Andy's thoughts on starting a young dog on natural tracks and Hazel's first recovery

First Track for us Both

By Andy Bensing

It was with great anxiety that I anticipated the start of the tracking season this year.  My 9 year old veteran dog, Eibe, had continued to partially lose her sense of smell since last year and I knew she would only be able to handle a very limited number of calls this year; perhaps even fewer than last year.   On top of that my two 16-month-old young dogs, Hazel and Hunter, who I have been training for the last 14 months were struggling to come out of a very difficult adolescent period after demonstrating unbelievably great work, basically perfect, up to about  7 months of age.  Hazel had been coming along especially well the last month of training but I still had my reservations as to how much I should put her in the field this year. 

When I train a dog I always look at the long term results, and I don’t like to put a dog into the field to soon on an unknown natural line until I can fully trust the dog.  On an unknown natural line, a young dog can learn a lot of very bad habits if you are not careful.  The most damaging  bad habit being that the dog can learn that it is enjoyable to track any deer, not just the wounded deer that they started on.  Hazel’s last three training lines before the start of our season showed me enough progress that I planned to definitely put her in the field this year but I planned to be very careful in track selection.  My strategy was to screen calls carefully for her and only take tracks likely not to be too long and the ones that have a dead deer at the end.  The last thing I really wanted was for her to jump and chase a wounded one still alive.  She was already gamey enough.  She certainly did not need that type of stimulation.  I also planned to curtail any track we might be on if I did not have some confirming sign or circumstance where I could be absolutely sure we were still on the correct deer.  Without confirmation, I planned to quit any track where I had not have confirmation of some sort for more than 200 yards.

Well luck was certainly with us for our first call of the season this year.  When the phone finally rang last night I got a call that sounded close to perfect.  An hour after the hit the hunter had started tracking and tracked 200 yards to a puddle where the deer stood with drips of blood.  My interview of the hunter revealed a likely liver hit so the deer had a very good chance of not being very far from the puddle and almost for sure dead.  The hunter got to the puddle 2 hours after the hit and judging from the described light blood trail coming to the spot where the deer stood, the deer had stood there a long time to create the puddle.  The hunter on my advice decided not to continue tracking and give the deer more time to die.  I arranged to meet the hunter at first light and put my rookie dog Hazel on the deer.

At the hit site in the morning, Hazel’s natural instincts really kicked in.  There was only a small speck of blood at the hit site, which she basically ignored and clearly locked right in on the hoof/body scent of the wounded animal.  She easily tracked the 200 yards to the hunter’s point of loss in 5 minutes. Her adolescent lackadaisical attitude that she still showed in some of her recent training was nowhere to be seen.  It was all business.  At the point of loss at the puddle where the hunter and 2 helpers had done some walking back and forth  she had some trouble.  In her training she had never encountered that type of thing before.  She seemed to interpret it like it was a star, which we had trained for and after  maybe a 5 minute long check in the area of the puddle she found her way out.  For a moment  during the check I thought she was going to lose concentration and drift off onto junk, something I still saw but less and less in training.  But with a very light call of her name by me standing near the point of loss, she refocused and found her way out.  She got back on the line, pointed out a spot of blood to me maybe 30 yards past the point of loss, and found the deer maybe 20 yards past that.  It was a perfect situation: Right after correcting herself back onto the line a big reward; the dead deer for her to tear into.

This certainly was not a difficult track.  Even my Eibe with her debilitated nose could have found this deer only 12 hours after the shot. Heck, the hunter would have found without the dog, but it was a perfect track to further develop my dog.  And as you can see from the photo, the deer sure made for a great photo for my dog’s first find of what I hope is a long career.

Hazel's first recovery

Help needed NOW with the Leashed Tracking Bill in PA

This came from Andy Bensing and his organization Deer Recovery of Pennsylvania:

The effort to legalize Leashed Tracking Dogs for recovering wounded deer in PA has been ongoing for 17 years and right now we are the closest we have ever been and almost there.  The PA Game Commission, PFSC, USP, UBP, QDMA ,NRA and 97% of PA hunters as of the last survey taken support the legalization of Leashed Tracking Dogs.  HB1722 which will legalize the use of Leashed Tracking Dogs has passed the House and is awaiting a final vote on the Senate floor. 

The problem is that HB1722 has been languishing on the Senate Calendar for the last month and has not been brought up for the final vote.  There are 2 weeks left in Harrisburg before the Senate goes on Summer Recess.  If HB1722 doesn’t come up for vote by the end of June, PA hunters will be going another hunting season this fall without access to Leashed Tracking Dogs.

The Leashed Tracking Dog movement needs every hunter’s help right now.  
There is no time to waste.  To help make this finally happen, here is what you need to do.

Send an email or letter to Senator Jake Corman right away.  Tell him you support HB1722, the Leashed Tracking Dog bill,  and ask him to bring it up for a final vote on the Senate floor.  If you are really feeling motivated, in addition to sending an email, call his office and let his office know you would like him to bring HB1722 up for vote.  Senator Corman is the Leader in the Senate and he is in charge of deciding which bills get a chance to be voted on.  Here is the contact info for Senator Corman: http://www.senatorcorman.com/contact/

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:

Andy and Eibe are getting ready for Tracking Season 2014

By Andy Bensing

With tracking season coming sooner than you think, in addition to brushing up my dog’s tracking skills, I also want to make sure that she is physically and mentally conditioned for the long season.  The early season especially, with the higher temps, can be quite fatiguing. 

