In Memory of John Jeanneney (1935-2021)

by Jolanta Jeanneney

It has been 4.5 months since John Jeanneney passed on July 5, 2021. It is still hard to think and write about it, but it is also a right thing to do. You can read John's obituary HERE.

Recently my friend Kelley Doolin had to write a class assignment about a visionary leader. I was touched that she wrote about John in her article. Thank you Kelley!

“When reading about visionary leaders in Shashkin's article, John Jeanneney came to my mind. He was an avid hunter, and after losing a wounded deer, he applied for and received a research license from New York State's Department of Environmental Conservation to investigate if it was possible to use leashed tracking dogs to find wounded game. He went on to co-found an organization called Deer Search Inc. to expand the research across the state. Ten years later, after a lot of hard work and dedication, the use of leashed tracking dogs was legalized in New York. John co-founded an organization called United Blood Trackers which has become a great resource to hunters and aspiring or current trackers. As part of their mission, United Blood Trackers hopes to promote legalization of tracking dogs in all 50 states and, as of now, most states have legalized tracking wounded game. One of the books that John wrote, Tracking Dogs for Finding Wounded Deer, has become known as the “tracker’s bible” and outlines blood tracking dogs, dog selection, training and use.

John exhibited traits of a visionary leader, he had the vision of using dogs to help track wounded animals. He got the support of governmental officials to conduct research throughout the state. He worked with others to help teach them how to train their dogs and track game. John found a solution to allow hunters to have better luck finding the animals they had wounded and lost”.

Every year I produce a calendar with our teckels. This year several of my friends suggested that John should be in the calendar. So to honor his memory I designed the calendar with John’s pictures showing him with his dogs. The calendar can be ordered HERE. These are the pictures:

John's last training line

by John Jeanneney

You young trackers  have many good years ahead of you, but eventually things wind down. As old tracker, I can give you a preview of what is coming eventually. First I had to give up taking calls to find deer. I just couldn't navigate steep slopes and thick cover due to poor balance and lack of leg strength. But at least I had the comfort of knowing that I could still train puppies on easier terrain. I could still work with my dogs.

At the end of January there was a break in the winter weather and the ground was bare. I took out Odin, age five and a half months, on a 22 hour line, 375 yards long.  Odin's is a puppy from Germany, and he had not had much training in tracking before the snow came. Odin was doing amazingly good work on the old line with its six right angle turns. Then I fell down in the flat, easy  woods and lost my grip on the plastic clothes line that I use as a tracking leash with half-grown puppies. What a nuisance it is to be 82 years old and semi-competent!

Odin took off, as I struggled to crawl to a tree and  pull myself back up on my feet. When I hobbled ahead to the last turn I could see Odin a 150 yards ahead. He had followed the blood line around the last turn and was "baying" at the deer skin. He didn't quite know what to do with it, but he knew that it was the treasure at the end of the track, and that this was important.

My instability in the woods, falling down and all, forced me to admit to myself that even training  puppies to track was now beyond my capability; this sad day  was softened by Odin's brilliant work at a young age. I will live on in the memory and spirit of my dogs.

Winding down...

by John Jeanneney

My old German tracking dog Joeri (pronounced Yori) and I are winding down from our tracking careers. For me that career lasted 40 years. Dogs, even if they are of German origin, aren't as fortunate.

   Having to finally retire, when you are a dedicated and passionate tracker, is not easy. Here are the ways that Joeri and I handled the transition.

   First, let me write about Joeri, who understands well that the bond between tracking dog and handler endures, even when adventures in the woods are over.  Joeri is beside my chair as I write this. If I go to another room, the bathroom, for example, he follows. He sleeps with me on my bed.

   Joeri has several big rawhide chew bones, which he leaves around the house. But it is an old, dry deer leg, hair, hoofs and all, which he carries with him everywhere in the house. This is not for chewing, but it is a souvenir of the best years of his life that he will not forget.

In parallel with Joeri I have my own souvenirs. On my desk are my "trophy antlers” that a little, six point buck knocked off against my jaw and chest as he charged me near the end of the track. The buck "cold conked" me and gored Sabina, my tracking dog. With a deep gash in her flank, Sabina was licking my face as I came to and opened my eyes after the blow. We kept on tracking.

   Still fresh in my memory are the two cases where hunters teared up with joy when I found their deer. My tracking dog and I shared the hunters' emotions.

   I still dream of tracking, but I shuffle through the woods and realize that I am no longer capable of taking a real live call. I feel useless, and all I can do is answer the telephone and dispatch calls to other trackers Some of them use another of my dogs, Tommy, whom I trained and tracked with up until my final good year at age 80.

Getting old is not easy; Joeri and I comfort one another.

