Blood tracking dogs in the media - two recent articles

In the last month two good articles on blood tracking dogs came out in the hunting publications.

The first one "Using Dogs to Recover Game" was written by Michael Bartz and was published in the October 16, 2009 issue of Wisconsin Outdoor News. It was interesting to read about author's first hand experiences in tracking wounded game with his Drahthaar Gus. The article emphasized legalities of blood tracking in Wisconsin where "though it is illegal to hunt deer or spring turkeys with a dog, dogs may be used to recover game as long as the dog is on a leash and no weapons are possessed." I found the article very well written and very informative. It mentioned United Blood Trackers (http://www.unitedbloodtrackers.org/) with its state-by-state listing of available trackers, and I know that Wisconsin trackers have experienced a big spike in calls from hunters. Many thanks to Michael Bartz for a much needed publicity given to blood trackers. And a big thank you to Larry Gohlke, a Wisconsin veteran blood tracker, for sending us a copy of the article.

The second article, "The Nose Knows" by John E. Phillips was published in the December issue of Petersen's Bowhunting. It was fascinating to learn how tracking dogs are used at Tara Wildlife, a huge bow-hunting only property in Mississippi and Louisiana. Phillips writes "Tara has a strict policy of using dogs to follow up on every single shots clients take. During the 2008-2009 deer season, Tara's tracking dogs helped recover 64 bucks and 36 does." Then, he goes into the details how Tara's tracking dogs (only Labs are used) are actually trained and handled on calls. Great reading! Thank you John for mentioning our book and for online extra Deer Tracking Dogs in the North.