Hedge, a mini longhaired dachshund bred for hunting by Teddy Moritz is a Field Champion now

Readers of this blog are familiar with Teddy Moritz and her mini longhaired dachshunds.

Here is FC Hedge Threader von Moritz, ten months old. She was in four field trials and got four Firsts, three Best Opens and one Absolute. Better yet, she worked under the hawk for the first time today and helped push this rabbit to the bird.

Hedge is tenth generation field champion. Chuck Sprung put the first four field champions on his line, all bitches, and Teddy continued through her bitch line the next six. It does not get better than that!

Longhaired dachshund Tasha succeeds on a difficult and confusing track

A big thank you to Cliff Shrader from Baton Rouge, Louisiana, for sharing his tracking experience with us. Cliff's tracking partner is Tasha, a longhaired dachshund he imported from Denmark.

It's Saturday morning and the phone hasn't rang yet....we'll just one time and that was from my son who forgot this was Saturday and I do not get up at 4 am on Saturday. I got up and made a wonderful cup of coffee (from by buddy Norman in Nicaragua), started some deer sausage frying (a gift from a hunter after tracking his dad's deer) and put some biscuits in the oven. As I sit here I have time to think about a few of the tracks that Tasha and I have made this year. I have been fortunate enough to get to track with three different trackers this year and I learn things all the time from them, their dogs and their stories.

Donnie called me the other morning and asked if I wanted to make a track with him. This track was for a friend of his son, Peyton. Although Peyton had killed deer before, he never harvested a buck. He shot a buck this morning, made what looked to be a good hit but the deer couldn't be recovered. Now in all fairness, if his dad Scott could not have gotten a tracker....or two in there, I am sure that he would have trampled  the woods down looking for the deer. An interview about the shot and the deer's reaction was not formal because some tracks...like a child's first deer or first buck....you are going to make this track regardless of how good the potential for a recovery sounds.

Tasha and I met Donnie and his Blue Lacy Ruby. We took the short drive over to the hunting club. We talked to Scott and Peyton and headed out on the track by four wheelers. The place where we would be tracking is a large field over a hundred acres that is about 200 yards wide and very long. One side have thick grown up cutover and woods, and the other side is a tree lined dirt road with open woods and palmettos interlaced on the other side. The ground was pretty wet. The ditches and low spots held some shallow standing water. The shot was taken from a stand on the tree lined road side of the field on a buck that had crossed over from the cutover chasing a doe. This was the last buck leaving this field. The gun was a scoped single shot rifle shooting a 7mm 08 caliber 165 grain Barnes X bullet. The buck jumped and kicked when he was hit. Scott was watching through the binoculars as his son Peyton shot said he thought the deer was hit hard.

We were brought to the hit site. There was blood in the field as well as on the briars. There was blood crossing the road and into the woods behind us. This blood was a dark shaded red but had red blood mixed in it too. I found some white hair at the hit site and on briars. Scott said he definitely saw lung blood on the other side of the road and I said that this hair could possibly be from the exit but it is definitely white belly hair. Donnie started out with Ruby and she had no problem hooking up on the trail with ample blood on the ground although she didn't seem as intense as she usually gets on a track.

After a few minutes, I started Tasha into the track. We found a small piece of what appeared to be gut crossing a log. Tasha never really hooked up on the track like she should have. We would run about 100 yards until we ran out of blood and then she would backtrack. She kept trying to bring me back into the field. We asked Scott if the deer could have possibly crossed back into the field after he had shot. Scott said it was possible but they didn't see anything like that. They were busy high fiving and talking about the shot. After repeated attempts to get the girls to hook up and track, we started branching out a little at a time. There are so dang many deer in these woods and trails worn deep from heavy usage were everywhere. Ruby jumped one doe that was bedded up and also found a dead fawn in another area. We don't know what killed the fawn.

As we branched out, Donnie found a blood line that went back into the field about 75 yards closer to the stand. This was really confusing as it appeared that the deer had run into the woods, went closer to the stand and crossed back into the field. The blood stopped, started, stopped and started. I took Tasha to the other side of the field where she had been trying to bring me. There were two deer feeding the entire time we were in this field. I was very glad that Tasha never gave them a second look. She hunted hard but did not hook up. As I approached Donnie at the place where the deer had crossed back into the field he said....this is where the deer was shot at. We found blood and some good brown rib area hair at this site. I told Donnie to go on, we would hold back a minute or two because the girls compete if we run them together. He said  - no, take Tasha on ahead because so far on this track he has pulled Ruby off of live deer, dead deer, live rabbits, guts, blood and lungs. Right now she doesn't know what I want her to do!