Joeri sunbathing in John's office, next to his deer leg.

New version of John Jeanneney's book Tracking Dogs for Finding Wounded Deer

The first edition of Tracking Dogs for Finding Wounded Deer was released in 2004, and was followed by the 2nd edition in 2006. The book had been selling well but in the last few years it became clear that we needed to update it. A new version was printed in October 2016. 

This "new" 2nd edition has additional 7 chapters, new pictures and appendices, and an index. The information has been updated throughout the book. While the 2006 book had 360 pages, the new version has 424. Its cover is green. The book can be purchased on our website (CLICK HERE) for $39.95 plus $4.00 for shipment within the United States.

Just today we received feedback from Marianne Jacobs who lives in Luxembourg, and has a lot of experience in hunting and blood tracking. When John read it, I could see some tears of happiness in his eyes. Thank you Marianne!

    

I wanted to give my feedback on the book “Tracking dogs for finding wounded deer”!

First of all: I am amazed and this book should be on every trackers book shelf! 

It is very clearly structured and written in a great English. The chapters and words are well chosen, and the sentences are easy to understand (important for me as a non-native speaker). I never had to read a sentence twice to get the meaning of it! Reading the book was a real pleasure for me.

Concerning the content: It covers all that I could imagine: blood-tracking in general, breeds, puppy-choosing, training for all age stages, equipment, different game, tracks, problems, tests and so on! And what I loved the most about the book were the small summaries at the end of every chapter!

The information given in this book is priceless! I would recommend this book to every tracker; to the ones who gets started and also to the experienced ones. There is plenty of information for everyone, no matter if they where they track in the world.

I have read many (especially German and French) books about blood-tracking, but this is clearly my favorite now. I truly have the impression that the author wants me to learn (a lot) from his book. I always missed this feeling with the European books: they gave some information, but the content was more about the authors’ dogs and his personal successes and tracks. And they often only praised certain breeds, and ignored others completely. I couldn’t get that much information from these books, especially practical information about training and trouble-shooting were often missing. But not in this book!! While reading, I could feel how the author put his soul and all his knowledge into it. 

I will absolutely recommend this book to our puppy buyers, fellow trackers and hunters, they can learn a lot from it. I learned so much and I already know that I will often look something up in this book, because this is definitely NOT a book that you only read once and then put away.

Thanks a lot for writing this wonderful and educational book!

Marianne Jacobs, 

Grand-Duchy of Luxembourg    

Wired To Hunt podcast with John Jeanneney on how to track and recover wounded deer

Few days ago Wired To Hunt posted a podcast with John Jeanneney on the topic of deer tracking and recovery. The podcast can be accessed HERE. The whole podcast is about 90 minutes, and the first 30 minutes or so are on other topics. John's part starts around the 60-minute mark and lasts an hour. We hope you enjoy it.

This is the first year when John is not tracking. He turned 81 in April! He still stays very much engaged, dispatching hunters' calls to local handlers and advising hunters on the phone and over email.

Few days after the podcast had been aired we received this email from a hunter:

I was fortunate enough to have been able to listen to Wired to Hunt Podcast #124 with John’s infinite wisdom filling the hour.  I wanted to express my thanks for opening my eyes to the “let it lay overnight” theory.  I let a buck I hit in the shoulder lay overnight when I knew he was close by last year.  To keep a long story short, I ultimately saw him dragging his front leg (shattered at the shoulder) by a camera then out of my life that next morning.  I believe I would have continued pushing him had I learned this information earlier, and definitely would have done nothing but increase my odds of harvesting the animal. I know he died in a very thick, impassible portion of my property.  I never recovered the animal, and think about it very often.  With this new found knowledge I gained from a short listen to John, I firmly believe I will in the future have a much better chance of finding a deer in various situations, as well as be much more inclined to contact someone with a tracking dog to assist me in the harvesting of the animal.

I know that was a lot of rambling, but I wanted to say THANKS!

"Old Deer Tracker" John Jeanneney: Happy 81st Birthday!

Today is John's 81st Birthday and I thought it would be interesting and fun to look back at the 81st year of his life. Last year I blogged very little, and many of these events have never been written up.

The picture below shows how John spent April 7, 2015. Paul, his son, and Marilyn came to have a birthday lunch with us, and they put some serious work into cutting down the tree that got damaged due to ice accumulation during previous winter. 

Last year we had two litters of puppies, our W litter and X litter. The W pups (Woody, Waldi, Willette, Wiki, and Willow were born on March 9, and in the picture taken on his birthday, John is holding one of them. The X litter was born on July 26 and produced Xander, Xenos, Xakary, Ximo, Xavier, Xoe, Xola and Xena. This was a lot of work... and fun... and satisfaction.

