First recovery for Dachs, Walt Dixon's three month old dachshund puppy

Today I got back today from my trip to Maryland, which turned out to be very successful. Both Sky von Moosbach-Zuzelek and Mielikki Raptor finished their field championships. Sky was also Best in Zuchtschau and Mielikki was Absolute Winner of the trial on Sunday. There is much to report, and I hope to be able to do it tomorrow.

 

Tonight I'd like to start catching up with all the blood tracking stories and reports. I'll start with the e-mail that came several days ago from Walt Dixon, a member of Deer Search and United Blood Trackers, who lives in Tully, NY. Recently Walt acquired a new puppy, Dachs, from Beth and Genti Shero. The pup is out of Mae and our Billy.

Walt writes: Last Wednesday I laid a 400 yard plus blood trail with three 90 degree turns and let it age 8 hours. Dachs was able to follow it to completion with a slight correction from me when we encountered very fresh turkey scratchings all over a portion of trail. I was very encouraged!

Today my friend Cy Weichert called about 11am after shooting a doe and feeling he hit it a little too high. He waited a half hour then followed a blood trail 40 yards before the melting snow dissolved the visible blood so he got back in his tree and called me. Cy is co-founder of the hunting weather website "ScoutLook" and a founding member of the website "Whitetail Slam" with a corresponding TV show with Tom Miranda. Cy had a camera man with him and continued to hunt for big bucks until I came to track with Dachs about 11:30.

I thought if I tried Dachs and we couldn't find the deer I would go back and get my seasoned dog Ari. Cy showed me the hit site and arrow stuck on the ground as I started Dachs with his light tracking lead. Much to my surprise the cameraman filming for an upcoming TV show decided to film Dachs attempt to find the deer. Dachs showed good recognition of the trail, licking some blood at the hit site, then continued through the thicket with an occasional drop of visible blood. At the point the hunter had stopped tracking Dachs turned on a trail to the right and the hunter told me he had tracks going straight down the hill. I told him Dachs was interested in something and 30 yards down the trail he was following I saw a drop of blood. I hollered to the hunter I had blood and after trailing a distance Dachs took a left into another thicket where 50 yards in lay the deer!

The total track was maybe 250 yards long but the hunter thought he had a high, maybe one lung hit. The insides of the deer showed a cut on one lung, clipped part of the liver and through the paunch. Dachs had his first recovery!!!

He was a little slow at the actual deer but looked back at me and with encouragement moved in to lick the blood then began to tug on the deer and pull out some hair. After a short while with a lot of congratulating Dachs became more and more possessive of the deer and would growl and move to block my hand from touching the deer. I'll work on that part with him, but to tell you the truth, I was very happy with his dominance at the deer!

What a day for Dachs, a three month old puppy with a great tracking future! It's possible he'll be on the Whitetail Slam TV show in the near future!