I put Tasha on the trail. She hooked up immediately. There was some lung as the deer crossed a ditch. The blood trail grew space and ended but Tasha never checked up. About 60 yards into the track a rabbit jumped and ran past Tasha about 20 yards away. I didn't think that she saw it and I was now afraid that she was trailing the bunny. She stopped where he jumped at, sniffed the ground and then went on with her track. I was relieved. I never had a rabbit problem before but that was huge temptation. She headed into some thick palmettos and about 50 yards later delivered me to a nice buck dead on the ground. He was shot just forward of center mass probably taking out one lung and busting up a bunch of other things inside. I called over to Peyton and said we had his deer. He ran all the way over there and asked where. He is over there a little ways. Peyton looked around until he saw him. With wonder and amazement he quietly said to himself.....Wowww!  I love being able to see this. After the initial finding of what was going to be the one that got away, Peyton now had his buck. The swagger now sets in and we had a nice photo shoot.

When we got back to the camp, we had another photo shoot and talked to the other hunters. When we told them about our confusion with the track they smiled. There was a doe shot the evening before from that stand. She was shot at least twice and hit in the guts. She crossed the road and went into the woods where she was recovered and dragged back down the trail to the road. No wonder the dogs and trackers couldn't put the pieces together. This was a great track to be a part of. I thank Donnie Morales, Ruby, Scott, Peyton and Tasha for allowing me to be part of it. 

Happy Hounds and Happy Hunter

 

A challenging yet successful track for a young longhaired dachshund puppy

This came as a Facebook message from Cliff Shrader, a UBT member from Baton Rouge, LA. This is Cliff's first tracking season with his longhaired dachshund puppy Tasha, whom he imported from Denmark.What an adventure it was. Thank you for sharing it with us Cliff!

Friday evening I received a text from one of my buddies asking if I want to make a track. One of his daughters had shot her first deer and there wasn't any trail. In fact, they had conflicting opinions on which way the deer ran after the shot. There were three deer feeding when Samantha shot and they split up after the shot. Her dad Red checked out the site and found some belly hair and a small amount of gut at the hit site. After we talked, Red and his son Matt backed out of the area where they had been searching for blood and waited for Tasha to arrive. It took about and hour and a half for us to get there.

The woods are thick piney woods with dense undergrowth. When I say dense I mean an abundance of briars and thorns that had never seen mankind before. There was a light mist in the air and the temperature was in the low 70s. Less than fifty yards from the hit site, we found blood drops. Red also found some additional gut as he trailed behind us. Tasha was tracking pretty good but she was having to work going through these woods. I was having to work even harder...a fat guy with a headlamp and backpack doesn't glide through briars and thorns easily. Along the way we would hit some blood and then it would stop. We may go 50 to 100 yards before we located blood again. The blood suggested that we had a muscle hit as it was always drops falling straight down. There never was a bed site although we found a couple of spots where the deer stood but never laid down. We never heard the deer jump during the track. Our track went for 1.37 miles and then we hit a particularly thick spot. I had to go to hands and knees at least a dozen times but here I had to go to elbows and knees. As I was clearing the briars I looked ahead and saw Tasha nose to nose with the doe, still very much alive. I yelled at Tasha and pulled back on her lead. After I got her away from the deer, the deer bounded up and away. I saw some gut hanging from a low hit as the deer ran. I was pretty exhausted and so was Tasha. We had tracked for about 2 hours and 33 minutes in rough country. We decided to back out and attempt to pick up the track in the morning. As far as I was concerned, this was a successful track even though we didn't have venison.

Tasha and I arrived Saturday morning. Samantha and Red had biscuits and sausage cooked up so we ate a nice breakfast before we ventured into the woods. We went to the last blood that I had marked on the GPS and started tracking. The track was 17 hours old at this point. Tasha picked up the trail right away even though we saw no blood. After about 60 yards we found a single drop of blood at least letting me know that she was on the same deer. Tasha took us directly to the steep bank of a swift moving bayou. I knew that the deer had jumped into the bayou here but I didn't see a thing. When I got into a spot where I could look down the 15 foot embankment, I spotted the deer dead in the water and hung up on something. This was an outstanding track for Tasha and I learned several things from it.

