First natural training line for Addi, a seven-month-old wirehaired dachshund puppy

Andy Bensing shared with us his recent experience with Addi, a puppy who is sired by Chuck Collier's Moose (FC Nurmi von Moosbach-Zuzelek). Moose is a talented and accomplished tracker in his own right, but over the last few years he has proved to be an exceptional producer.

Here's Addi, a 7-month-old granddaughter of my Eibe on her first natural training line track.  The deer had traveled 100 yards after the double lung shot but left absolutely no blood trail.  Unfortunately the hunters were unaware of the availability of tracking dogs when this buck was shot and it took well into the next day for the hunters to locate the buck in the thick cover that it ran into.  The deer was left lay due to spoilage after it was found by grid searching the next day.  I was on the property 2 days later with my experienced dog, Eibe, for a different deer and when that track was over I used the opportunity to try giving my young pup a little field experience.  Although Addi had previously been on about 20 training lines with tracking shoes and blood, I doubted she would be able to do anything with a 40 hour old bloodless line but I figured I had nothing to lose by giving it a shot.  Well to my wonderful surprise when I put her down on a bloodless start at the hit site she figured it out very quickly.  Very slowly and methodically she picked her way down the bloodless 100 yards through thick cover right to the carcass.  Conditions were perfect for training; the uncleaned arrow was available to lie on the ground at the exact known spot the deer was standing when shot, the wind was at our back and the deer was still in the woods at a known location. 

This is the kind of dog that is being bred here in the United States on an ever increasing frequency.  Not all dogs start out so well at such a young age and many of those slower starters still turn out great later in life but when you get a quick starter and combine it with some good initial young dog training you can get results like this.  If it sounds like I am bragging, I am!  I could not be happier today if I had hit the lottery!