A deer tracking dog's first week in October

By Dr. Bernd Blossey

Associate Professor
Department of Natural Resources
Cornell University, Ithaca, NY

The making of a team

I have been bow hunting in New York (and occasionally elsewhere) for over 20 years.  Over this time, I have gone from taking a few deer to dozens each year.  This is explained, in part, by the fact that I have been involved with implementing and executing suburban deer management programs using archery equipment in the Ithaca, NY area.  These often involve Deer Depredation Permits (colloquially called nuisance permits) that allow shooting outside of regular hunting seasons, over bait, and at night with the help of artificial lights.  The goal is to reduce deer populations that are threatening crops or forest regeneration, and other species.  My season currently stretches over 6 months, typically from late September to the end of March.  Having a slight red-green blindness (I can see individual colors just fine, but when red and green dots are interspersed, I am unable to pick up the red), following blood trails is not an easy task for me since blood drops do not “light up” as they do for others.  Consequently, I have honed my skills over the years due to patience, slow approaches, reading signs like hoof prints, and asking for help from others (my wife Vicki and other landowners included).  This has helped greatly but I also had my fair share of grid searches and long hours after dark, or the next morning to locate deer.  And not always have they been successful, particularly not in tall goldenrods or cattail swamps, or dense thickets of honeysuckle, privet, buckthorn and multiflora rose that are common in suburban areas.  Sometimes it was the vultures that needed to tell me where I walked by a dead deer at 5 or 10 yards, or I found only bones the next morning as bears, coyotes, bobcats and foxes have helped themselves to a welcome late dinner.

               Over the years I called in and observed several dachshunds do their tracking searches and I had become more and more interested in developing this approach for myself, and in helping other hunters.  It seemed the right thing to do, but there was a lot of homework that needed to be done, including convincing my wife that a dog in the house and in the family would be a good idea.  It took several years of reading and background work, and some planning for the right time to train a puppy before this last year finally saw it all come together.  I had settled on obtaining a Deutsch Drahthaar (a Schwarzschimmel) because I had fallen in love with the breed after seeing a six-month old “trainee” at the Rhode Island airport.  I wanted a medium sized dog, and a versatile hunting dog, although I rarely, if ever, venture out for upland or waterfowl hunting.  But I am an ecologist and conservationist in my professional life and I wanted to maintain a potential option for the dog to be trained as a conservation dog in finding rare critters, scat or even plants. 

Having grown up in Germany I pursued options to obtain a puppy both in the US and in Germany, where I worked with a breed warden.  And this connection paid off when a breeder had a litter of 10 puppies born on New Years Eve, eight of which were Schwarzschimmel, with a good blood tracking pedigree and other physical features my wife and I were favoring.  We picked up Sylvie (the name is an inspirational combination of the date, known as Sylvester in Germany and over much of Europe in honor of an early pope, and the Latin Sylva for forest where the dog will spend a major portion of her time) in late February, spent a week with relatives to help socialize her, and then returned in early March with her in the cabin to New York.  And I have been training her ever since through late spring, summer, and fall on artificial lines, always looking forward to the start of the season.  It did not always go as desired, she failed miserably on her first overnight track, and the hot and dry summer of 2016 made tracking conditions difficult.  But she always was eager to work and dog and handler are trying to learn each other’s approaches.  Most of the time I try to slow her down as speed appears to be the enemy number one when she overshoots and then loses the track.  But she has learned to circle back and around to pick up where she lost the trail.  Over this time she has grown from an adorable little puppy to nearly her full size as a 10 month old teenager.

  

The first call

One of the recommendations is to have practice runs for dog apprentices, i.e having the dog find a dead deer, even if a dog is not necessary.  Just for good practice on the real thing.  But the first call that came in on October 3^rd was the real thing.  A hunter had shot a deer in a suburban area surrounded by houses, lawns and roads.  There was a reasonable blood trail that the hunter was able to follow for maybe 200 yards to two large blotches of blood and then nothing.  After not being able to find any more blood that evening the hunter backed out.  I took the tracking opportunity after the report of a high hit but out of a treestand with a downward trajectory, and good lung blood on the arrow.  We started the track in the early afternoon, some 15 hours after the hit.  Sylvie took right to the track, and she was much slower and more deliberate than on the artificial tracks, something I immediately noticed.  My artificial lines may have been too easy, even though I thought I was making it more and more difficult.  The area of brush and woods was crisscrossed by deer trails but Sylvie followed the trail down the path the hunter had marked to the spot with the abundant blood and then further towards the edge of the woods ending on a lawn.  She lost the track twice during this time, but only briefly and circled right back without me needing to correct her.  But at the edge of the lawn she was unsure and then appeared to follow other interesting scents.  I walked her back around in the thicket and we started over, all the while discussing with the hunter what could have happened.  The second path was almost identical to the first, without her getting lost, and we ended up at the same spot.