On April 24 John gave a talk at the Annual meeting of the NADKC (North American Deutsch Kurzhaar Club) in Cobleskill, NY. Dick Aronica thanked him: "Your presentation on the actual practical side of deer recovery was perfect."

One of the highlights of John's year was participation in the Annual Workshop (Formation) given by ACCSQ on May 2-3 in St-Apolllinaire, Quebec. The ACCSQ is Association des Conducteurs de Chiens de Sang, which could be translated as Association of Handlers of Blood Tracking Dogs. John gave a talk at this extremely well organized and attended workshop on  creating a tracking dog/handler team.

On May 8-9 John was at the QDMA (Quality Deer Management Association) National Convention at Louisville, KT, where he gave a well received presentation on blood tracking.

This lead to an article written by Kip Adams, the QDMA Director of Education and Outreach, for Quality Whitetails. Kip said "Thanks for giving such a great presentation at convention.  I took a page of notes so I’d remember your advice and realized I needed to share them with others.  That’s where the article came from and I hope it can help others this fall and beyond."

In July John and Andy Bensing traveled to Ontario, Canada, where they conducted "An Introductory Seminar and Field Workshop about Using Trained Tracking Dogs to Find Wounded Big Game". This was in support of Big Game Blood Trackers of Ontario (BGBTO).

During the summer John spent many hours in his garden (this is something he can't live without)...

... on training dogs...

 ...spending time with friends...

... and working on our grounds (thank you Larry and Cheri!)

We went to some concerts to socialize pups...

and attended Dan and Faith Hardin's wedding.

In July John was interviewed for the Hunting Dog Podcast and this interview "Blood Tracking Big Game with Little Dogs" can accessed HERE.

In September, there was another presentation in Ontario:

When a hunting/tracking season arrived, I had my serious doubts whether John would be able to track. He has been battling multiple health issues over the years, but the Old Man proved me wrong again. He found 6 deer for other hunters and he shot a doe to provide meat for this human and canine family.

This past winter John gave more talks at local churches, which serve "wild game dinners" accompanied by informative presentations on topics related to hunting. His last one was at Bethlehem Community Church in Delmar, NY on March 5, 2016. Four days later he was in the hospital and had a pacemaker inserted.

Nobody ever knows what next year will bring, but it looks like being inactive while getting older is not an option for John. His tracking days are over, and now he admits it himself. I am sure that he will find a way to stay engaged in the field of tracking dogs and will continue to share his knowledge through articles and books. Happy Birthday My Love!

The Bond of Hunters, a story by John Jeanneney

The Bond of Hunters

by John Jeanneney, copyright 1998

 Max was an old wirehaired dachshund  whose gray grizzled coat matched my own head. Neither of us could escape the truth that the hills were getting steeper, but for both of us finding wounded deer for hunters in the fall was the adventure which bound us together and around which we organized our lives.  We jogged regularly, linked by a short leash as we built and measured our strengths for the fall season when we would search once more together on the long leash as blood trackers. On our sedate runs along country roads, I eyed and Max smelled the wildlife in the green fields. The woodchucks, sitting up like sentinels near their dens were one of our diversions from the boredom of the road. We would charge the ramparts of their earthworks, arrive puffing and panting only to find that our quarry had dropped down and out of sight. Max was too big to enter, adrenalines at ebb we would return to the road.  Still, the surge of the  chase assured us that the old team was still alive and ready to take on the next wooly mammoth or great cave bear which blocked our path.

            Near the start of our morning jogs we sometimes stopped in the yard of my neighbor Arnold to stretch stiff muscles. Arnold had complained of an enormous gourmand woodchuck, old and gray as ourselves, but much fatter. This woodchuck was ravaging Arnold's garden and mocking all defensive efforts. Plunge holes were his temporary escape but he never stayed near the lawn and gardens to await serious retaliations. His favorite tactical retreat was through a  culvert under the road and into the  wide green field beyond.

            Max and I were returning from one of our three mile loops past the green field approaching Arnold's and there was the gourmand chuck, huge and self-satisfied. I held Max up so that he could see above the wall of unmowed grass at the road's edge and then unsnapped the leash. We launched our charge and sped the fifty yards. Sped? Well, anyway we scrambled just as fast as we could, two old boys as carnivores converging, the fat prey fleeing....all in slow motion...so slow, so desperate...straining, the distance closing, closing... flat out. We had him! Right at the edge of the woods, a faltering stride from his den under the old maple. Max grabbed first and rolled him. I took the tail hold, quickly swung our prey in hard orbit to the tree. It was over.

  I thought for both of us of good lives, well-lived and of quick death. 

    John with Max and one of many deer that they have recovered.