This 10 minute video shows a training exercise I did recently.  The main purpose of the exercise was to work on conditioning.  My additional goals were to work on line control and tightening up her check work on turns.  

My seven-year-old Eibe has quite a bit of experience by having taken almost 250 natural calls, and she has done upwards of 120 training lines in her five hunting seasons in the field. However, I still need to do some training with her occasionally to keep her in top form.  If I lay off training completely, she begins to revert to some of her natural tendencies that are not always the most efficient, specifically getting a little loose on her line control and inefficient in working checks.  Interestingly, with just a few exercises like I initially used when she was younger 

http://borntotracknews.blogspot.com/2010/04/journey-to-win-part-1.html  http://borntotracknews.blogspot.com/2010/05/journey-to-win-part-2-training.html http://borntotracknews.blogspot.com/2010/05/journey-to-win-part-3-pre-test-and.html 

she straightens right back out and uses what she had learned in the past.

This particular training line was 1100 meters long in a hardwood forest and aged 72 hours. I used tracking shoes with minimal blood along the way with stretches of upwards of 250 meters with no blood at all.  There were ten 90-degree turns and eight mountain bike/deer cross trails along the way.  The line configuration was actually designed for Eibe’s granddaughter, Addi, who ran the same line at 24 hours two days before. 

Initially I was going to run this line at 96 hours to make it very difficult for Eibe, but when we had a big thunderstorm that dropped almost an inch of rain on the line on the third night I ran it at 72 hours instead.  Sometimes tracking shoe lines do not hold up too well in the rain.  I thought there might be a possibility that the line would be gone but as you will see in the video, conditions were quite difficult but doable. Actually, they were perfect for what I was trying to do.  The point of the difficulty was to make Eibe struggle both physically and especially mentally.   A line of this length (1100 meters) would typically take my dog about 45 minutes or so to run but the minimal scent available created the desired effect and Eibe had to work very hard.  It took her over double the normal time, 110 minutes.

As you watch the video you will see that I put two ribbons on turns and on each turn there is either a wound bed or at the very least I put a pretty good squirt  of blood right under the double flag.  I often do my turns like this in training.  For my young dog it encourages close check work on the turns (which I wanted to refresh Eibe on). If the line were too difficult for Eibe and I needed to help her advance to keep the exercise going, I would absolutely know where I could find a good spot of scent to restart her.  Luckily that did not occur and Eibe required very little handling along the way.  In that same regard I also knew that within 2 or 3 yards of every bike trail/deer trail crossing there was also a little extra blood squirted on the ground.  That extra blood was for Addi to encourage her to cross directly over to the other side of cross trails/roads/paths and check for the line before checking left or right along the cross trail. 

As you watch the video I hope you enjoy Eibe’s careful hard work in the difficult conditions and perhaps gain some insight into how to set up training lines to maximize the learning opportunities for you and your dog when in the field.

The video can be accessed at 

https://vimeo.com/101682014

Eibe 7-24-2014 stamina HD from Andy Bensing on Vimeo.

Spring training in the snow

by Andy Bensing

I have two 13-month-old pups, Addi and Axel, and I am hoping to take to the Deer Search Competition in April.  I would prefer to train on open ground but the weather has not been cooperating so I am practicing in the snow.  I do like training in the snow as it is a great way to practice line control.  Here is the set up I laid out today to run the pups on tomorrow.  I laid out 2 lines like this today.  I will run each dog tomorrow at 24 hours on their own individual training line and then swap lines and run the pups again at 48 hours on opposite lines.

Blood and hair at the hit site

That looks like a lot of blood doesn’t it?  Training in the snow lets you see how much blood you are really putting down with a VERY small squirt.  What you see in this pic is one small squirt.  When I squirt this amount every other step, about every 5 to 6 feet, it meters out the blood to 8 ounces over 1000 meters, which is the concentration of blood put down for most blood tracking tests around the world.  

Less than 10 meters after the start I try to trick the dog by putting some blood both ways at the first “Y”.  It is only natural for a dog to just continue straight going the easiest path on the right but the blood line actually bears to the left through the rougher snow.  The prevailing wind tomorrow will likely be coming left to right so that may help the dog a bit.  Regardless, right after the start the dog will have a potential issue to deal with.  This kind of set up discourages overexcited fast starts which can get a dog in trouble.

I am approaching another “Y”.  I am walking in the left hand tire track and dripping blood in the right hand tire track.   The wind is from left to right and will certainly be in that direction tomorrow.  By running the blood line up over the rough snow  into the far left tire track it will set up a great misdirection exercise for the dog tomorrow.  The dog will almost certainly get sucked to the right for several reasons.  First of all before the “Y” the blood is already in the right track and the wind will continue to drift scent down that  track quite a distance even after the blood line goes to the left.  The dog will also naturally be sucked down the easy path of least resistance to the right as well.  At some point the dog will realize he has lost the line and will begin to search.  With the wind likely coming from the left at that point, hopefully the dog will work the check into the wind, and have to cross some deep snow and 2 empty tire tracks to re-acquire the line.  Watching your dog do that work and knowing EXACTLY to the inch where the line is allows you to learn a lot about your dog and teach the dog a lot as well if need be.

