where it went into weed field and found it again, and hunter put two more arrows into it.All total, it was about 400 yards of good track. Joe and Doc

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Kevin Armstrong from Bristol, New York shared his tracking news. His tracking dog Karma is a daughter of Billy and Gilda.

Kevin Armstrong and Karma

At last, a recovery! On the 11th try we recovered a deer. Eight of the 11 turned out to be unrecoverable muscle hit deer. One was a paunch hit that had obviously been chased by something. The dogs lost the trail completely when they dropped into a gully. It was like the deer just vanished off the planet. We were unable to reestablish the trail. One was an intestine hit deer that we followed an incredibly long way with at least six beds. I spent part of three days on this big buck and lost the trail after a cluster of bloody, hair filled beds from the second day. The track covered three sides of a mile long half mile wide rectangle. Even an extensive area search yielded nothing. Had I had John's number in my cell phone I would have called him from the field for advise. I'm still completely baffled.

This paunch shot buck did not leave a drop of visible blood. I was unable to take up the track until 23 hours after the hit. The hunter had bumped the buck off a bed in a dense thicket a couple hours after the hit. Karma alerted early on that the deer was in the thicket. I made her follow the trail anyway. She took us to a road, then doubled back into the thicket. With nothing to indicate we were on the right deer except an occasional large track I pulled her off and restarted her. This time she took the trail to the point where she had alerted the first time.

She looked at me, put her head to the ground and started off, I let her have her way and she took me directly to the dead deer. I had unknowingly pulled her off the first track 50 yards from reaching the deer. It was so thick we could not see the deer 50 yards ahead of us the first time around.

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It was good to hear from Lynn and Ann Pierce from Louisiana, who track with Rosette, a daughter of Joeri and Gilda:

As you can see in the picture Rosette had her first track this year. It was youth weekend in Mississippi and my nephew gut shot a 120 pound doe which ran into the woods several hundred yards with very little blood on the trail and it was mostly guts.

Once Rosette picked up the small amount of blood she led us right to the doe. It was a good test for her as the trail was mostly guts and hardly no blood.

Rosette is doing great down here and loving camp life.. the kids and all the hunters love her and she is really well behaved inside and outside.. y'all did a great job picking her out for us.

Hopefully more pictures to come.

Rosette is owned by Lynn and Ann Pierce.

2011-11-05T00:04:00.004-04:00

Another monster buck for David Bell and Quella from Ohio

2011-11-05T00:01:00.000-04:00

Congratulations to David who wrote:

Another monster Quella found today. I watched the video the hunter had recorded and saw that this was a bad shot, too far back, so we gave the buck time to expire (24 hours). The buck was gut shot and Quella tracked it 900 yards to a pond. When we got there the buck was still alive so the hunter stuck another arrow in the buck, but this time he was down within 30 yards. Quella was happy to find this buck and quickly started chewing on the rump, something she does every time she finds one.

Cabelas Recon Hunt is an app of choice for Ray Holohan from Illinois

2011-11-04T23:06:00.000-04:00

Ray Holohan uses Cabelas Recon Hunt to record his blood tracks with Roscoe, a wirehaired dachshund. For more information about this particular call go tohttp://cabelas.trimbleoutdoors.com/Trip/26774 and you will find detailed data there. It looks like an excellent tool for blood trackers. Thank you Ray for sharing your experience with us!

Ray Holohan with Roscoe

To see another track from October 27 go to http://cabelas.trimbleoutdoors.com/Trip/25426

Great pictures of Albis vom Jagdfeld from Montana with the elk he recovered.

2011-11-04T21:47:00.001-04:00

We received these beautiful pictures from Susie Gardner from Ohio, a breeder of the young dachshund Albis vom Jagdfeld. Albis is just over one year old, and he is a son of FC Joeri vom Nonnenschlag and Melodie von Moosbach-Zuzelek. He is owned by Gob Kieckbusch from Montana. The picture shows Albis with a hunter and the elk he recovered.