               We decided to follow the edge of the woods, look into some hedgerows, go across two of the roads that separated the piece of woods where the hit occurred from a larger forested area and allow Sylvie to see if she could pick up the scent trail once again.  She picked up all kinds of interesting scents, apparently, but we never found another sign of the deer or any blood.  We returned to the pocket of woods, made another circle through it in hope the deer may not have left the woods if mortally wounded but ended up tired and without the deer.  After further discussing the hit once more, it was my opinion that the hunter likely hit too high to get a double lung, and that the big blotches of blood were not from the deer bleeding out of both sides but probably standing in the same spot, bleeding out of his nose with his head lowered until the hunter following the track pushed him out.  I thought this deer may still be alive, since these are amazing and resilient animals.  The hunter had a trail camera in the woods and 4 days later the buck he shot walked by the camera with the entry wound clearly visible.  The entry wound is too high to have hit lung on the deer’s left side and on the right side the broadhead probably hit one of the small back lung lobes, not sufficient for a mortal hit.  This made me feel much better about the tracking job Sylvie did.  Who knows if an experienced dog would have been able to follow the track across the hard surfaces, and it would have ended at a live deer. 

  

Three in a row

The next weekend came quickly and with it another practice opportunity, this time in a suburban community shooting over bait.  As for the previous weekend, the agreement was that if one of us would shoot a deer, we would allow Sylvie to find it for good practice.  Little did we know that she would get both an easy practice and then two real searches.  I was able to shoot a fawn coming to bait and it ran 40 yards and collapsed (see yellow arrow in picture below showing bait and the dead deer next to the tree in the background).  After waiting for dark and the potential for another shot, I put Sylvie on the track.  I was not able to locate the arrow in the dense grass after the pass through, so I was not entirely sure of the exact hit location.  Sylvie was clearly confused by all the hot deer scent coming and going to bait and she was eager to investigate it.  I allowed Sylvie to find the arrow and once she had it she picked up the trail and we were at the dead fawn in no time.  It was interesting to see her investigate the deer with caution – this was, after all, the first real deer she found. She walked around it investigating the wound and the leg glands and the muzzle. It looked as if she was not quite sure what to make of it.  At home, the end of a line was usually some old piece of deer hide, so this was different.  But she eagerly consumed the deer treats that I had brought for her.

               So far so good – good practice! Let’s call it a night I thought.  But not so fast.  One of my fellow hunters had shot two deer, neither one of which he was able to locate. So we went to the next property, just about a mile away.  The hunter had located one of the arrows but not the second.  I determined that there was clear sign of gut on the arrow and the description of the deer behavior after the hit (jumped up and then slowly walking off) suggested a potential hit of the liver as well.  It was about 2.5 hours after the hunter shot this deer, so I decided to track the second animal first to give the gut shot animal more time.  The location was in a small cattail swamp, surrounded by old fields, gardens and lawns. Sylvie picked up a trail, but the hunter indicated to me that the deer took a different path, so I called her off after 10 yards. I should have known better, but I am an apprentice, as is my dog, in learning the skills of collaborating with each other.  So off we went on a wild ride through brush, thickets, trash and myriad deer trails criss-crossing the area.  I could tell after a while that Sylvie was not on the track but I allowed her to search for about 20 minutes before calling it off and returning to the site of the hit. 

I then decided to track the gut shot deer.  After allowing Sylvie to sniff the arrow she slowly followed this deer track through the cattails, over a lawn, back into a hedgerow, out onto a lawn and then towards two houses.  This time I trusted the dog, although I was surprised about the travel directions.  Knowing that it was only about 3 hours after the gut shut, I constantly checked into the distance to see if I could locate a deer, potentially still alive.  There was no possibility for me to return to the location the next morning so this was the best option. Sure enough after about 200 yards of tracking I saw the eyes of the deer about 60 yards away right next to the house looking at us.  It had bedded down next to a compost pile.  We immediately backed out, praised Sylvie and left the area.  There was no possibility for a follow-up shot given the deer’s location.  I advised the hunter to pick up the deer in the morning as it would likely be in the same spot, or only slightly away.  This he did and the deer had not moved and it died right there.  Without Sylvie, we would have never ventured toward the two houses and into a wide open area.

Then it was back to the first track.  This time I said I trust the dog and Sylvie went onto the same path that she took the first time.  We did not make it beyond 50 yards after coming out of the cattail swamp.  There the button buck had collapsed.  A happy hunter and a happy handler – probably a happy dog as well as there was half a deer heart as reward.  An easy practice session was anticipated, and that she got with the first deer I shot and then 2 real ones, all in the same night. 

Sometimes it is not the distance that counts

A few days later I took out one of my students to observe a hunt.  I went to one of my favorite places that has been incredibly productive over the years, but it is also the place where the brush “eats” the dead deer.  I had lost numerous deer that I thought were perfect hits in the brushy wetlands and I have spent countless hours with the landowner in the dark, or during the day trying our luck on grid searches.  Often we were successful, but occasionally we were not.  A big motivation to obtain and train Sylvie.  This evening turned out to be just like so many others but with a much better final outcome.  So we got into the tree overlooking bait for the first outing of the season at this location with Sylvie patiently awaiting her time in the car.  A button buck approached the bait soon thereafter and a 25 yard shot killed him after a short 40 yard dash. We heard him fall.  An hour later two fawns approached the bait from the same direction and this time my shot hit a doe fawn that made it 30 yards and she fell close to the button buck.  

