A talented dog and an outspoken hunter/handler - the two necessary ingredients for jump-starting the use of blood tracking dogs

I love this picture of Radar (Quentin von Moosbach-Zuzelek), who is owned by Craig Dougherty of NorthCountry Whitetails. Many thanks to NorthCountry Whitetails for sharing the picture with us.

I thought that this would be a good moment to reflect a little and go back to a video of ten-week-old Radar tracking a fresh liver drag.

 

Radar came from a litter of 9 puppies, and his parents were FC Joeri vom Nonnenschlag and FC Keena von Moosbach-Zuzelek. He showed a remarkable talent at an early age, and we were very fortunate to find a great tracking home not that far from us. At one point in the future we might decide to breed to him, so we are lucky that he does not live in Texas for example. And of course since he is owned by Craig an extra national exposure is not hurting us either! Thank you Craig for everything you have been doing for promoting ethical hunting and the use of tracking dogs to find wounded big game. 

Craig has been instrumental in making The National Bowhunter Education Foundation aware of John's publications and activities. Recently I came across this article The Changing World of Wounding by Dr. Dave Samuel. It says:

"Another part of those discussions was about the use of trailing dogs to recover deer. More states now allow the use of trailing dogs and other states are now considering using them. In 2010, twelve states opened up the use of dogs to trail wounded deer. The driving force behind the use of dogs is John Jeanneney who wrote the book “Tracking Dogs For Finding Wounded Deer.” Apparently he has been on hundreds of trackings and this has given him some perspective on what happens to deer hit in certain areas of the body as well as thoughts on how far they go, how often they bed, etc. Indeed, compared to most of us, Mr. Jeanneney has seen what it would many lifetimes for us to see, relative to trailing lost deer. I had to leave the discussions before they ended, but it appeared that the bowhunter education folks were going to invite Mr. Jeanneney to meet with their board and use his expertise to consider any revisions on how to improve what the NBEF teaches on blood trailing in their bow classes."

There is no doubt that things are moving in a right direction, and the use of blood tracking dogs is spreading.  More and more states are legalizing the activity, which should be part of responsible hunting everywhere. Sometimes the change is slow and happens in small increments. But sometimes an extra leap can be made when a talented dog is placed with an outspoken hunter/handler who is willing to put extra work into it and publicize the cause. We all in the hunting and tracking community owe these people a big thank you!