First tracking season for Pi, a young Lab from Georgia

2011-11-03T17:34:00.001-04:00

Michael Harrell from Georgia has shared with us his experience of training and tracking a young Lab Pi. Thank you Michael!

I have been following your blog and have read and re-read your tracking book for the past several years. I had a beagle for five years and he was a great tracker. He actually trained me, I didn't train him. He died in an accident just before last year's deer season opened here in Georgia. This past Thanksgiving I got a Lab puppy named Pi and began training her. Pi is a typical, overactive Lab. Slowing her down is the problem, but I am working on that.

Once the gun season opened on October 22, I have put her on two tracks. The first was relatively easy. An eight-point buck was shot through both front legs. It was her first track. Pi followed the trail for about 130 yards. Then the buck made a 90-degree turn to the left in an old firebreak. Pi overran the turn, but after searching to the right, she came back to the point she lost it and picked up the trail. Pi followed it for another 75 yards then jumped the buck in an overgrown patch of briars and Gall berry bushes. She pushed the buck out and the hunter was able to finish the buck off with his pistol.

The second track was a six-point I shot later that week. When I walked into the stand that morning before daylight, there were hogs all around it. After about 15 minutes, the hogs moved off towards the North. I made it to the ground blind around 7 a.m. Just 15 minutes later, the buck came out. I made a good shot at about 50 yards. It also ran off towards the North, right where the hogs had gone into the thick brush. I was shooting a 30-30, hit the main shoulder bone, one lung and the heart. But the bullet did not penetrate. Around 8 a.m. I looked for blood and did not find any. I went and got the dog and put her on it. She actually ran past the hit site and began smelling the hog sign. Since I was not sure exactly where the hit site was, I let her go. After about 15-20 minutes of watching her sniff and run around I knew she was not on a blood trail. I brought her back to what I thought the hit site was. Pi acted like there was nothing there, but went into the brush in the direction the buck ran. I followed her and within about 10 yards, she definitely picked up the scent. From her reaction, I realized she winded the buck. With her head held up, Pi began a zig zag pattern and followed the scent. I looked in the direction she was going and the buck was piled up about 25 yards ahead of her.

I did not find any blood on the ground until I got within about 10 feet of the buck.

I believe we would have found both bucks without the dog, but it was a good training experience. It was also her first experience with hog scent. I was glad I was able to put her on the right track and she zeroed in on the buck. Once she hit that scent, the hog smell was ignored.

Pi with the hunter, Frank, and his buck after we got back to the camp.

I am a member of United Blood Trackers and I did get one phone call so far this year. But the location was almost 150 miles away and the hunter said he thought the buck crossed into property he did not have permission to go into so I declined to go.

Tracking with a Lab in Missouri

2011-11-01T17:10:00.000-04:00

John received this super nice e-mail from Vince Crawford. Thank you Vince for writing!

John,

I wanted to leave you this message and thank you SO much for writing your blood tracking books (your dog book and Dead On). Both my pup and I have really enjoyed them.

Here in Missouri, we are dealing with drought conditions, and it has made for some tough tracking! We made out first call today where we went to help someone we did not know. I am a Conservation Agent in Missouri and Hunting Incident Investigator by trade, so using my learned investigative skills teamed up with your book's suggestions really prepared me well for asking the right questions of the hunter.

My 11 month old lab, Goose made pretty short work of the track job. I could not be happier for her! She is 4 for 6 this year, and I am not convinced the two she did not find died within a reasonable time frame, or at all.

Here is a picture of Goose with her new friend Matt, the hunter. He had a one lung and liver shot as was expected by the sign we found on the trail and the arrow. This was a 24 hour old trail.

I can't believe how much fun Goose and I are having tracking John. I really wonder how this will all change my own archery deer hunting in the next couple years.

Again, thank you very much for sharing your experiences with others through your books.