We continued to wait for another hour in anticipation of deer movement right at dusk or shortly thereafter.  Soon enough, a very cautious doe approached the bait and circled around right after dark.  With a half moon, I could easily spot her.  My shot found its mark, we heard ribs breaking, then a very short mad dash, brush breaking twice indicating a collapsing deer and then silence.  This sounded all perfect.  After waiting 20 minutes we climbed out of the tree and located the first two arrows.  I got Sylvie and put her on the first deer.  She was so excited to be out of the car and with all the scent around (we had seen a grey fox, a raccoon and plenty squirrels) that she ventured off track immediately.  After I calmed her down and she found the track, she took a very short time to walk up to the button buck, not paying any attention to the second deer that was just 5 yards away from the track she followed.  Good practice success and time for another photo opportunity with a proud handler and his dog. 

I decided to forgo tracking the 2^nd deer since it was laying just right there and the track would have been 25 yards.  It did not seem worthwhile and there was one more deer to track – an easy practice track I thought given what we had heard. Little did I know what this turned out to be.  We found the arrow and blood on the grass and goldenrod and Sylvie took up the track.  She got into very thick honeysuckles and walked around some brush trying to get through the thickest parts but was unable to do so.  We tried to see what she was trying to get to but other than some trash we could not see anything in the dark. So I called her out of it (I should have walked her around more, but that is with hindsight) and allowed her to follow whatever she thought was right.  I tried putting her onto the same trail 3 times and she always followed the same path for about 20 yards and then veered off to the left. 

I was getting confused and worried about what went down with the deer.  All indications were that it was a good hit, maybe a slight bit low, but the crashing indicated that there was a dead deer very close to where it got shot. But we could not locate the deer after almost 2 hours of searching and allowing Sylvie to explore close to the hit locations and way beyond.  I finally called it a night, rather disappointed and questioning myself and the shot location, my interpretation of the sounds of and after the hit, and Sylvie’s ability to track this deer.  But I had two deer to process and occasionally such things happen.  I thought with the help of a dog this would be kept to a minimum, but I also recognized that even with a good and experienced dog, not all deer are found.

The next morning, while taking Sylvie on our usual morning walk, I could not get this deer and the scenario out of my head. I felt I owed it the deer and myself to go back and check one more time during daylight. I also decided to allow Sylvie another crack at it after a good night’s sleep, and some early exercise.  So off we went.  When I put her onto the track, she did the same as every time the night before: 20 yards through tall grass and goldenrod, then veering to the left and then clearly getting lost in other scents.  I decided to just break through the dense brush, following deer trails, following the sounds of a group of crows calling from their perch 100 yards away, basically doing nearly a grid search with my dog.  Nothing materialized, other than stumbling through the brush and getting scratched by multiflora rose.  I made the decision to allow her one last time to follow the trail after having burned off some of the energy over the past hour, and then I would put her into the car and try a real grid search one last time before giving up. 

And this time, for reasons I am not able to explain, it went quite different.  We came onto the track she had followed and for some reason she picked up the scent.  She slowed to nearly a crawl and instead of veering off to the left after getting out of the tall grass, she stayed straight and crawled under a honeysuckle bush overgrown itself by vines.  I could barely see her, but she was investigating something, which turned out to be the dead doe. I have illustrated the path the deer and Sylvie took with the yellow arrows in the 3 pictures below. The total length of path the deer ran with a perfect heart shot was 30 yards, if that far.  The deer had crashed into the brush and lodged itself on its belly so no white was visible. Even as I was standing a few feet away from the deer, I could not see it.  I saw something white, that the sun lit up, which turned out to be white on a hind leg. I only investigated this further because Sylvie was under the bush, quiet, not pulling any longer, clearly having found something.  I had to get onto my belly and crawl into the brush to finally convince myself that she had in fact located the dead doe.  I took a few extra pictures to show how difficult and camouflaged the entire situation was for a hunter without a dog.

Above: Travel direction of heart shot deer from hit locations.  Total length of travel is 30 yards. Pictures are taking consecutively closer to collapsed deer under honeysuckle bush

Above: Deer located under honeysuckle bush, barely visible, if at all.  Yellow arrow indicates sunlight hitting hind leg.

Above: Collapsed doe under honeysuckle bush. Yellow arrow points to head. Picture taken lying on the ground to visualize the deer. 

With the help of Sylvie, and with being persistent, I was able to locate this dead deer.  After a perfect shot, after a mad dash of only 30 yards, this deer eluded 2 people and a dog for many hours. It is not always the distance that the deer are able to travel or the lack of blood.  I would have never been able to see the deer – in a few days we would have smelled it.  We stood a few feet away from it and walked by it many times.  But this time the brush did not “eat” the deer; it went to the venison donation program feeding the hungry as did the two fawns from the night before.  It is satisfying to end this search on such a high note.  It confirms to me the value of having a tracking dog – even if she still gets confused by all the scents at a baited location, or in suburbia. 

To be continued. 

"Track or treat" night: Winnie and Jared's first track in pursuit of a wounded deer

Some tracks are more memorable than others but most likely every handler remembers their very first track. This week we received email from Jared Brueggeman, who got a female pup from our only 2016 litter. Winnie (Yola von Moosbach-Zuzelek) was born on July 3, 2016 so she is just turning 4 months old tomorrow.