The recovery was particularly precarious. Red had to go back to his house and bring back the tractor where we could pull the deer from the bayou. With the dense undergrowth and downed trees, the tractor got stuck as Red was crossing some logs. This meant another trip back to his house to get the chainsaw. After he sawed himself out of this jam, he quickly found himself in another jam that required chain sawing a big pine tree out of the way. He finally arrived at the bayou and the recovery was made. The deer had only traveled a little over a hundred yards from where we jumped her. Tasha never voiced until Red was driving out with the deer on the tractor. She started raising cane! The cool bayou water had chilled the deer down just like a cooler and the meat was perfect.

 
This was one of my favorite tracks so far. Tasha is only 6 1/2 months old and she makes this tracking stuff look easy. What a great feeling to be part of someone's first deer! Congrats to Samantha, Red and Tasha. Thanks for letting me be part of it.

Cliff

More pictures of deer recovered by tracking dachshunds

 

Chester Swierk, a member of Deer Search of the Finger Lakes, has found some spectacular deer with his mini longhaired dachshund Moby. He write s about has recovery from 6 days ago: This deer was gut shot and went about 400 yds., the hunter had tracked it about 200 yds. Moby spotted a small 4-point standing in a field as we were walking into the field. He barked at it a couple of times and I let him know that wasn't the one we wanted. So we continued across the field with Moby looking back at it a few times. About halfway across Moby started to circle back toward the 4-pointer. I let him go about 40 yards before correcting him and let him know again that it wasn't the one we wanted. He then went back to the track of the 9-pointer and continued tracking to where the woods started. He turned and gave the 4-pointer one last look before continuing into the woods from the edge of the field (as far as the hunter had tracked it) then continued about 200 more yards into the woods where he found the deer. The track was in Lindley, NY and was 20 hours old.

Susanne Hamilton from Maine with Meggie 2012-11-15: Sometimes against all common sense you go out anyway and get lucky.

Paulene Eggers writes about her 11/13/2012 recovery in Onondaga County. Dave Burgess another co-worker and Sargeant on the dept. got this ten pointer early morning and had the arrow go in about 3/4 way then it fell out about 15-20 yards from the hit site. There was minimal blood at the hit site and nothing further so Dave wisely backed off waited a few hours while calling me also.

Braylee is making many loyal fans!                                                           

Susanne Hamilton: This 11/10/2012 find was almost two hours away. Tracked it for a lovely family, who had looked all day, did everything right, and finally called when it got too dark for them to track it anymore. Buster made fast work of it and found it well hidden 150 yards from last spot of blood.

 

Hello, my name is Kurt Kiley. 

I’ve been an avid hunter for many years in the Southern New Hampshire.  On November 6, 2012 I shot a nice buck, the first in many years.   After 10 long hours searching acre over acre, following blood trails and only having seen him once again in that time and not choosing to shoot toward him again because he went to close to the houses nearby (well under the 300 foot legal shooting distance), I finally lost  his trail.  The sun set, light for the day was gone and the hope of finding the buck was looking glim, so the evening was called. 

That night I called  Ray and Pam Maurier.  We talked about what happened in great depth.  Ray said he would meet me at my house at 7am the following morning to help in my quest.  In the morning, 25 hrs after the initial shot; Ray ,”Tucker” and I headed out to the last spot I had last saw the buck. With NO blood to track Tucker quickly went to work.  The first  1/2 mile it seemed like he was tracking his every move, like he was with me the day before!  It took him only 1-1/2 hrs for Tucker to bring us right to the buck spot; with the buck still being alive!  

Tucker was very eager to get his reward!  A very well earned reward indeed. Without Tucker that deer would  NOT have been recovered! It would have just been an early thanksgiving dinner for the coyotes.   The whole event was a very good learning experience, shot placement  for one, then the whole step by step tracking sequence and all the hard work that went in to training Tucker.  Rays dedication to working with Tucker  helping to drag to the truck truly shows his love of the sport.           

Many thanks and kudos to Tucker  (a  16 month old, wired haired dachshund tracking dog),  Ray and Pam Maurier, of Lightning Mountain Outfitters, without them and their skills this deer would never have been recovered.
Kurt Kiley
Londonderry NH

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