Trust your dog? part 3

Joe Walters from Indiana wrote yesterday:

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

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