My neighbor shot this doe on his land at approximately 5:45 pm Halloween evening. He said he heard the arrow hit but was unable to locate it or any blood at the shot site.  A few hours later Winnie, myself, the hunter and two friends took to the field. We started tracking at 9:15 pm.  It was difficult to locate the first blood as there was none at the hit site that we could see. We tracked for quite a distance.  Some heavy blood fading to some light blood and back to heavy.  After several hundred yards and it was apparent that the deer was still alive as we were finding fresh blood that was not dried like at the beginning of the trail.  We never found a single bed.  We pushed the deer to make her bleed and we ended up through the large block of timber where the deer crossed the road.  We located a few drops on the road and Winnie was anxious to push on. Shortly after crossing the road Winnie came upon her first real deer.  The deer was dead and Winnie realized what she has been training  to do. She went right over and started licking the blood and eventually she latched right on and was biting the deer with all she had. She showed no possessiveness as last night I think Winnie realized that we are working as a team.  All of the other people and the lights in the woods were a distraction at times as this was only her second time in the woods at night, once on an artificial line and then this actual call. I would reassure her with a calm tone that she needs “find the deer” and she was back to tracking. We recovered the deer at 11:28 pm. The deer was shot quartering away hitting the gut, liver and a single lung. There was an entrance and exit wound, however, the arrow was still in the deer. She had not been dead long as there were still bubbles coming out of the exit hole near the lungs. The track totaled just about a mile in distance. The Halloween deer that Winnie found will be one I will never forget. Winnie did get on Halloween a little treat of her own, a few slices of fresh deer heart.

On the track there were a few times where I needed to reset Winnie on the last blood found and then she was back on track. She persevered and did great. I was very proud of her as you know she is not even 4 months old yet! I am on cloud nine right now and I have the itch to get back out there and let the sniff hound go find another!  Thanks for being a part of all of this. 

Sincerely, your friend and now fellow tracker,

Jared Brueggeman

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

Mossy's first real track of wounded deer was quite an adventure

Jolanta and John,

Just a short note to let you know what a great morning it was for Mossy Brooke and myself.  A doe was shot on the plantation yet we could find no blood--knowing that the deer had taken a chest shot.   Mossy had her tracking collar on, so after looking for blood for 15 to 20 minutes to no avail, I told Mossy that there was a dead deer and to look for blood.  She hunted diligently in the areas I asked her to look--and suddenly, she caught a scent that she really liked.  She started through the woods with me behind her.  Approximately 200 yards into the woods, I saw a deer 100 yards in front of Mossy run through the woods.  Mossy saw it also and started running and barking.  I thought to myself, this is exactly what John said to make sure did not happen.  I heard Mossy barking, but could not see her and assumed she was in hot pursuit of the live deer.  I looked at my GPS Tracker and saw that Mossy had Treed Quarry 100 yards in front of me.  I made my way to her and guess what--Mossy had found her first DEAD DEER.  She was barking continuously at it--she and I celebrated, and within 15 minutes the DEAD DEER had become MOSSY'S DEER.  She lay beside it and guarded it until Craig could there to help us drag it out of the woods.  She rode with us to the deer processor who lives 1/4 of mile up the road from the plantation.  She was introduced to everyone there and they immediately wanted to know if she was taking Bear's place as the deer tracker--as she was wearing her tracking collar.  Bear was known throughout the area as the little dog who could find anyone's wounded deer.  Mossy has big steps to fill, but after today's excursion, there is no doubt she will make both Bear and me proud.

Thanks Jolanta and John for this great addition to our family.  Mossy is the most loving little soul and will become known as the little dog that finds wounded deer. 

Thanks So Much,

Judy and Craig

Judy and Mossy with the deer she found

Should you always trust your dog?

Big game tracking season is in a full swing now, and one of the messages shared by many dog handlers is "Trust Your Dog". When a dog is experienced and earned your trust by all means - trust her. But when you have a young dog, without much experience in natural tracking, be careful! It is very important how you handle your dog. This short story illustrates my point of view. Hoss is just six and a half month old, and this is his first tracking season. He came from Bernard Demers' litter, and he is owned by Nathaniel Newman from Ohio. Nathaniel have put a lot of training into Hoss during summer, and this is what happened recently.

John/Jolanta,

Good afternoon.  My pup Hoss and I had a good Saturday morning as we received a call from a muzzleloader hunter.  The hunter reported over the phone a 15 yard broad side shot with a ton of blood at the hit site.  After arriving at the hit site the shot turned out to be more of a 30 yard shot at a quartering deer with a decent amount of blood at the hit site with no other visible blood anywhere.  I got Hoss on the hit site and gave him the command to begin tracking. He started out and appeared very confident even though we could not find any visible sign.  He led us to a dry creek bed that contained a tremendous amount of deer sign/traffic, we followed this for about 15 yards and then I could tell he lost the track.  

