Theo's advanced blood tracking training

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Andy and Eibe are getting ready for Tracking Season 2014

By Andy Bensing

With tracking season coming sooner than you think, in addition to brushing up my dog’s tracking skills, I also want to make sure that she is physically and mentally conditioned for the long season.  The early season especially, with the higher temps, can be quite fatiguing. 

This 10 minute video shows a training exercise I did recently.  The main purpose of the exercise was to work on conditioning.  My additional goals were to work on line control and tightening up her check work on turns.  

My seven-year-old Eibe has quite a bit of experience by having taken almost 250 natural calls, and she has done upwards of 120 training lines in her five hunting seasons in the field. However, I still need to do some training with her occasionally to keep her in top form.  If I lay off training completely, she begins to revert to some of her natural tendencies that are not always the most efficient, specifically getting a little loose on her line control and inefficient in working checks.  Interestingly, with just a few exercises like I initially used when she was younger 

http://borntotracknews.blogspot.com/2010/04/journey-to-win-part-1.html  http://borntotracknews.blogspot.com/2010/05/journey-to-win-part-2-training.html http://borntotracknews.blogspot.com/2010/05/journey-to-win-part-3-pre-test-and.html 

she straightens right back out and uses what she had learned in the past.

This particular training line was 1100 meters long in a hardwood forest and aged 72 hours. I used tracking shoes with minimal blood along the way with stretches of upwards of 250 meters with no blood at all.  There were ten 90-degree turns and eight mountain bike/deer cross trails along the way.  The line configuration was actually designed for Eibe’s granddaughter, Addi, who ran the same line at 24 hours two days before. 

Initially I was going to run this line at 96 hours to make it very difficult for Eibe, but when we had a big thunderstorm that dropped almost an inch of rain on the line on the third night I ran it at 72 hours instead.  Sometimes tracking shoe lines do not hold up too well in the rain.  I thought there might be a possibility that the line would be gone but as you will see in the video, conditions were quite difficult but doable. Actually, they were perfect for what I was trying to do.  The point of the difficulty was to make Eibe struggle both physically and especially mentally.   A line of this length (1100 meters) would typically take my dog about 45 minutes or so to run but the minimal scent available created the desired effect and Eibe had to work very hard.  It took her over double the normal time, 110 minutes.

As you watch the video you will see that I put two ribbons on turns and on each turn there is either a wound bed or at the very least I put a pretty good squirt  of blood right under the double flag.  I often do my turns like this in training.  For my young dog it encourages close check work on the turns (which I wanted to refresh Eibe on). If the line were too difficult for Eibe and I needed to help her advance to keep the exercise going, I would absolutely know where I could find a good spot of scent to restart her.  Luckily that did not occur and Eibe required very little handling along the way.  In that same regard I also knew that within 2 or 3 yards of every bike trail/deer trail crossing there was also a little extra blood squirted on the ground.  That extra blood was for Addi to encourage her to cross directly over to the other side of cross trails/roads/paths and check for the line before checking left or right along the cross trail. 

As you watch the video I hope you enjoy Eibe’s careful hard work in the difficult conditions and perhaps gain some insight into how to set up training lines to maximize the learning opportunities for you and your dog when in the field.

The video can be accessed at 

https://vimeo.com/101682014

Eibe 7-24-2014 stamina HD from Andy Bensing on Vimeo.

Evaluating Eibe's nose - part 2

by Andy Bensing

Below is a video of the first part of the evaluation trackdiscussed in the previous post.  Unfortunately, my camera battery ran out before the most challenging part of the exercise, the star and the deer feeder crossing.  You will just have to take my word for it that I was totally surprised how easily she worked through the hard parts, especially the deer feeder area.  Here are some photos from a trail cam I happened to have on the feeder.  Not as good as a video but you get the idea.

Breaking down the snow with my tractor.

Laying the tracking shoe trail in alongside the feeder.

Deer at the feeder overnight in the rain.

Eibe and I tracking past the feeder the next afternoon.

As you can see from the video https://vimeo.com/87635315  I can be pretty sure Eibe’s nose has recovered its ability to smell and differentiate hoof print scent between individual deer.  

Thank you to my sports medicine vet Dr. Robert Gillette   www.vetspecialty.com/staff/bios/84    from the Veterinary Specialty Center in Buffalo Grove IL www.facebook.com/vetspecialty  and my longtime friend and local vet Dr. Sherilyn Allen from Ironstone Veterinary Hospital www.ironstone.net   in Boyertown PA.  Dr. Gillette was able to diagnose that a low thyroid level was the source of the problem and Dr. Allen helped me successfully treat it.  I can’t wait till next September and get my Eibe back in the field at full capacity.

