by Darren Doran
This April Theo turned four years old and is developing into
a solid tracking dog. We had somewhat of a disappointing tracking season last
year as the call volume just wasn’t there. I really only got a few calls that I
would consider difficult enough to test Theo’s current tracking ability. With
that in mind this spring I decided I would really push Theo hard to see where
he really is in his development.
My first line was a 800 yd, 24 hour old tracking shoe line
with about 1 oz of blood used. He ran this in about twenty minutes and it was
obvious that this was too easy.
My next line was a
880 yd, 40 hour old tracking shoe line with no blood. Again Theo ran this
with no problem.
My third line was a 700 yd 72 hour old tracking shoe line
with no blood. Part of this line went through a controlled burn area in the
woods that was done three days before I placed the line. Theo made one mistake
when he left the line on a turn to follow only what I imagine was fresher deer
scent. I gave him the opportunity to correct himself but he didn’t. Also his
body language was such that if the line wasn’t marked I would have followed
him. The second spot that slowed him up was the burn. He really had to pick his
way through this. Even though he had a mistake and got slowed up it only took
40 minutes to finish.
So far my training with him had been excellent. So I decided
for my next line I would try to make it as close to a real hunting track as I
could. In New Jersey you are allowed to bait deer and most of my tracks start
in a bait pile. I have a spot in a natural county park which holds a lot of
un-hunted deer. I train here frequently and I decided that I would pack bait
into the park in two spots. After the deer started feeding there I would start
a training line in one bait pile and track through the second about 300 yds
before the line ended. In about two weeks I had the deer cleaning up about 25
lbs of corn every two days or so. I had a trail camera out at what was going to
be my hit site and pictures confirmed that deer were there regularly and at any
time of day, but mornings and evenings were the best just like in hunting
season. I also had raccoons visiting the corn at night as well.
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| Deer visiting the bait |
I decided that Friday after work I would pack in another 25
lbs of corn and the materials needed to make the training line. I dumped the
corn and put on my tracking shoes. This line was going to mimic a bow shot deer
from a high tree stand with a pass-through the liver and gut. I brought an old
half of an arrow and put it in a plastic bag and poured blood on it and let the
fletch soak it up. I put a wad of hair in the hit site and dropped in the
arrow. I was going to walk out of the hit site for 30 yds put down a small
squirt of blood every third time my right foot hit the ground. After the 30 yd mark
there would be no more blood on the line. I tried to walk out so that I wasn’t
on a deer run but there were tracks everywhere. I wanted to make it as evident
as possible that Theo was taking the line and not just any deer leaving the
bait.
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| Getting ready to lay the track |
One thing I want to mention is that all my training
materials used on a training track come from the same deer. The feet, blood,
hair, and skin and not only that I only use materials that come from a deer
that has been shot and run before it dies. I don’t use road kills or deer that
die instantly from a gunshot.
I believe a deer that has been shot and is going to die
smells different to a dog or predator than a healthy one. I see a difference in
my dogs tracking style on a deer that we get as opposed to one that is high
back or shoulder hit. I want my training lines to be as close to real thing as
possible.
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| Shed buck in the bait 1.5 hour before the start |
The line ended up being about 900 yds. It started in a creek
bottom and went through various terrain to include saplings, a gas line
crossing, brush, mature forest and finally across a power line.
The second distraction was located in the mature forest in a
clear area amongst a bunch of blow downs. This was about 300 yds from the end
of the line. Again I left the distraction in a way that was not being used by
the deer so I could tell if Theo was tracking the line correctly. I also lost
one of the hoofs from the tracking shoe in this area and didn’t realize it
until I was finished.
We started the track on Sunday morning at 9:15 am it was 34
degrees and 40 hrs after the line was put down. Also we had a steady rain most
of Saturday. This was going to about as close to a real track as I could get.
The trail camera had pictures of deer up to an hour and a half before we got
there.
I started Theo at the hair and arrow. The rain had washed
all the blood off the arrow but I was sure the fletch still held some scent.
Theo started too quick and really didn’t lock onto the hair or arrow. He was
all over almost instantly. The amount of fresh and old scent there must have
been intense.
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| Working the hit site. |
As with most of my hunting tracks, I had a direction of
travel the deer took from the hit site. I didn’t let Theo take any of the deer
runs for any length of time. He crossed over the line a couple of times and
didn’t acknowledge it. I was beginning to think that this was just too hard. I
restarted him three times and made him smell the hair and arrow each time. The
second restart he had part of it but pulled off. On the third restart he ran
right down the line to the spot I picked him up at the second time, made a
correction and started tracking the line. He had it! We spent over 15 minutes
at the hit site and by him settling down recognizing the proper scent and
ignoring the hot scent we were finally making progress.
We tracked out of the bottom, through the saplings, across
the gas line, into the brush and finally to the mature forest without any real
problem. He located the wound bed in the forest and I gave him a meat reward.
Theo was now heading for the second distraction. When he got into the blow
downs and other scent he started searching. He found the dropped hoof and I
made a mistake here. I rewarded him with some meat, and I think he thought the
track was over.
I was encouraging him to track and he kept going to where the
hoof was laying and smelling and digging in the dirt. I imagine that there was
a lot of scent there as the hoof laid there for 40 hrs and was rained on for a
day. I finally got him going, and he was now tracking only 1 hoof . We went up
through the hardwoods and turned towards the power line. He tracked to the power
line and out into it. He was searching around and moving side to side in an arc
moving in a forward motion. The skin was just inside the edge on the far side.
I wasn’t sure and I didn’t think he really had it but at one point he was
heading right for the tree that the skin was behind. I dropped the lead
expecting him to find the skin at the tree but he passed on the upwind side and
went right past it and into the next woods. He continued on and I called him
back and was going to do a controlled search on the power line. On his way back
he air scented the hide and went right to it.
This line took 55 minutes total and 17 minutes at the hit
site and maybe 5 minutes at the second distraction. Once he locked on to the
right scent he had no problem finishing this line.
Theo has a very good nose
but he also has great mental ability on a track. Put those two things together
and you get a very honest tracking dog that gets the job done without a lot of
mistakes or very little help from me.
I couldn’t be happier with our training so far and I’m
already looking forward to the next tracking season.