Eleven-month-old Lab Goose with the beautiful buck she recovered for Matt

The second snow in October in the Capital Region, NY

2011-10-30T19:46:00.002-04:00

This time we got lucky! The Saturday storm that paralyzed the Northeast and dumped more than 20 inches of heavy snow in some places was very kind to us. We got about eight inches of white stuff, and we did not lose our electricity. Since we live at a high elevation (above 1000 feet) our trees did not have as many leaves on them as trees in New Jersey and Pennsylvania, where power outages are widespread. We have not had any damage, and once again we got to enjoy the beautiful scenery. Today the temperature was in high 40s, and a lot of snow has melted already.

I was surprised how many hunters called this afternoon for tracking services. They were hunting last night despite the poor weather. As usually, John is out tracking...

Sunday morning around sunrise

Our puppy pen this morning.

Joeri and Bella playing together in the October snow.


Apples which we grow mainly for deer were covered in snow this morning.

This is the snow hanging off our barn roof. It will eventually come all the way down.

"Von Moosbach-Zuzelek" blood tracking dachshunds are real working dogs

2011-10-29T21:41:00.000-04:00

Well, I ended up not going to the dachshund field trials in New Jersey. Yesterday afternoon, completely packed, I was ready to go; crates were loaded in the car. And then I decided to check our weather forecast for the last time. It sounded so bad that I decided to stay home. We were supposed to get a foot of snow, and the snow storm was going to be wide spread. As it turned out it was a right decision not to go as the conditions in new Jersey have been absolutely miserable. At the field trial they managed to run only 12 dachshunds in open stake today, and they will try to finish today's trial tomorrow. The trial actually scheduled for tomorrow has been already cancelled.

Now I have a chance to catch up with posts that have been e-mailed to me in the last week or so. Kudos to all the handlers of "von Moosbach-Zuzelek" dachshunds, who work hard recovering deer for hunters.

David Bell from Ohio who tracks with 18-month-old Quella (Joeri/Keena) reported a recovery of a monster buck:

The monster buck recovered by David Bell and Quella

Quella found this nice buck on a cool night, with a rising barometer, in a wind swept field with lots of deer in it for distraction. We started off in a bad way, with me forgetting my tracking supplies in my car and me hitching a ride to the buck paradise in the back seat of the hunter's truck with just my tracking light and Quella in hand. I was so pumped up to get another call that I didn't even realize my pack was gone until I was there.

The landowner gave me a big strap that I used as a make shift leash because going back wasn't an option, considering we could here coyotes off in the distance howling, which were ready to make a quick meal of this buck and destroy his cape, something a hunter doesn't want, if he is going to mount his deer. I wasn't sure how this was going to work out since the industrial grade strap was very heavy, but I knew that Quella was in great shape from her daily walks, so we proceeded on. We started out on first blood, with Quella making easy work of the line up to around ten feet from where the hunter lost blood (75 yards).

Quella wanted to go after a hot line instead of sticking to the track, so I gently scolded her, by telling her no and started her over again. I had to do this 3 times with her wanting to go in the same direction, but I knew what she was up to, so I was persistent on correcting her, so she would stick to the right line. Finally Quella realized that I wasn't happy with her decision, so she took it upon herself to do what we came for, which is to track this man's trophy . From here, Quella locked in on the monster 8 pointer and took me across the huge cut bean field to a big woodlot and down a giant ravine where I've seen multiple rubs, scrapes and hoof prints. I knew this was the buck's bed room from all the sign and that he would bed down and expire in this safe core area that he called home.

After we hit the bottom of the ravine Quella took me straight to the deer which was all together around a 300 yard track. I called the hunter's cell phone and told him that Quella found the buck down in the ravine. From there we loaded up the buck and off we went to my car, with the hunter letting me know how pleased he was in my dogs performance. He gave me a nice tip for tracking his wall hanger. I didn't have my camera on me at the time, since it was in my pack, but once I got to my car, I quickly got it out and had the hunter's buddy (the land owner) snap some pics of me, Quella and the proud hunter.

Joe Walters from Indiana whose tracking partner Doc is a four-year-old son of Buster and Keena wrote:

Doc and I went on a track on October 22and I thought would be easy.