Since there was no sign to confirm he was ever on the right cold track I took him back to the original hit site about 60 yards away.  He went right back on the same track he initially followed, but this time I slowed him down tremendously in hopes we both would not miss anything.  I ended up locating 3 drops of blood about the size of a pencil eraser over a span of about 50 yards which made me very excited to know he was on it.  We ended up back at the dry creek bed but this time he very eagerly climbed the bank.  He led us to a nice healthy doe about 15 yards beyond the bank of the creek.  Hoss and I were very excited and he made claim to the deer by tugging at it very aggressively.  After tying up the dog and then examining the deer, we found a high and little far back entry wound with no exit wound, which explained the lack of blood.  The slug was later found in the right rear leg by the hunter during the skinning process.  I am very happy to see my pup reap the rewards of a lot of dedicated training this spring/summer.  We absolutely cannot wait for our next Ohio tracking experience… 

Hoss' first recovery. Restarting him was critical to the final outcome.

Matt and Heidi find their first real deer

As breeders we are always thrilled to hear about first recovery done by a pup out of our breeding. Heidi (Uma von Moosbach-Zuzelek) will be six months old in a week. She is owned by Matt Sacco from Ithaca, NY. Matt is a Deer Search and United Blood Tracker member.

Hey John and Jolanta,

Heidi found her first buck tonight. A friend called me at 5:00 saying he had hit a buck an hour ago and saw the arrow clip a branch. The buck flinched and turned towards him at the last second. He thought he hit just in front of the shoulder and came out behind the opposite shoulder. The deer ran hard for 40 yards and then stopped and stood. It then walked slowly down the edge of a standing corn field away from the hunter. The hunter said the tail was twitching rapidly and thought the deer was staggering but never saw it fall. He found his arrow at the hit site and saw what seemed like a decent blood trail, but played it safe and backed out for a few hours. Heidi didn't have any trouble with the track. As we got further down the line we found 5 places where the deer stopped and stood and bled into large puddles. 225 yards later Heidi claimed her prize. Turns out the deer was hit in the neck and the arrow exited through the opposite armpit.

Heidi is an awesome dog and everyone that meets her says "what kind of dog is that?" Or "she is so cute and so well behaved". All of my coworkers love her and family members are all crazy about her. She has changed our life style for the better and She has taught me so much. You guys picked the perfect dog for us. Thank you so much for everything. 

 

Introducing a new deer tracking team from Florida

Paul Ohmer has just joined United Blood Trackers and he wrote:

I have attached a photo of "Jack",  a five-month-old beagle/bloodhound mix, with his first deer. This was a paunch shot bow season deer that was shot at 8:30 am and I got a call from my brother in law at about 2:30 asking if I could bring my pup to help find the deer. I loaded up and got to the hunting camp about 3:45 and drove to the shot site and put Jack on the ground around 4:30, and the pup took right to the trail. This shot left no blood at all, just a little clear fluid now and then, and the pup was trailing in a palmetto thicket with nasty undergrowth that was about 4 ft tall. Jack could not see at all due to the terrain and his size. The pup did a perfect job of keeping his head up to avoid the sharp palmettos leaves and trailed this deer to its final bed in a quick 30 minutes. The deer was recovered and loaded in the truck by 5:30. Very happy with the pup's first tough recovery call. Thank you to John J's great book on training tracking dogs and the resource that UBT provides to us all. 
To see contact info for Paul click here.



Paul Ohmer with Jack and his first deer.

A four-moth-old dachshund "Mongo" (aka Urho) recovers his first "real" mule buck

Urho von Moosbach-Zuzelek, a puppy from our "U" litter that was born on May 10, is owned by John Sakelaris who works at Vermejo Park Ranch in New Mexico. John has two sons and they call the pup "Mongo". On September 5 I received a very exciting message that Mongo was successful the first time out and recovered a very nice mule buck for the hunter in the picture. We could not be happier to hear the news. Congratulations to Mongo, Perry and John!

Perry with his pup Mongo.

First recovery for Dachs, Walt Dixon's three month old dachshund puppy

Today I got back today from my trip to Maryland, which turned out to be very successful. Both Sky von Moosbach-Zuzelek and Mielikki Raptor finished their field championships. Sky was also Best in Zuchtschau and Mielikki was Absolute Winner of the trial on Sunday. There is much to report, and I hope to be able to do it tomorrow.

 

Tonight I'd like to start catching up with all the blood tracking stories and reports. I'll start with the e-mail that came several days ago from Walt Dixon, a member of Deer Search and United Blood Trackers, who lives in Tully, NY. Recently Walt acquired a new puppy, Dachs, from Beth and Genti Shero. The pup is out of Mae and our Billy.

Walt writes: Last Wednesday I laid a 400 yard plus blood trail with three 90 degree turns and let it age 8 hours. Dachs was able to follow it to completion with a slight correction from me when we encountered very fresh turkey scratchings all over a portion of trail. I was very encouraged!

Today my friend Cy Weichert called about 11am after shooting a doe and feeling he hit it a little too high. He waited a half hour then followed a blood trail 40 yards before the melting snow dissolved the visible blood so he got back in his tree and called me. Cy is co-founder of the hunting weather website "ScoutLook" and a founding member of the website "Whitetail Slam" with a corresponding TV show with Tom Miranda. Cy had a camera man with him and continued to hunt for big bucks until I came to track with Dachs about 11:30.

