Dachshunds with real jobs

I am still running a few days behind current recoveries. Congratulations and big thank you to all the trackers who provide assistance to fellow hunters.

Chris Barr and Gerti from Indiana

On the way home from getting drenched last night during the season opener for firearms in Indiana (November 13), without seeing a deer I might add, I got a call from hunter who said he'd shot a buck at 5:00 p.m. He said it took two beds in the first 150 yards. When he jumped it the second time, he backed out and called. After getting home and getting some dry clothes on, Gerti and I arrived at the hit sight at about 8:30 p.m. It had been raining steadily for about 3 1/2 hours at that point. Gerti got a great start, went about 75 yards, and circled back to the field. The hunter said that that was not the right direction he'd followed the deer so we re-started. On the second time through she was looking good when she hit a check. After about 5 minutes, she worked it out and began pulling really confidently. She pulled south west never seeming to loose the scent. She hit a creek and pulled right on across. I hadn't seen any blood for 200 yards but I told Troy I thought she was on it. We went another 50 yards and there was his deer. No coyote damage. He couldn't believe it. He rushed up and gave me a big hug. I told him that Gerti would yank a bunch of hair out if I didn't stop her and he said let her have it, she earned it.

This was our first track in steady rain; I was pretty impressed with how well Gerti did. The track was 350 yards and took about 40 minutes total. The deer had been shot through the liver.

Troy is an ex-K9 handler for the Sheriff's Department and understands scent and what the dog is doing better than anyone I've tracked for thus far. He was tickled to death. Naturally, so were Gerti and I. Since it was just Troy and I, I had to be more hands-on with the gutting and dragging than normal. Gerti got such a belly full of hair, blood, liver, and whatever else she could yank out of the buck during the drag, I just knew she was going to throw up. Fortunately, she didn't.

Attached is Troy with his buck. I attached the one of me so that you could see how wet we were. My vest kept my chest somewhat dry.

Chris Barr with Gerti (Gwen von Moosbach-Zuzelek, a 2009 daughter of Billy and Gilda)

Troy with his deer recovered by Gerti

Chris Surtees and Koa from Georgia

Koa had a chance to get on another track today (November 8). Here over the last two weeks he has not been focused on tracking as much as I would like to see. He has been more interested in running the woods smelling and taking care of business on every tree he can.

Anyway I shot a doe a couple days ago and did not have time to bring Koa in for the track so I gutted the deer before passing it on to a friend. Took Koa out to run a track to the gut pile that ended up being a 14 hour old one with good blood throughout. I had to call Koa back several times in order to get him through the track. Again he wanted to run and play more than track. I just kept calling him back until we finished, gave him lots of praise, and let him run in a field next to where the deer expired.

Fast forward to this morning about 08:15 I put a follow up shot on this little guy. A buddy of mine the shot deer about 100 yards from my stand. He texted me to let me know what happened and just about that time I see a deer headed my way. As he came closer I could see blood in his side a little further back than my friend had thought he had shot.

I ended up putting a good hit in the deer and he went down in less than 100 yards. Since both of us had prior commitments later the morning we agreed to meet at lunch and run Koa on the line. At first Koa did not want anything to do with the line until he hit the arrow. After that he was on the go and tracking at a good rate. He then decided to sit down, take a break, and sniff around some. I just let him go and after a couple minutes he was back on trail. Once he hit my arrow he was full bore running. I let go of the lead and he was attacking the deer before we knew it. Overall it was a great track but I think Koa is feeling his oats a little and going through some teen stages.

I have been running him twice a week in the field (1 fun run and 1 obedience, retrieving training) with a blood trail every two weeks. Going to try him on a blood trail a week with scent shoes to see if I can get him back on track and focused a little more.

Here is a picture of Koa once he found the deer.

It sounds like Koa (Grock von Moosbach-Zuzelek, a 2009 son of Billy and Gilda) is going through adolescence.

Susanne Hamilton and Buster from Maine

Quick recap on my track today. Everything went right. My hunters shot a ten point buck at 10 am, tracked for two hours and started loosing blood. When they called, I tried to evaluate the shot, but being that it was taken at 270 yards, with the deer moving behind some alder bushes, they could not tell me more than that they got some white hair. The tip-off for me was that they had both sides bleeding, and after about a hundred yards, one side seemed to stop bleeding.