You can see how I just simply drove around the field a few times setting up crisscrossing tire tracks.

 Another kind of misdirection not at an intersection.  I just switch over to another tire track right on a straight section.  Wind from left to right makes this more difficult.

Here is a tricky turn with a short backtrack.  I took the bloodline to the left in the left tire track past the intersection about 10 meters then brought it back in the right tire track to the intersection and went to the right.  I will enjoy watching the dog work this one out.

Here I am going from the right tire track, over the rough snow into the far left tire track.  Notice all the natural deer tracks.  By tomorrow afternoon there will be even more and likely right in the tire tracks themselves. This should be interesting.

Here is a video https://vimeo.com/87678126 of my male, Axel, doing the exercise the next day at 24 hours.  I had not checked the weather forecast closely and as it turned out it rained pretty hard overnight.  That rarely causes a problem with artificial trails laid on bare ground but it did seem to make a pretty big difference with the blood line laid in the snow.  Axel had very successfully work blood lines laid in snow tire tracks twice before and had virtually no trouble.  As you watch this video you will see that scenting was much more difficult on this rained on line. Additionally, because of the rain I had a hard time knowing exactly where the line was at.  The rain had washed most of the visual blood away.  Normally when you lay lines in the snow the next day you can see faint brownish smears where the blood is but the rain had washed that all deep into the snow.  The snow was pretty frozen when I worked the line.  Perhaps that prevented much of the scent from percolating up out of the snow or maybe it was just gone similar to the effect rain has on artificial lines laid on bare ground when it rains on that artificial track before the blood dries on the ground and leaves.

The video is long, 10 minutes, and you don’t have to watch the whole thing to get the idea, but if you do watch it all take notice of how I work the dog to balance helping him to be successful and allowing him to make his own mistakes to learn on his own.  You will see how by handling the dog properly Axel eventually figures out how to work the much more difficult scenting conditions than he is used to.  By the end of the track he is nailing it.

When I ran my other dog Addi on her line it was even harder and she took almost to the end to get it figured out.  For whatever reason, the visual blood on the snow was completely gone.  There was only one or two places on the line where I could see a slight discolor in the snow and I believe the available scent was even less than on Axel’s line as well.  Because of the poor scenting conditions I did not run the opposite  lines the next day at 48 hours as planned.  That looked like a disaster waiting to happen. 

As you might have read in a previous post, I had laid a tracking shoe only / no blood  line down in the snow the same day as these lines for my Eibe.  Interestingly, the rain on the tracking shoe line gave my Eibe no trouble at all.  Whether that was because she is an experienced dog and knows how to adjust quickly to different scenting conditions or tracking shoe scent on snow holds up better to rain I can’t say.  But it certainly gives raise to some interesting questions.

Evaluating Eibe's nose - part 2

by Andy Bensing

Below is a video of the first part of the evaluation trackdiscussed in the previous post.  Unfortunately, my camera battery ran out before the most challenging part of the exercise, the star and the deer feeder crossing.  You will just have to take my word for it that I was totally surprised how easily she worked through the hard parts, especially the deer feeder area.  Here are some photos from a trail cam I happened to have on the feeder.  Not as good as a video but you get the idea.

Breaking down the snow with my tractor.

Laying the tracking shoe trail in alongside the feeder.

Deer at the feeder overnight in the rain.

Eibe and I tracking past the feeder the next afternoon.

As you can see from the video https://vimeo.com/87635315  I can be pretty sure Eibe’s nose has recovered its ability to smell and differentiate hoof print scent between individual deer.  

Thank you to my sports medicine vet Dr. Robert Gillette   www.vetspecialty.com/staff/bios/84    from the Veterinary Specialty Center in Buffalo Grove IL www.facebook.com/vetspecialty  and my longtime friend and local vet Dr. Sherilyn Allen from Ironstone Veterinary Hospital www.ironstone.net   in Boyertown PA.  Dr. Gillette was able to diagnose that a low thyroid level was the source of the problem and Dr. Allen helped me successfully treat it.  I can’t wait till next September and get my Eibe back in the field at full capacity.

Evaluating Eibe's nose - part 1

by Andy Bensing

Some of you may know that about 1 ½ years ago I started to suspect that my dog Eibe was having trouble with her nose every time she had to take a course of antibiotics.  The problem seemed to be getting worse and worse.  She would recover but it took longer each time.  By this past season opener it became very detrimental to her tracking and was preventing her from finding deer I absolutely knew we should.  I eventually found an experienced sports medicine veterinarian and have been working with him since October 2013.

I set this exercise up to help determine the current condition of her nose.  I used tracking shoes only because the problem she was having was focused on her ability to smell hoof print scent.  Blood scent gave her a little trouble but hoof print scent was nearly impossible for her to detect and differentiate between different deer.  A previous similar track I ran a couple of weeks ago before the snow got too deep indicated that her nose was recovered.  I really don’t have a lot of experience to say how easy or difficult an artificial track laid in snow tire tracks is so I set this exercise up in such a way that my artificial trail would be mixed in with tons of natural deer tracks forcing Eibe to have to differentiate between the two.  Differentiation of hoof print scent was next to impossible for her at the height of her condition last fall.  I will run this track at 24 hours and see what happens and report in the comments.

