Blog on training a young Bavarian Montain Hound

A week ago we received e-mail from Peter Cheeseman who has a blog documenting the blood tracking training of his young Bavarian Mountain Hound Heidi.
 
Hi John and Jolanta
I regularly check out you web and blog site with great interest, and must commend you on all the time and effort that you put into it. It is a great source of information for anyone, wherever they are in the world. Congratulations.

I live in the UK, and in May of this year took on a Bavarian Mountain Hound pup, Heidi. Coming from a background where I have trained trained and used gun dogs in the past I am keen to get her training right, (to do her justice more than anything else). The problem I found here is that there is a lot of information about training to track for the slightly mature dog, but not so much from a few weeks old, through their first year. Therefore I decided that I would put down all my training notes on a blog, mainly for my my own record, but if others want to see, they are obviously welcome.

If you feel that you would like to check it out please do: yabanjinpeter.blogspot.com  Its not very professional, and there's a lot there, so don't get bored. If you have any comments I would greatly welcome them, not so much on the site, but the training.

By the way I've just ordered your new book from Amazon, and am looking forward to reading it as soon as it arrives. Please keep up the good work, you are both invaluable.
Kind Regards

Peter Cheeseman

Hi Peter,
Thank you for your kind words. We have been away for a week and trying to catch up with all the correspondence. I took a look at your blog and it does have a lot of information. I wish I had more time to spend there. When do you think you will have her on a "real thing"? This will help with her motivation even though as you pointed out she loves to track even though she is not that interested in the find at the end of track. I am looking forward to your future posts!

Schweiss-UK: new blood tracking club in UK

Last week we got a nice e-mail from Steve Faulkner announcing formation of a new blood tracking club in UK. The club's name is Schweiss-UK and its website is located at http://schweiss-uk.org/.

The club is set up as a non profit organization, and is aiming at offering training workshops priced at an afforadable rate. Apparently this effort met some resistance from professional handlers and their associations, which offer training courses at a much higher price.

We will follow the growth of the club with great interest. Good luck to leaders of this project, especially Mark Montgomery and Steve Faulkner.

Pictures from the field

First there is a picture sent by Pete Garraway from the UK. It shows Mintaka (Bavarian Mountain Hound) with a gold medal roe buck she tracked. It was a hot scent and the buck hadn't travelled far. But even working a hound on the easy short hot tracks is more enjoyable than the shooting of a good buck.

Below is a wirehaired dachshund Dita, an Alfi/Elli daughter, with a piebald deer she tracked.

And this is Pepper Berger Von Arno Yergz who is expecting puppies any day now.

The picture below shows Desna (Blue Hill Ashley), a Billy daughter, owned by Amanda. According to Amanada "desna has done amazing this year. She's tracked 5 deer and done great. My husband and my cousin were hunting together and my cousin Mat shot a deer right before dusk; he shot it in the hind quarters with a bow. He was having trouble finding blood. My husband called me to bring Desna up to where they were. We got there and started her on the line, she was following it strongly with me and Mat in tow, now finding the blood that Desna was following. She stopped and locked up, and started to act strange. She had come upon the deer still alive, and they could not get a clear shot at it to put it down. The deer continued for about another 1/2 mile (this being after we had already gone about 1/4 mile tracking the deer) finally they came on it and had a clear shot to put the deer down. But she did so great.

With her training, she seems to know the difference between the "training lines" vs. "real lines". She doesn't work as hard on the training lines and isn't as excited as when I tell her we are going to find a real deer.

Personality wise I couldn't ask for a better animal, she is the greatest companion I could have ever asked for. Too smart for her own good!

Tracking with Bavarian Mountain Hounds in UK

We received a nice e-mail from Peter C. Garraway, who is a member of the Bavarian Mountain Hound Society of Great Britain and United Blood Trackers. He says:

"Dear John & Jolanta,
I thought I must let you know how I have enjoyed the 'blog' page on your website.

Some really interesting articles. Since we have started the Bavarian Mountain Hound Society of G.B. it has brought a lot of attention to tracking wounded beasts, and more & more people are wanting a dog for the job. How many of the new owners of prospective blood tracking hounds put in the time to train their k9 friend, time will tell. Most people wanting a dog want it for their own purposes, i.e to put the dog straight on the track or in very short time."


Peter submitted a picture of his two Bavarians, Mintaka and Wallace, with a Muntjac buck, shot by his friend L. Stennett. This track was a 14 hours old, buck was gut shot.

Muntjac deer is also callled barking deer because of its unusual vocalisation. The species was first introduced from China to Woburn Park in Bedfordshire in the early 20th century, and now it is quite common throughout UK. Bucks reach no more than 40 lbs. A good intro information on Muntjac deer can be accessed at The British Deer Society website at http://www.bds.org.uk/muntjac.html