Start tracking wounded deer at the hit site

By John Jeanneney

After a stretch of calls where we could not catch up to the deer, our luck has changed. Tommy and I have had three challenging finds in a row. Our find this morning confirms an important principle. Start at the hit site.

The 10 point buck was gut shot, and Dan, the hunter, had done an amazing job of tracking it a good quarter mile on very sparse blood. Finally he ran out any blood and backed off.  Dan didn't want Tommy and me to come and track at night in that god-awful swamp of bush and briars, so we scheduled the search for the following day. When we started, the scent line was 26 hours old.

Now the easy and attractive option would have been to avoid a quarter mile of brush and brambles by beginning at the point of loss. We could have driven right to it. But my 40 years of experience told me to begin at the hit site.  Then Tommy would gain a clear recognition of the buck's individual scent, while we had a few drops of blood to confirm that we were on the right line.

It took us about 40 minutes to work over the line tracked by Dan. It had taken Dan several hours. It was slow going in the thick stuff. When we finally came to the well-marked point of loss, there seemed to be no scent left. Tommy worked for 15 minutes through the deadfalls before he became positive on a scent line. He never would have been able to recognize and pick up this line, after that long check, if he hadn't memorized the scent over that first quarter mile.

We moved on wondering whether Tommy really had it. Then Dan found a drop of blood, and a few moments later Tommy found the buck, dead. Trust your dog! And start at the hit site.

John Jeanneney, a passionate tracker, recovers another wounded deer with his dachshund Tommy

John turned 80 years old in April, and I did not anticipate that he would be tracking this season. I should have known better! It seems that I tend to underestimate his drive and passion for tracking wounded game as this is what he lives for. The story was written by him and describes the track that ended with his 4th deer recovered this year. It was also his 302nd recovery through lifetime.

Brambles and grapevines are a great mix to keep an old man agile and active. The necessary dodging, ducking and crouching does more good than any workout at the gym. Each call I take is tougher than the last, but my legs get stronger to meet the challenge.

The call I took on Tuesday, November 11, taught me a few things. It was a big bow-shot buck, hit “too far back" at 8 AM. The hunter and his buddies had tracked it about a half mile. Then the blood sign ran out, and I was called in at 2:30 PM. There was plenty of scent, and it was no problem for Tommy to start and follow. After only a hundred yards we jumped the buck, and he made a tight circle in a thick swamp with a deep creek flowing through it. When you get wet, you stay cool.

And I was happy to see that the buck was staying close in thick stuff. He won't go far, I thought. Ha! After that tight loop, he lined out through the briars for over a mile. The creek meandered back and forth so that we could cool off several times. The steep clay slopes had me on my hands and knees coming out. I envied Tommy's four legs and claws.

We crossed a harvested corn field. ...no blood, but I could see the big splayed hoof prints on into a stretch of open hardwoods. Much easier going. Then we found a bed with a few smears of blood. But the buck was gone, and we tracked after him as fast as we could go, which wasn't very fast.

Now it was getting dark. The hunter and I agreed that we wouldn't catch up any time soon, and we had no lights with us. I marked the scent line as it came out of another creek, and we slopped our way out to a road where we were picked up.

Our plan was to pick up the line the next morning and track to the buck that should be dead or very weak. That was the plan, but what are plans in the passion of the hunt?

The next morning, as I was getting ready to leave for the track, the hunter called. He hadn’t been able to sleep, and he had worried about the coyotes. At 1:30 AM he had gone back to my marker and searched ahead for a 100 yards. There was the 10 point buck, dead.

Because I tracked it 1 1/2 miles without blood, I'm claiming it as a find for Tommy. But Tommy never got a chew.

This was John's 4th recovery this year and 302nd lifetime.

The other two pictures show deer recovered by John and Tommy in October.

The 2nd edition of Tracking Dogs for Finding Wounded Deer is out of print

Sorry for a long break from the blog but we had a serious snow storm a week ago or so and ended up without cable for five days. Now everything is back to normal, except for the amount of snow we have to deal with (around 20 inches or so). Anyway, in this post it is not the weather I would like to write about.

The second edition of Tracking Dogs for Finding Wounded Deer by John Jeanneney is sold out and now out of print. I know, this is not a very convenient timing as there is always a rush of orders around Christmas time. The fact is that a new, updated third edition should be out in late winter or in spring. It will have all the information from the second edition plus a lot of new info on dog training. Quite a few topics will be updated. If you need this book, you should wait.

Since now the supply and demand for the book are completely out of whack, online book dealers operating through amazon.com and ebay sell second hand copies for $400-800. Don't be a fool and don't buy it at this price. Just wait. In the meantime read articles on the www.unitedbloodtrackers.org and search this blog for topics of your interest. A lot of info is available online free of charge!