I set up misdirection exercises in the snow by laying the line in the right hand tire track and then at the intersection just stepping into the left hand track and going straight instead of bearing to the right.  The dog will naturally bear to the right taking the path of least resistance.  How quickly and easily Eibe makes that turn will tell me a lot about the condition of her nose.

Approaching a deer feeding area.

Right in the middle of the deer feeding area I made a 90 degree left hand turn.  This is a difficult situation for any dog but when Eibe’s nose was normal she worked this type of problem out many times both in training and natural tracking.  In MD and NJ where I track deer are legally shot over bait.

Following the tracking shoe line through this will tell me a lot about how well her nose can differentiate scent.

Results of the exercise will be posted in comments.

Leashed Blood Tracking Dogs in Pennsylvania – Update

By Andy Bensing

The Senate Game and Fisheries Committee met on Wednesday 12/4/2013 and HB451, the leashed blood tracking dog Bill, was on the agenda.  I was pretty excited when I heard the week before that the Chairman had decided to put the bill on the agenda.  I and other Deer Recovery of PA members have been working for over 13 years to gain legalization in PA.  We have gotten 3 bills out of the House of Representatives during that time and into the Senate Game and Fisheries committee.  Our current bill under consideration in the committee, HB451, was unanimously passed by the House last May.  Well my excitement turned into another letdown when once again the bill was tabled for purposes of further discussion/clarification.  The committee members’ general consensus was that they needed more clarification as to how the dogs would be used and how the program would operate in the field.

This is quite frustrating to myself and other hard working members of DRP.  We have been working for years to educate the legislature.  We send them packets of information, offer unfettered access to us to answer questions and meet with them or their assistants to explain what we do and answer questions.  Just this past August and September one of our members personally met with 10 of the 11 committee members or their assistants in one on one meetings at the capital to explain what we do, why we do it and how it is done in other states.

With all this effort on our part our tracking dog bill has been brought up in the Senate Game and Fisheries 3 times in the last 18 months and always has ended up with the same result.  Tabled because they need more information.

The meeting did have one bright note in that the consensus was that the committee was not completely against the bill, they did table it instead of voting it down, but they wanted more specifics written into it as to how it would actually be run by the Game Commission once enacted.  Several members of the committee spoke with us after the meeting and asked us to assist with that.  Also, the Chairman did commit to holding an informational public hearing early next year to try and work out some of these issues.

So all in all the meeting did not live up to my early expectations but we did inch forward a little bit.  One thing about blood trackers that’s for sure, we don’t give up easily.

Urgent call for help! Support legalization of blood tracking dogs in Pennsylvania now!

These are just few pictures of many that show deer recovered by Andy Bensing and his tracking wirehaired dachshund Eibe this fall. Even though Andy lives in Pennsylvania these deer were tracked in Maryland. Andy loves helping hunters recover deer that they are not able to find by themselves but unfortunately the use of blood tracking dogs is illegal in Pennsylvania. Read more what Andy posted on Facebook today:

 

I and many of my friends have been working for 13 years to change a hunting law in Harrisburg to legalize the use of leashed tracking dogs to help recover deer that a hunter has shot and has not been able to locate himself just using his eyes. Our current bill is very close to becoming law. If you would like to help please read the rest of this message and send a few emails to Harrisburg ASAP.
Thanks in advance,
Andy Bensing

Recent developments in Harrisburg make it urgent that you email or call to all the Senate Game and Fisheries Committee Members immediately. Please contact them yet tonight or tomorrow. Send your email on Thanksgiving day if that is all the sooner you can get to it but PLEASE get it done.
Chairman Alloway is considering putting HB451, our Blood Tracking Bill, on the agenda for passage next Wednesday, December 4th, but it will only happen if the other committee members express their support for HB451 to Chairman Alloway in advance. That's why you need to contact all committee members right now and ask them to support HB451 and request it be put on the agenda.

Get any of your interested friends and relatives to write as well. The more the better. With enough hunter interest and support this may actually happen finally this year.

Here is a list of all the Senate Game and Fisheries Committee email addresses. Just address your email, "Dear Senator" and BCC copy it to them all.
Write your own letter or use the Sample below but please just write and do it immediately. There is no time to waste.
alloway@pasen.gov wdando@pasenate.com cmcilhinney@pasen.gov jscarnati@pasen.gov lbaker@pasen.gov mbrubaker@pasen.gov jcorman@pasen.gov rrobbins@pasen.gov boscola@pasenate.com brewster@pasenate.com SenatorSmith@pasenate.com

Sample letter:
Dear Senator,
I am very happy to hear that Chairman Alloway is considering putting HB451, the Leashed Blood Tracking Dog Bill, on the December 4, 2013 Senate Game and Fisheries Committee meeting agenda for passage out of committee. I support the legalization of leashed blood tracking dogs here in PA and I hope you do as well.

I ask that you let Chairman Alloway know that you are in favor of HB451 and you would like to see it come up for a vote at the upcoming committee meeting.

The legalization of the use of leashed blood tracking dogs for the recovery of wounded deer and bear has been rapidly spreading across the country for the last 10 years. All the major PA sportsman’s clubs (PFSC, UBP, NWTF, USP, QDMA) support HB451. The PGC has supported HB451 with a resolution and Governor Corbett on the advice of the Governor's Advisory Council for Hunting, Fishing and Conservation supports the bill as well. With all this support I hope now will be the time to finally pass this bill. I hope you can help.