I thought if I tried Dachs and we couldn't find the deer I would go back and get my seasoned dog Ari. Cy showed me the hit site and arrow stuck on the ground as I started Dachs with his light tracking lead. Much to my surprise the cameraman filming for an upcoming TV show decided to film Dachs attempt to find the deer. Dachs showed good recognition of the trail, licking some blood at the hit site, then continued through the thicket with an occasional drop of visible blood. At the point the hunter had stopped tracking Dachs turned on a trail to the right and the hunter told me he had tracks going straight down the hill. I told him Dachs was interested in something and 30 yards down the trail he was following I saw a drop of blood. I hollered to the hunter I had blood and after trailing a distance Dachs took a left into another thicket where 50 yards in lay the deer!

The total track was maybe 250 yards long but the hunter thought he had a high, maybe one lung hit. The insides of the deer showed a cut on one lung, clipped part of the liver and through the paunch. Dachs had his first recovery!!!

He was a little slow at the actual deer but looked back at me and with encouragement moved in to lick the blood then began to tug on the deer and pull out some hair. After a short while with a lot of congratulating Dachs became more and more possessive of the deer and would growl and move to block my hand from touching the deer. I'll work on that part with him, but to tell you the truth, I was very happy with his dominance at the deer!

What a day for Dachs, a three month old puppy with a great tracking future! It's possible he'll be on the Whitetail Slam TV show in the near future!

Congratulations on Claudia Holohan's first recovery

Ray Holohan from Ashkum, IL, is sharing the news about his wife Claudia's first recovery. Congratulations Claudia - the first deer recovered is always very special. Not sure why Ray wanted YOU to pull out HIS deer ;-) I bet he is going to pay for his comments.

Hi Jolanta, I'm sending you a picture of my wife Claudia's first recovery with Razen Kane (and Razen's 2nd.recovery). I shot a doe in the morning. The shot was a one lung, liver hit without a pass through. The track was four hours old and 3/8 of a mile long in a 40 acre dried swamp overgrown with honeysuckle, briars and locust trees.

There was a minimal amount of blood spaced out 10-20 yards most of the way. I was busy following Claudia and Razen marking the trail with ribbon so we could find our way back to the truck. After finding the deer we went back to the truck and got my other dog Rosco and let him run the track, he did just fine on it also. Claudia and Razen make a good team with both of them getting pretty excited when they found the deer. Although I'm going to have to train Claudia on pulling the deer out as she didn't seem to know how to do that very well even though she tried. All and all it was a good track and training session. Claudia ended up getting lost for a short time while I was trying to find our marking ribbons on the trail. There was a little yelling going on back and forth til I found her. That's nothing new after 42 years of marriage.

Thanks Ray, Claudia, Rosco and Razen

First solo recovery for Claudia Holohan!

Easy natural lines are the best tool for training a young tracking dog: Cliff Shrader and his longhaired dachshund Tasha

Cliff Shrader is a new United Blood Trackers member, and he is has been working with a young standard longhaired dachshund Tasha. Tasha was born on May 27, 2012, in Denmark. He has been updating me about Tasha's training, and I asked him to write about how he got involved in blood tracking, dachshunds and how he went about importing a puppy from Europe. Thank you Cliff!

I was born and raised in South Louisiana. We were a family of duck and deer hunters, and we did our hunting in a swamp called the Atchafalaya Basin (this is the same area where Swamp People is filmed).  We used Walker hounds to run deer and we used Labrador retrievers for duck hunting. If someone had told me that I would grow up to own and love Dachshunds, I would have laughed at them.

I ended up with two dachshunds, Boudreaux and Thibodeaux. They were just pets until I brought home a deer to clean. When I showed the deer to my hounds, they went crazy. Their prey drive was very high, and they didn't want to let me have my deer back. This is when I first thought about Dachshunds as tracking dogs. In the south, people would laugh at you if you said anything about dachshunds being fieldworthy.

 My idea of actually training dachshunds laid dormant for quite a few years. Two years ago, I needed a tracking dog several times to trail wounded deer but there were none around. I pride myself on my tracking abilities but even after long and hard tracks, I lost two deer. Last year I started doing research on tracking dogs. John and you Jolanta had several things that I read and a friend of mine loaned me his book...Tracking Dogs for Finding Wounded Deer.

I contacted Patt Nance after visiting her website. Timing was very good because Patt and Tina Knoll  were just considering breeding Owl to Tina's dog Babe. I was lucky enough to be able to attend an AKC tracking trial that Laura and Tina Knoll were bringing three of the girls to. After that I was hooked. I waited several months for the mating of Babe and Owl to happen. Finally, all the stars were aligned and the mating took place. Unfortunately, it didn't result in a pregnancy. Patt Nance and I spoke several times and she told me of two litters in Europe. It was during this time that my favorite dog Thibodeaux passed away.

Patt Nance contacted several of her friends and they helped me find The Right Dog, not just a dog. I was very fortunate that Lise-Lotte Schultz at Tranevang Kennels in Denmark had a puppy left. Diane Webb of Doxifun and her husband checked out this litter of puppies when they were around four weeks old. She liked what she saw. When it was time, Marie Gadolin administered the Volhard puppy test. Tasha scored mostly 2 and 3s which indicated that she would be a good dog for an experienced trainer. Patt Nance had been studying the possibility of getting a puppy from this litter for herself. She loved the bloodline and Lise-Lotte provided information on all the hounds in that line.

