Saturday, January 23, 2016

Are leashed blood tracking dogs going to be legal in Pennsylvania soon?

It has been a very long and difficult road to legalize the use of blood tracking dogs in Pennsylvania. Nobody knows it better than Andy Bensing, President of the United Blood Trackers and Deer Recovery of Pennsylvania. In October 2014 he wrote an excellent article "Why Can't I use My Dog?", which gave a good analysis of the situation and objections to tracking dogs in PA and other non-legal states.

Next week identical bills allowing leashed tracking dogs will be voted on in the PA House and the Senate. See the full text here.  Quote: "It shall be lawful to do any of the following:
(1) Make use of a dog to pursue, chase, scatter and track wild turkeys during the fall wild turkey season.
(2) Make use of a leashed blood-tracking dog to track a white-tailed deer or bear in an attempt to recover an animal which has been legally killed or wounded during any open season for white-tailed deer or bear." 

According to Andy there is a very good chance that both bills are going to pass. We are going to keep our fingers crossed that PA is going to turn green on this map:





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