A double-lung shot doe that went further than expected

By Andy Bensing

These lungs show how tough a deer can be and how far they can actually run on even a perfect shot. This doe was arrowed at 10 yards from a low tree stand with a crossbow. The deer was at full alert and had been grunted to a stop before the shot. With the loud crack of the crossbow and being at full alert before the shot the doe took off up hill like a bullet. There had been a very light rain during the evening hunt but immediately after the shot it began pouring and when the hunter was out of the tree there was no blood to be found except two small splashes at 60 yards down the trail the deer ran off on. A two hour body search in the ram at night did not turn up the deer.

I tracked the deer with my Eibe in the morning. We found the doe rather quickly even though the night's downpours washed all visible blood away. The scent was still there. Amazingly the doe had run very hard for 150 meters and would have gone even further. When we found her she was impaled on a box wire fence in the woods. It was quite clear she had hit the fence still going full speed 150 meters from the hit site. Look closely at the lungs and you will see it was a double lung shot and If you look real close between the lungs you will see the aorta was severed as well. Interestingly I was only able to collect barely 10 ounces of blood from the chest cavity. She must have bled out as she ran but the pouring rain washed it away very fast. The area she was in was very thick with vegetation and it would have very unlikely the hunter would have found her that far away just by grid searching even in the daylight. It is sometimes incredible how tough these animals are.

 

Another hazard for tracking dogs

by Andy Bensing

As an avid outdoorsman I usually love learning and experiencing new things about nature but sometimes there is a limit.  A recent blood tracking expedition taught me something I really didn’t need to learn. 

Last Tuesday night after a very routine blood tracking call earlier that day in MD I found myself lying in bed in the dark scratching like crazy on my legs.  The itching and small bumps immediately brought the thought to mind that I had again gotten into some chiggers earlier in the day.  Actually, the itching and bumps were less than I had experienced in the past from chiggers so I was pretty happy about that.  I found out a day and a half later it wasn’t chiggers that I had gotten into but instead my dog Eibe and I had gotten into a nest of tick larvae!  Tick larvae are very, very small and I had not noticed them at first on myself or my dog but by Thursday morning they had been feeding on Eibe for a while and had blown up to a size that I could now easily see.  Commonly called “seed ticks” for their close resemblance to small seeds, Eibe was covered in them!  Without exaggeration I would estimate there were at least 1,000 or more engorged tick larvae all over her body!  Upon close examination I could even see the discarded exoskeletons from some of the larvae who had molted into the nymph stage.  The engorged ticks were so small that I wasn’t even sure what they were until I used a magnifying glass and could see their legs.  A quick call to my vet and a little internet research held the solution to the problem.  Unlike adult ticks and just like chiggers, these larvae don’t attach very securely when feeding.  That’s why I easily rubbed them off my legs unknowingly the first night and did not end up with any engorged ones on me.  All that was necessary to get them off Eibe was a simple flea and tick shampoo and a flea comb through her hair once dry. 

Except for the fact that I can’t stop itching from just the thought of all those creepy little critters all over my dog and some inevitably crawling around my house the whole thing ended pretty easily.  According to the research I have done, the likelihood of tick borne diseases being transmitted by the nymph stage appears low.  Now the only big question left is what will be my next dog disaster?

Engorged tick larvae on Eibe’s back and belly.

Shed larvae exoskeletons after molting to the nymph stage.

Engorged tick larvae on Eibe’s back and belly.

Just a few of the dead ticks collected from the drain after Eibe’s tick bath.

This chart shows the comparative size of the larvae, nymph, and adult tick.

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!

Adventurous Chihuahua Penny finally gets reunited with her family after 17 days on the run: part 2

Continued from the May 21 post.

The phone went quiet again but late on day 11 and early on day 12 there were two sightings close to each other in an area that made sense.  The day 11 sighting sounded very reliable and upon checking it with Eibe it was very easy to confirm.  When Eibe crossed the exact spot the dog was reportedly seen the night before she whipped her head and took off like a rocket.  With that sighting confirmed I directed Penny’s family to concentrate their search and public notification efforts in that area, which paid off with two more sightings on day 14 and 15 less than ½ mile away.

The day 14 sighting witness called in right away, and my wife and I were on site within 45 minutes.  We actually saw Penny along the side of the road on the way there.  My wife got out of the car and followed her and got within 15 feet of Penny but then she just took off.  After Penny ran off I put Eibe down on the trail just 10 minutes behind her.  But  two hours later after 3 ½ miles of tracking in the pouring rain without ever seeing her again it was obvious we were not going to run her down.

Yes, that really is a Teddy Bear behind that Blood Tracker!

Penny was spotted again the next day about 200 yards from where my wife originally saw her so at that point I set up a feeding station in the area with a game camera in hopes of eventually trapping her in a live trap.  Unfortunately, she left the area after that and the next place she was spotted was two days later on day 17, 2 ½ miles away on the other side of town just before dark.

Feeding station monitored with a trail cam set up in the area where Penny was sighted three days in a row.  Note live trap on left.  The door is wired open until the dog feeds regularly at the station and then the food is moved inside the trap.  Unfortunately Penny left the area after the feeding station was set up.