We started at last blood marked with toilet paper on limb. Doc started to the south and we got into a huge mass of blown down trees from the same storm that damaged my house. We went up, over and around through this mess and nothing. We finally circled around to the downwind side of blow down and Doc threw his head up and started tracking and opening. We tracked all the way back through this mess and ran the track right by the toilet paper marker with no blood. After the two mile track and no blood, we called it off. Two tired puppies.

Then two days later we received this e-mail:

This doe track was about 200 yards long. We started at last blood and he went south along side of hedge row and then west through it and turned back north along side of bean field. Doc went about 30 yards and turned around and headed back south past where the doe had come through and then made a 90 into beans for about 50 yds and then back north. I thought, "Oh no, rabbit." I was about to call him off when I raised my light and there she lay.

Trust your dog. Dope on a rope.

Joe and Doc

Doc (Magnum v Moosbach-Zuzelek) with the doe he recovered

It was a treat to receive e-mail from Ben Byington who tracks with Buford (Quint v on Moosbach-Zuzelek), Quella's brother. Ben lives in Sandusky, Ohio:

I wanted to send an updated picture of a recent blood track he did. He was able to track this doe after following a blood trail for 500 yards! He took the lead and didn't stop, right to the doe. We were very pleased with his performance and ability to track for such a long distance.

Buford and his doe.

The next report came from Chris Barr from Indiana, who tracks with Gerti, a daughter of Billy and Gilda:

Friday we took a track of a deer where the hunter said that the deer was quartering away. Upon release, he said that the deer turned further away from him and that his arrow had entered in front of the rear leg, and exited behind the shoulder of the same side of the deer. I’m not sure if you’ve ever encountered this. We did not find the arrow, believed to still be in the deer, and there was almost no blood. This was the first time that we’d tracked in a area that had been stirred up by turkeys. In fact, the hunter said he killed a turkey that morning. We advanced the blood a little, but not much. There was turkey sign everywhere, not sure if this made it difficult for Gerti or not, but we sure couldn’t do much for him.

The second came Saturday night. Liver shot buck took off through standing corn. Hunters tracked to a chisel plowed field and decided to back out. We arrived 4 hours later and Gerti took the line to the chisel plowed field w/o much problem. When we hit the field, she took off to the northwest. After she began searching I decided to take her back to known blood at the fence crossing at the edge of the corn. As we were crossing the field, Gerti yanked on the end of the rope like a bass on a jig. I didn’t see anything but decided to let her go with it for a while. After 100 or so yards going southeast I was just about to pull the plug on her when I found some blood in the bare dirt of the field. I called the hunters over and exited the field down a steep embankment into a nasty thicket. Gerti tracked across that with one correction to the buck that had bailed off a three foot bank and was under water except for one side of his antlers and his rump. The 15 year old boy couldn’t help but give me a hug. Gerti had some liver and was good to go too.

Before we could get back to the truck for some hero photos, I got a call from a landowner of a farm that I hunt. A hunter had shot a doe at 5 yards, quartering to. He thought he hit her high. I was not too encouraged, but we gave it a college try. Gerti did pretty well, but I believe that if the deer dies, it won’t be for some time. The track went for several hundred yards w/o a bed. We were on blood when we decided to end the track as there was nothing to indicate that the deer was slowing down.

Chris

A Big Thank You to all who give their dogs a chance to do what they were bred for - track.

October snow in the Helderbergs: the morning after

2011-10-28T11:52:00.000-04:00

We will be back with blood tracking stories on Monday when I get back from field trials. I have so many stories and pictures, and just can't wait to post the. Thank you to all who send them in, and good luck everybody this weekend with your hunting and tracking.

This morning was the most beautiful morning I have ever witnessed. We probably got 5-6 inches of snow last night and our trees still have leaves, so what I saw around 7-8 AM was just pure magic. The pictures are posted in a chronological sequence, the earliest were taken just after sunrise when the sun was very low. I took around 230 pictures, and probably at least 40% of them are really good. The puppy you see in the pictures is Summer, who accompanied me on the first part of my walk around the property.