When Patt bought a puppy (Taya) from the litter she was very impressed with her. From everything that I knew, Taya's sister Tasha was the right dog for me. Tasha was shipped from Copenhagen to Chicago on a direct flight. I was nervous as I waited in the rain at the airport. When they brought Tasha out and I saw her peering through the crate, I fell in love.

I have enjoyed getting to know Tasha. Training has been a bonding experience for us. John Jeanneny's book has been my bible. Your blogs and YouTube videos have helped tremendously. I started Tasha out on very short tracks......tracks that she couldn't fail. It only took a few of these and she started to realize what her job was. Tasha started really well in tracking but these were only training tracks, practice tracks...at home tracks. When we headed to Illinois for the season opening week long bow hunting trip I was very hopeful but still unsure of how Tasha would perform in the field.

On Monday it rained almost all day. Monday afternoon, my friend sent me a text that he had shot and killed a 9 point. He had already located the deer but would I like for him to leave it where Tasha could track it. I headed over there as soon as my hunt was over. The deer was shot in a field with a crossbow about 25 yards away.  The arrow struck the deer pretty far back through the guts. The deer ran 40 yards in chest high grass and laid down. After an hour, he approached the deer. The buck stood up and he shot it again. We decided to start the track where he had made the initial shot. Tasha was able to find guts on the vegetation and she found his arrow, something that he had not been able to do. Tasha fumbled around on this track having  problems getting a good read on it. I picked her up and placed her where he had made the second shot. This time she took off bouncing through the tall grass. She ran her track straight to the buck. When she ran upon the buck laying dead in the tall grass it scared her half to death. It took a couple of minutes with me kneeling beside the deer to get her over the initial shock. After this she was fine with it.

Tasha's next track, her first true track was over five hundred yards on another gut shot deer. Most of this track was without any blood. I have never been so impressed with a puppy.

I left Illinois Sunday morning heading home. One hour into the trip, I got a page from my hunting buddy Jerry. Jerry told me that two does were shot and one hit was questionable. I turned around and
headed back. We decided to put Tasha on the questionable shot first. The shot was made at 28 yards with a vortex broad head. The arrow struck the shoulder blade and very little if any penetration was achieved.

We started out on the track and Tasha showed us blood. The blood was bight red and was up on vegetation as well as the ground. The trail was steady and led to a wound bed about 75 yards away. The blood stopped but Tasha never slowed down. We proceeded to track another 100 yards with no blood but Tasha was pulling hard. We came upon something that I never encountered while tracking before...the property line. This neighbor would not allow any tracking upon his land. It was also understood that trespassers will be arrested.

We took Tasha to last blood and she tracked the identical track again. She was on this deer but we had to pull her off the track. I do not think that this deer was mortally wounded but I really wanted the chance to complete this track.

The next track we brought Tasha on was a deer shot at less than 20 yards with a 2 inch cut Grim Reaper head. This track was extremely easy to follow. You could see a wide heavy blood trail for
quite a way. Tasha ran this track as fast as I could go and there was the deer as expected 80 yards away. This may be the easiest track that she will ever get! It is amazing that this deer could travel that far after a shot like that. It was nice to end our week long hunting trip with an easy track like this.
During the week in Illinois Tasha ran six tracks making five recoveries. Tasha was fortunate to have a group of hunters that lent a helping hand in her training. They called us on nearly every shot, both good and bad, even though two of the deer could have been recovered without a dog. The lines were all pretty fresh. The averaged about two hours old with the longest being about 4 hours old.

This is the best on the job training I could every hope for.
  

Cliff with Tasha

First recovery for Razen Kane, a blood tracking dachshund puppy from Illinois

Ray Holohan, a United Blood Trackers member from Ashkum, Illinois, has shared some good news about his puppy Razen Kane. She was bred by Brian Hibbs from Iowa, and sired by Ray's tracking male Rosco.

 

Hi Jolanta, hope all is well and your tracking season going well too. I'm sending a photo of Razen's first recovery. I received a call Sunday afternoon (October 7) from a friend of a friend who knew I was looking for a fairly easy track to put Razen Kane on. She had been on three other tracks that although she had tracked well she was unable to come up with a recovery.

 

This guy had made a pretty good shot on this doe, then gave it some time before trailing. The first 300 yards of the track he said the blood trail looked like someone poured it out of a bucket, the next 200 yards he had pretty steady drops to where it crossed a road and into a high grass waterway. After they entered the waterway the doe jumped up and ran down the field towards the river. At this point they backed out. By time I got there with Razen the track was about 8 hours old. I started her at the road and into the waterway, she went zig zagging and checking her way through. I was unable to see any blood in the waterway until we came out of it and she was on the blood. Then she proceeded down the edge of a bean field, through a cocklebur patch, into a dried creek bed and out of it to where she found the doe. The track was about 200 yards long, she went right up to the deer and started smelling and licking it, then looked at me as she were saying "so this is what a deer looks like". It was a great track for her and she had to work at it. The deer was a heart shot and still managed to go about 800 yards. I helped the guy drag it out and my wife Claudia had a hard time holding Razen back. She knew it was her deer and wanted it.