The next day, on day 18, I went out and confirmed  the previous evening’s sighting.  This was a really good sighting with very reliable witnesses.  Penny was seen casually walking up a grass strip along a school football field she wandered into.  The witness was aware of the missing dog from a Facebook posting and the Neon Posters we had blanketed the area with.  As the witness was slowly approaching the dog, it wandered into a neighbors unfenced yard. The neighbor really hates dogs, and he came out and angrily chased the dog. Penny ran up an alley and into a college campus.  I mention all this because the accurate information about the dog’s course and behavior allowed me to confirm for myself my tracking dog's actions.  As I worked Eibe to confirm the sighting, it was crystal clear that my suspicion  that scenting on these lost dogs changes according to their emotional state was correct.  When Eibe engaged the line where Penny was casually walking the night before, Eibe began tracking at a normal speed but when she hit the place where the dog was chased by the neighbor, she became excited and much more animated.  I thought I was seeing this in the previous tracks where she crossed busy streets and likely was chased but this confirmed it.

I first learned of a tracking dogs ability to interpret its quarry’s emotions and physical state while accompanying professional blood trackers in Germany several years ago.  My dog Eibe began to develop this ability this past fall in her 4th season tracking wounded deer.  There were some deer that we tracked that she began to realize were not gettable due to the minimal nature of their wounds and I believe the nature of their stress levels as we pursued them.  The deer being minimally wounded could easily stay in front of us and Eibe would notice this lack of fear scent and actually stop pursuing them.   From previous experience she could tell that they were not injured enough for us to catch up to.  Now I was seeing this same behavior in tracking lost dogs.

With the day 17 sighting so reliable and confirmed I directed the family to re-center their efforts in that area and after hours of searching and re-searching the neighborhood the next day, the owner’s son spotted Penny on the last pass of the day.  He chased her several blocks but this time she went to ground under a porch in a crawl space instead of just keeping on running.  Most likely tired and getting run down from 19 days on the lamb.  He got bit by the now 4 ½ lb. Chihuahua when he crawled in and tried to grab her but he eventually scooped her up in his coat and the saga was over.

Final map of the Penny case.  Red flags are neon posters.  Green flags are sightings.  Yellow dotted lines are places we tracked Penny or confirmed sightings.

This aerial map of the 3 ½ miles in suburban neighborhoods that we tracked Penny one day in the rain but could not catch up with her.  We started only 10 minutes behind her. 

As you can see there is a lot more to tracking lost pets than tracking wounded deer, but if you are a tracking addict like I am I highly recommend you give it a try.  The satisfaction you get will equal that which you get in the deer woods and the joy of the reunited dog owners is unsurpassed.

Penny Happy ending from Andy Bensing on Vimeo.

Penny happy to be home and her owner very grateful to have her back.

A week after Penny was back home I was invited to a welcome home party for family and friends who assisted in Penny’s recovery.  When tracking deer for hunters I have been invited back to do some hunting but I have never before been invited to a party where the dogs wore hats!

A New Kind of Find. Andy and Eibe Get to Track a Lost Dog.

By Andy Bensing

Like many blood trackers I have always gotten several phone calls a year asking whether my dog could find a lost pet.  In the past few years I’ve been called about lost cats, dogs, horses, and even a pet chicken.  I’ve never taken any of these calls.  Never even given them much serious thought before but after a couple of interesting requests this past fall I decided to seriously pursue the tracking of lost pets.  As I researched the project I quickly found out that there is a whole lot more to recovering lost pets than just the tracking.  I still have a ton to learn about the whole process but this is the story of my first attempt.

The first thing I needed to know was if my blood tracking dog Eibe would even follow a healthy dog.  To do this I had my kennel staff take 3 dogs from my boarding kennel, give them a walk across a field, and let the lines age.  After an hour I took a piece of the blanket from one of the dogs, Target Dog 1, and used it to pre-scent Eibe.  This blanket had only the scent of Target Dog 1 on it.  Pre-scenting indicates to the tracking dog what scent you want her to find and follow.   To get started I just used the usual routine I would use at the hit site of a wounded deer call.   I put a piece of the blanket in an open plastic bag on the ground and treated it like the point of impact where Eibe would normally smell the blood and hair at the hit site.  As you can see in the diagram I started Eibe 50 yards upwind of the 3 lines and told her to “search”.  All these skills and routines Eibe was already proficient  at.  Eibe effortlessly searched across and ignored the first two decoy lines, hit the third target dog line and engaged it with no problem.  She followed it a short 100 yard distance to the end where I had some meat laying as a reward.  The next day after the lines had aged 24 hours I took the blanket from Target Dog 2 and did the same thing.  I was curious to see how the scent lines  would hold and whether or not Eibe would engage the correct line or just go to where the meat was the day before.  Again from the diagram you can see she had no problem.  In some ways I was surprised how easy it was but in other ways I was not.  Differentiating one dog from another is not really any different than one deer from another.

Knowing now that my dog would track a dog, I started watching the local Lost & Found ads for a real life lost dog to track.  I finally found one that sounded promising.  After speaking to the dog’s owner I was able to put Eibe on the trail 2 days after the dog escaped into a suburban neighborhood from a shopping center.  The six-pound Chihuahua called Penny got spooked as the owner left a pet shop in a strip mall. The collar broke and Penny ran off into a neighborhood and quickly disappeared.  My first guess was that the very scared little dog would not be far away, likely huddled under a porch somewhere, scared to death and hopefully easy for us to find.  I had an exact path  reported by the owner that the dog took between two office buildings before she disappeared so I used that as a starting point.