I pointed out that this was in all likelihood a paunch shot that plugged one side, and asked them to wait until I could meet them at 3pm (five hours after the hit). Buster immediately took off on the hit site and covered the track in less then three minutes until the point of loss. We found some very sporadic blood for about a hundred yards, then absolutely nothing for another hundred.

Two drops of blood and then 75 yards with nothing... Just as I said that I'd like to find some more evidence, I found my dog on top of the deer. It had expired within last hour.

I had two VERY happy and grateful hunters, and a very happy dog!

Susanne Hamilton and Buster found this nice Maine buck

Ray Holohan and Roscoe, Illinois

Rosco had a pretty good week last week with 4 in a row successful tracks. The picture is for the 4th.track

This is the third track. I got a call from a hunter who had shot a small buck, his first bow buck. The track was 24 hours old, they had trailed it 300 yards where it crossed a river. They were able to pick op the blood on the other side for about 30 yards. I told him I would come down and take a look with Rosco. When we got there I asked to see the blood trail but they couldn't find it and told me it was somewhere in this area, so I started Rosco in that location. It didn't take him long to pick it up and took it for about 40 yards across a marker stick that they stuck in the ground. I knew he was on it, we went about another 30 yards, and I could see all these eyes glowing and coming toward us. There must have been 30-40 cows that surrounded us and the hunters, Rosco was barking we were yelling to try to get them to move it was mass chaos. I told them this isn't good. So we decided to find a hot wire fence and get on the other side and that's what we did. Once on the other side I put Rosco down and just work him parallel with the river. We went about 40 yards, and Rosco raised his nose into the wind and took a hard right. He ran about 80 yards into the alfalfa field where he found the buck. It was great, the guy couldn't believe it as they had looked all day for the deer. He asked me if Rosco was some kind of a super hero, he was that night for them. They couldn't get over it and thanked me over and over. The coyotes had gotten to it on the rear but he was going to get it mounted anyway. The whole track didn't take 30 minutes. Rosco made believers out of those guys.

The fourth track took place the next evening. A friend of mine shot a buck that morning and didn't know where he hit it. He only found a small amount of blood at the hit site, so he gave me a call to see if we should go after it with Rosco. I told him that we should at least give it a try. So we went out in the evening about 14 hrs after the hit. He thought the buck ran across the bean field because that's where the blood ended. So I put Rosco down at hit site and he trailed to the field and started out in it. After about 400 yards he started to sound off and I knew he was on a hot trail. I took him back and restarted him at hit site again. He took the trail towards the field but doubled back and into the timber where he started to sound off again. Once again I restarted him and this time he went to the field, doubled back and went into timber in a different spot and away we went. I thought he had the right trail this time because of the way he was pulling and all the checks and backtracks he was making. We had gone about 600 yards from hit site when he started to sound off again, so I stopped him and took time to look for wound beds figuring we may had jumped him up. I couldn't find anything so we assumed Rosco may have been trailing an old track and decided to head back to the hit site as soon as we figured out which way to go.

We had walked about 50 yards when I saw the glow of a eye in the distance, we decided to walk over and check it out. When we got closer I could see it was a deer just kneeling on all fours with his head straight ahead. I told my buddy that it was his deer. I had already picked up Rosco so I told him to get out the spear that I have never needed to use. We had to use the spear twice and after the second approach  the deer charged right at me. I did some fancy foot work and he just brushed my chest and fell over where he died in a few minutes. The buck had a big body and looked pretty old, it looked like a high liver hit or maybe in the rumen. It was certainly a new experience for me and taught me that I will have to figure out maybe a safer position the next time. I know now why I carried that spear out with me at night. In Illinois it is illegal to carry a firearm or a archery device.

Ray (with Roscoe) dispatched the deer with a spear.

This track was Rosco 16th track and 10th recovery of the season. I know we are very lucky to be doing this well and expect to take a tumble soon, but we are having some great experiences.

Pete Martin and Lisa, NY

We found this great deer with help from a great hunter. the track was 18 hours old, and the buck was found 3/4 of a mile from hit site. GOOD tracking job by hunter and his friend at nite. The buck took us uphill, across streams, parking lots and roads, and 7 wound beds. Lisa brought us to her find. This deer was hit quarting away at 21 yds. directly into the rump roast and exiting thru the belly via an eight-inch gap. Fistfull of white hair at hit site. Didn't look promising at first, but Lisa taught us yet another lesson.

Pete Martin is holding Lisa who found this great deer