Take care Ray, Rosco, Razen and Claudia

 

Ray Holohan with Razen Kane and the doe she recovered. It was her first recovery!

 

Six-month-old dachshund Thor gets to track and recover a real wounded deer

The picture of Thor and Bob's son Nate was taken on October 6, when Thor turned six month old.

We have written about Theo owned by Darren Doran from New Jersey. Now it is time to report on his brother Thor who is owned by Bob Yax from Deer Search of the Finger Lakes. This is Bob's report. I like his analysis of the whole pretty difficult situation.

As is pretty typical, the story around this one was kind of convoluted.  Two  hunters had hit this doe on Friday evening just before a long heavy rain over Friday night and Saturday AM.  The 1st Hunter, Bob, thought he had a gut shot.  It was a pass through, and he described what sounded like stomach matter on the arrow.  After he hit the doe, it ran off with two other deer.   Several minutes later, it ended up right under his hunting partner Tony, who was  150 yards away.  Tony didn’t know the deer had already been hit.  Tony then proceeded to hit the same deer, in what he thought was the high lung area.  His was also a pass through, and on the phone he described only dark blood on the arrow shaft.  After the 2nd hit, the hunters waited a short time and then began to track.   At the 2nd hit, the three deer took off across an open alfalfa field for about 100 yards until they hit and crossed a thick hedgerow.  At that point the deer were out of sight.  Before dark set in on Friday night, the hunters tracked a decent blood trail to and through the hedgerow.  On the far side of the hedgerow, the hunters found and marked the last blood sign.  Before it got dark, they did a visual search of the large grassy field beyond the hedgerow – they had no luck finding the deer.  It then started raining, they backed out and made a call to Deer Search – Finger Lakes Chapter.  After talking to Bob on Friday night I arranged to meet with him late on Saturday morning -  hopefully after the rain had stopped.

On Saturday morning at 11:00 (17 hours after the hit) I met with Bob and Tony.  Associate handler Jacen Dallas and my son Nate were also with us.  During the interview with the hunters we found that hunter #1 didn’t have his arrow with him and hunter #2 had cleaned off his arrow because it smelled too much!!!  Luckily, hunter #2 didn’t clean off his fletching.  While examining the fletching,  I was able to identify some stomach contents so it seemed that the high lung shot may have exited through the stomach – hopefully hitting the liver on its way.

We decided to start this trail at the 2nd hit site.  Luckily even after the rain, we were able to find a little blood at the 2nd hit site to get Thor started.  It was the only blood we would see.    We then proceeded across the alfalfa field  in the general direction the 2nd hunter described.  During this first 100 yard section, Thor wandered back and forth over a 10 ft wide path, but still in the right direction towards the hedgerow.   I thought this was pretty OK, since both hunters and the three deer had all taken this general path across the field the night before.  Thor also has a tendency, early on a trail, to wander a little. 

After the early excitement wears off,  he then begins to stick closer to the line.  On the trail, we got to the hedgerow in a minute or two.   At that point Thor found a narrow trail through the hedgerow and took us through it.  Directly in front of us, we found the last blood marker that the hunter had left the previous evening.  On the other side of the hedgerow was the large open grassy field the hunters had searched the previous evening. 

When Thor hit the last blood marker he took an immediate left right along the edge of the field towards an area of thick brush.  Now, Thor had his nose on the ground and was pulling hard in a straight line towards the brush.  It made sense to me that the deer would head towards the thick stuff after clearing the hedgerow.   Just about the time I thought “ now he’s really on it “, someone behind me yelled “there it is”!   

There, 50 yards away to my right, in the middle of the grassy field, I could easily see the dead deer.   Now, in hindsight I wish that I would have ignored the deer and continued on the trail with Thor, hoping that he would lead me back around to the deer,  but instead, we all headed directly towards the downed deer.  As evidenced by the two through holes in the deer,  is was the doe we were after.  Both hunters said that the  deer was not there the previous evening when they searched the field, so it made sense that the deer may have gone into the thick brush and then later came out into the field and died. 

I was really interested to see Thor’s reaction when he got to the 1st real deer he has seen.  After a moment’s hesitation when he first saw it, he began pulling on its hair.  I let him do it for a minute then pulled him off.  He didn’t show any real aggression initially around the deer, but then at one point during the picture taking, he did bare his teeth for a second at Jacen who was behind him.  During the autopsy of the deer we figured out that the first hunter had only a low intestine only shot, while the 2nd hunter's shot hit 1 lung, liver and stomach.  All-in-all it was a good initial experience for Thor.  I just wish I had stayed on the trail to see if he would have ended up at the deer. Sometimes, it’s hard to teach an old handler new tricks !

We’ve been on 1 other sortie since this one.  It was a gut hit that we went on only 10 hours after the hit (didn’t know it was a gut hit till we got on site).  Thor took a good line for about 400 yards until we got onto private land where we could not continue.  At the end, we also jumped about 10 deer, which he started barking at once he saw them running.