I started Eibe 50 yards up wind, perpendicular to the dog’s line of travel and told her to “Search” after pre-scenting her the same way I had done in practice.  When her head whipped to the left exactly where the dog had run, I knew we were on the right trail.  Everything seemed great.  Just like my practice test with the three kennel dogs she had no problem picking it up.  But after about 5 minutes I ran into my first problem when Eibe began to lose drive.  It was pretty clear to me that she was kind of wondering why we were following this scent.  In blood tracking I am sure a big part of her motivation is the hunt and prey drive.  The thought of tearing into the dead quarry at the end.  The scent of a dog clearly didn’t elicit the same motivation and my very brief kennel dog test had not provided any alternative motivation to any great extent.  I just kept verbally encouraging her and re-presenting the scent article which was Penny’s broken collar that I had in a Ziploc bag.  After about 45 minutes of occasionally coaxing and encouraging her she seemed to finally realize what I wanted and started working the suburban streets and lawns just like when we track deer in the woods.  We have often tracked deer through neighborhoods so this was not completely foreign terrain to her.  The track was erratic in direction at first but at one point scenting became much easier and the track went straight for over a mile.  When I punched the dog’s home address into my GPS, it appeared the dog was heading straight home just like a wounded deer heading back to his bedding area.

Penny Suburban tracking from Andy Bensing on Vimeo.

The next problem I ran into turned out not to be a problem at all.  Actually I learned from it.  As we approached a big four lane busy Boulevard I wondered how we would track across it with all the cars moving.  I was concerned that picking Eibe up and starting on the other side, like crossing a highway when blood tracking deer, would interrupt the fragile drive I had built to continue tracking this new quarry.  To my surprise, Eibe sped up and flew across the boulevard  and the next two we had to cross as well. After tracking Penny three more times over the next two weeks I was able to confirm my initial suspicions of why Eibe sped up at certain places.  When Penny was spooked or chased, she put off more scent, perhaps “fear” scent just like very hurt vs. mildly hurt deer do, and Eibe could pick up on this fear scent much more easily.  Just like she does with wounded deer.  My 1st day of tracking Penny ended after 3 ½ hours of tracking Penny over 2 miles.  It appeared that someone had either chased her into an industrial park and almost caught her, or perhaps she was caught and put in a car.  Eibe had excitedly tracked into a tight corner of the Industrial park fencing but as she worked the scent out of the tight corner it faded away over the next ½ mile and completely dried up at an intersection to a very busy main road.

It was interesting to see when Eibe lost the trail at the busy intersection how she acted just like she does on a deer call when the scent gets sparse.  When struggling at the intersection where the scent dried up she first searched for a back track and finding none she went a half mile back to the industrial park where the scent was very intense.  Eibe would have re-tracked the last part of the trail again looking for a new direction but at that point I called it a day.  When I started the track I had hoped that Penny would have tucked herself in somewhere safe shortly after she escaped but that obviously hadn’t happened.  Being that we were two days behind her escape and having tracked Penny two miles from where she was initially lost there was little point in continuing that day.

Penny’s owner had posted small flyers in the area where she was initially lost the day she escaped.  The next step after I got involved was to expand the advertising. I found a family member of Penny’s who was an IT guy so he took care of all the lost dog websites and Facebook.  I went to work and created 10 large, 18” x 24” neon posters and placed them strategically in the area where I believed Penny was last chased or picked up hoping to generate a lead.  Over the next few days I put out 20 more posters encircling  the likely area Penny might be in.

On day 7 we finally got a call from a sighting in an unlikely area that would have matched the theory she was picked up in a car, transported away and perhaps escaped again or was let go.  Crazy things can happen.  I met with the person who called and found out the sighting was from 3-4 days before,  When I took Eibe  to confirm the sighting I also found two more witnesses who reported seeing a dog like Penny two days before in the same area.  Interestingly while checking this location I saw two other long haired Chihuahuas being walked on leashes and about 10 more Chihuahuas of various types in yards and front windows.  This inner city neighborhood was crawling with Chihuahuas!

To confirm a sighting I first got detailed information from the witness as to where exactly the subject dog was seen.  I then tried to go 50+ yards upwind if possible and started Eibe at a location where I was pretty sure the subject dog had not been present according to the witness.  I then pre-scented Eibe and directed her to search in a direction perpendicular to the reported line of travel of the subject dog.  If Eibe picked up a line and started tracking where the witness reported the dog,  it was a positive confirmation.  If she didn't pick up the line after several attempts, the sighting was not confirmed.  After several unsuccessful attempts to pick up a line I determined that the long haired red Chihuahua seen by the witnesses was not Penny.

To be continued….

Spring is a perfect time to resume blood tracking training

Andy Bensing reports:

Spring is in the air and now is the prime time here in the Northeast to get out and train your blood tracking dog. Karen Zeman and her a year and a half old Bavarian Mountain Hound, Cyrus, came down from NY today for a half day instruction in blood tracking training. I met Karen's dog Cyrus for the first time three weeks ago at the Deer Search Competition and saw a ton of potential in the team. We had a very enjoyable morning today and I know Karen and Cyrus learned a lot. Karen and Cyrus work very nicely together. I am sure they will be successful in their real life tracking this fall.