First snow in October - not fair!

2011-10-27T20:24:00.001-04:00

Hard to believe that I will be going to field trials this weekend. We have at least 4 inches of the snow on the ground and it is still snowing. This is not fair!

Tracking wounded bear in the Catskills with two dachshunds, Billy and Joeri

2011-10-26T12:23:00.000-04:00

On October 24 John and I went on a bear call that was referred to us through Deer Search. A big bear was shot at 6 PM on October 23 in the Catskills, and according to the bowhunter the bear was liver-shot. We decided to take two dogs with us, Billy and Joeri.

We started to track at 1 PM next day, and this was the steepest and roughest terrain we have ever tracked in. I have just gone through six weeks of physical therapy for the lower back pain, and did not expect to track in such a rocky, ledgy, mountainous terrain (a lesson learned - we should have asked more questions when talked to the hunter on the phone).

We started to track with Billy, who showed us some dry dark blood on the ground and saplings. This part of the track is showed well on a short video, which I took while John was handling Billy.

We started to track with Billy

But after a while Billy took us down the hill and since we were not seeing any signs of the bear, we decided to give Billy some rest, put him back in the car and go back to the starting point with Joeri.

John and I took turns handling him, and Joeri was able to advance the trail further up the hill. We ran out of blood signs fairly quickly, but Joeri was pulling pretty hard while we were climbing the hill. There were so many caves and dens that a wounded bear could crawl into. At one point we encountered what must have been a bear bathroom as there we piles of bear poop all over the place. Some of it was very fresh. Joeri was animated and wanted to go into one cave.

Joeri climbing the rocky hill had a good workout...

... and so did the rest of us

Bears must be using this small area as a toilet.

Joeri was very animated around this den and wanted to crawl there. We were sure that bears were using this den, but had no evidence that "our bear" was there.

I know that dachshunds are not supposed to move like mountain goats but this track underscored the need for sound conformation in the working dachshunds. Joeri who has excellent ground clearance never had any problems with the terrain.


At one point we came across bear vomit full of corn.

We searched the area for 3.5 hours and did not locate the wounded bear that we were tracking. Bears are abundant there and this fact plus the really steep and rough terrain made the tracking difficult. For calls like this a close working dog such as Joeri was certainly a good choice. He has never showed any hesitation in following the scent and his great conformation allowed him to track for a long time. Both John and I were tired but we knew that even though we did not find the bear we did everything we could.

A blood track to remember for Darren Doran and Karl from New Jersey

2011-10-25T13:51:00.000-04:00

This is Darren Doren’s account of a tough call he took in New Jersey with his wirehaired dachshund Karl. In New Jersey wounded deer tracking with a leashed dog iscurrently legal only on a researchpermit basis. Daren is the leader of the group of handlers involved in theexperiment, which will determine whether a more general legalization can bearranged. Daren has a long experience with dogs dating back to his Air Forceservice when he handled dogs that guarded combat planes.

Karl, his dachshund had found a few deer, but like some other dogsI have known, he could be a little rough and wild. Daren has the skill andperseverance to develop this dog that a lesser man would havegiven up on.

Darren’s story makes us realize that in a suburbanized state like New Jersey tracking canbe tough in its own way. There are many small property owners, who are oftenanti-hunting and ready to refuse access to a handler and his tracking dog. Andthe cover can be just as thick as in northern alder swamps and southern privet.Here’s Darren’s story in his own words; it extends over two days.

Day One

“A young hunter calledCarmelo hit a big buck Saturday morning: a pass through that looked like aliver hit. Karl tracked it to an empty bed. I had Carmelo looking for sign as Itracked on through a briar patch. All of a sudden the boy yelled, There hegoes.” We put him out of the briars.

I went back to the bed andwanted to make sure it was the right deer. Carmelo assured me that it was. Istarted Karl where the deer had been seen and I saw blood. I was marking signon the GPS when all of sudden I looked up and Karl had the buck by a hind quarter.The deer had laid down within 50 yards of us at the top of a weed field. Thedeer shook Karl off and ran across the field. This was the first time Isaw the buck and believe me, it was big buck. We were now tracking hot and thedeer was on its feet and bleeding.

We went another 1.5 mileson the GPS and the deer crossed a property line; we needed permission to enter. Thisevening I'm hoping that Ron, Carmelo's dad, can get access. If so I'm going back. Karl's work is really improving. I sawyesterday that I can start believing him more. We still have a rough patch atthe start, but that's improving. Once he gets going he’s locked in. His trackingand his search pattern are improving as well. I'll let you know if I get backon the deer today.”

Day Two

“Ron spent Sunday morning going house to house to tryto track down the property owner. As luck would have it he found himaround 10:30 and permission to track was granted. As soon as Ron called I tookoff. It would take an hour and a half to get there, and I was anxious toget tracking.

We were going in by a different way today. We were going to followan old railroad track that now served as public access to the Pequannock River, oneof New Jersey’strout streams. This public access split the private land to the east from thepublic to the west. I had the pick up spot marked on the GPS and gettingto it from the right of way was easy. We got through the old wirefence and I got Karl hooked up and was preparing to start tracking.

Karl can be a littledifficult to start and today was no different. I hadn't been seeing much bloodtowards the end of the track last night so I started him further back onthe track. He tracked off to the side of the flag and I didn't think he had it.I let him go awhile to let him settle down some, and then I restarted him. Hewas working too fast and having a hard time. I started to direct his searchingin circles over the line, and he slowed down. At one point his actions changed.He tracked to and past the flag and then he had it. He tracked to an overgrownwoods road and down towards the access road we had just walked in on. The fencewas gone here and Karl went right across the access road and into this swampybrush between the right-of-way and the river.

We tracked to the river then down the bank. Karl circled backthrough the brush towards the access road and back across it into the privateland. As we were going across the ditch I saw a single drop of blood on aleaf. I called up Carmelo and asked him to look around for more. The fence herewas not completely down and Karl was having trouble with it. I lifted him overit and he didn’t seem to have the line.

Karl then went back to theold woods road and took me back across the access road towards the river.He took a slightly different line this time and ended up at theriver bank. The river here was about knee deep in one of the more shallowspots. Karl whined a little and then jumped in. The current started takinghim down stream, and I kept feeding out his tracking line. I was hoping hewould get to the other side before I ran out of line. He did with about a yardto spare, but he was at a spot with a steep high-bank that he couldn’tclimb.

Carmelo and his sister Megan were right behind me. All of a suddenMegan yelled out, “There he is!” and pointed to a log pile on the far bank. Wecould just make out his white belly and an antler sticking up. We jumped in theriver and started wading across to the deer. Karl started up the shallows onthe far side and met us at the deer. We had one heck of a celebration. I'llnever forget the expression on Carmelo's face when he grabbed that deer.He's 13 and this was by far the biggest deer he's ever taken. We got the deerback across the river and back to the truck and Karl received a hero’s welcome.

I learned a lot about my dog this weekend, and I think we turned acorner with our tracking. I'm not sure what the blood on the leaf was from butKarl figured out that it wasn't from the buck. He went back to the woods roadand restarted on his own, figured out the right track and found the deer. Thisis what I've been waiting for and for the second and final time in two daysKarl got to bite that deer’s butt.”

Darren

I love older dogs: Asko at 12.5

2011-10-23T22:32:00.001-04:00

Aat 12.5 Asko does not act like an "old man". But we noticed some changes on his abdomen skin so this week he will be going to a vet. Today he had a great time running rabbits in our field.

Asko in the front and his great-great-granddaughter Bella von Tierspur.

Two weeks ago Asko played in the pond retrieving apples from our pond.

Wild turkeys come for a visit

2011-10-22T21:50:00.000-04:00

We knew that wild turkey hens have been around as we caught nice videos of them on our trail camera. I counted 24 of them in our field this morning. What a nice sight!