Good luck to Karen a nd Cyrus in their training and tracking!

Not all wounded deer can be recovered

By Andy Bensing

As all trackers know, not all deer that you track are gettable.  Notice how after we jumped the buck, which was heading right back towards the original hit site.  I see this quite frequently, and it helps me to confirm the jumped buck is the right one when you don't see him or there is no sign.    It would be too much of a coincidence for some other deer to take that path as frequently as I see it.  I have had confirmed sightings of this behavior of wounded deer in the past.  We did not see the buck go out but I was pretty sure this was the correct deer when the trail went hot since there was pulled hair in the bloodless bed he came out of.  Pulled hair and a path back to the hit sight confirmed it for me.    Also notice the buck made a classic "J" hook before he bedded.  Distance from hit to bed where we jumped him was 1200 meters and there was no visible blood after the point of loss.  This buck had been shot twice and knocked down twice from both shots with a shotgun slug.  He actually fell down and did not move for 5 minutes after the 2nd shot before he got up and stumbled away.  I found bone fragments that appeared to come from a large joint either leg or hip.  Since he was running well ahead of us 26 hours after the shot and he only bled for 150 yards after the shot in the first place I deemed him ungettable with a dog on a leash, and we quit the trail

Notice how the "active log" has made a nice clean line on Google Earth.  When you save a track on a Garmin and then transfer it to Google earth it displays all those annoying bread crumbs dots on Google Earth.  The "active log" does not display the bread crumbs.   I filled in the approximate path the buck took after I lost my GPS with the thin yellow line.  We did not get the buck but I was real happy when I found my dropped GPS as I re-traced my trail in the swamp.

I try to put my hunters to work as best I can. The hunter is carrying my backpack
and 2 sets of waders just in case we need them to go into the marsh.

This was not a routine track for Andy Bensing and his dachshund Eibe

By Andy Bensing

Cold, late season hunting draws very few hunters in MD and NJ where I do my tracking so a January 16th call in the snow was a pleasant surprise.  Maybe because it had been 3 weeks since my last track, but I got great pleasure from this call, and there were quite a few interesting aspects to it.  The doe was gut shot with a 20 gauge slug from 180 yards the night before.  The amazing report from the hunter started like this,
" I started tracking the deer 45 minutes after I shot and to my amazement I found her just inside the woods 50 yards from where I saw her leave the field and she was just STANDING there wobbling in some thick stuff.   I stood there 15 feet away for a few minutes in amazement that she did not run off and expecting her to fall over and die.  When she didn't, I made my way up to her through the thicket and decided to try and push her over.  I actually touched her and when I did she just kind of wobbled away into the dark.  I went home, waited 2 hours and went back with my wife to hopefully find her dead a short distance away.  We tracked a fairly easy blood trail about 100 yards past where she had been standing but the blood ended and that was it."

Here is a photo the hunter took with his cell phone while he stood there before he touched the standing deer.

When  got the call that night I decided to wait until morning before tracking.  I expected a pretty easy find of the gut shot doe. The hunter reported he got an excellent look at the location of the hit when he walked up to the standing deer. I doubted she would travel very far if she did not even want to run off when the hunter approached.  Well, for some reason when I started my dog, Eibe, she had a very difficult time picking up the line through the 4 inches of heavy wet snow that had come down during the night.  I knew there was good blood under the snow as reported by the hunter but Eibe just could not lock in at first.  I actually restarted her 3 times at the hit site in the first 45 minutes.  She could not even make her way all the way down the path the hunter had tracked visible blood the night before.  On the 3rd restart, I had the hunter dig down under the snow and find some visible blood. 

Eibe had tracked in the snow maybe a dozen times in the past and I never had to do that before but I gave it a try and it worked.  Getting a good nosefull of that blood seemed to set things in motion, and we started to make some progress.  We got to the hunter's point of loss with a little steering help from me and then Eibe picked her way along independently in a logical direction.  She would lock in and zip along for 50 yards or so, then the scent would seem to dry up, and she would search a few minutes, pick it up again and zip right along for another 50 yards or so.  Four or five places along the way I was able to see a comforting blood smear on a branch or a dot or two of frozen blood coming up from the disturbed snow off Eibe's footprints. 

After Eibe finally was able to lock in on the trail it took her 45 minutes to find the deer dead about 500 yards past where it had been touched by the hunter the night before. The deer took one last jump across a creek and died on the other side.  With the snow partially covering the deer, I thought at first she was just a rock but when Eibe dove into the frigid water, grabbed her tail and yanking, the snow fell off and there was no doubt.

When I got to the deer I could see the bullet sticking out her side, and it looked like it smacked into her, mushroomed but never entered her.  What the ??????  Further investigation revealed that I was looking at the exit side of the shot.  The 20 gauge Remington slug had mushroomed nicely and tumbled around in the deer as it passed through the guts on a 45 degree angle from back to front. It had just enough energy left to punch the tail end of the bullet through the deer's skin but the lip from the mushroom hung up in the skin and prevented the bullet from exiting.  I have seen arrows clog an exit hole but never a bullet doing the same.  Not amazing but pretty interesting to see.