Evaluating Eibe's nose - part 1

by Andy Bensing

Some of you may know that about 1 ½ years ago I started to suspect that my dog Eibe was having trouble with her nose every time she had to take a course of antibiotics.  The problem seemed to be getting worse and worse.  She would recover but it took longer each time.  By this past season opener it became very detrimental to her tracking and was preventing her from finding deer I absolutely knew we should.  I eventually found an experienced sports medicine veterinarian and have been working with him since October 2013.

I set this exercise up to help determine the current condition of her nose.  I used tracking shoes only because the problem she was having was focused on her ability to smell hoof print scent.  Blood scent gave her a little trouble but hoof print scent was nearly impossible for her to detect and differentiate between different deer.  A previous similar track I ran a couple of weeks ago before the snow got too deep indicated that her nose was recovered.  I really don’t have a lot of experience to say how easy or difficult an artificial track laid in snow tire tracks is so I set this exercise up in such a way that my artificial trail would be mixed in with tons of natural deer tracks forcing Eibe to have to differentiate between the two.  Differentiation of hoof print scent was next to impossible for her at the height of her condition last fall.  I will run this track at 24 hours and see what happens and report in the comments.

I set up misdirection exercises in the snow by laying the line in the right hand tire track and then at the intersection just stepping into the left hand track and going straight instead of bearing to the right.  The dog will naturally bear to the right taking the path of least resistance.  How quickly and easily Eibe makes that turn will tell me a lot about the condition of her nose.

Approaching a deer feeding area.

Right in the middle of the deer feeding area I made a 90 degree left hand turn.  This is a difficult situation for any dog but when Eibe’s nose was normal she worked this type of problem out many times both in training and natural tracking.  In MD and NJ where I track deer are legally shot over bait.

Following the tracking shoe line through this will tell me a lot about how well her nose can differentiate scent.

Results of the exercise will be posted in comments.

Should blood be used in training dogs to track wounded big game?

By John Jeanneney

Recently this inquiry has come in "My friend and I practice with our dogs once per week on blood tracks. Now I have some people telling me that you should never use blood. What are your thoughts?"  

And then we read on Facebook this statement  "Blood is on the inside of the body and contains no scent. Blood has an odor of Iron, but no scent until it is exposed to the skin. Entirely too much emphasis is being placed on Blood training, when you should be practicing scent training. Many good dogs are being confused by handlers and trainers using blood as a training tool."

Blood is not all that important in tracking real deer. I wish that they didn’t call it blood tracking. Still blood is one of the scents that a dog tracks naturally, and yes blood has scent! I train puppies in the early stages on deer blood that I dip from the chest cavities of the deer that I find. This is not blood that has flowed over the skin of the deer. This blood has plenty of scent and ten week old pups follow it with ease, and they learn to love it. It is a better motivator in the early stages of training than a dragged deer leg. At the end of the blood trails I like to have a piece of deer skin and pieces of liver and heart as a reward.

Speaking of deer legs, the main scent that they produce comes from the interdigital gland between the cloves of each foot. When a deer walks waxy particles from the glands are puffed out onto the ground, and they hold up very well for 24 hours. These interdigital glands have an individual scent for each deer, and they are much more important, over time, than the skin particles that come down from the body of the deer. The tarsal glands are also important, but in my experience they are not as individual as the interdigital, particularly with bucks during the rut.

These German scent shoes are available from the United Blood Trackers at www.unitedbloodtrackers.org 

The favorite advanced training device in Europe is the scent shoe. I use these scent shoes myself, and they are a great motivator for dogs who have had some natural work and are getting bored with that “fake blood stuff”. As you can see from the picture the deer foot is held on the scent shoe with hose clamps in the position of a walking deer. I can walk out a trail on dry forest leaves, and the dog can follow after 24 hours if there is no heavy rain.

Note that the tarsal glands on the hocks are not involved and that skin particles are minimal.
When a dog tracks, it puts together in its mind all of the different scents left by the deer. At the hit site there will be blood, hair, interdigital gland scent, and probably some skin particles too. When the visible blood runs out, the dog keeps going on the combination of other scents left by the deer. Personally, I find that it is effective to introduce a puppy to all the scents associated with the deer. I start with liver drags at five or six week, then blood trails, and finally scent shoe trails.

There is more than one good way to train tracking dogs, and some ways that are not so good. I don’t think that we should get hung up on some theory that training with blood is bad. Blood does have scent, and using it in a squeeze bottle it is a quick and convenient way to lay lines for young dogs. It works! Many thousands of tracking dogs have been trained in Europe and North America using big game blood. Originally, I was skeptical about the scent shoe idea, but now I am sold on it as a part of the training procedure.  A few drops of blood, now and then, adds to the attractiveness. And what you place at the end of the line is very important!

The video shows 11-week-old Urho working a 2.5-hour blood line. No scent shoes were used on this line. Urho was started on liver drags at 5-6 weeks, which were followed at 10 weeks by trails laid with deer blood, with a deer skin at the end. Two days ago he worked the line laid with a dragged deer leg, and  he knew that it would lead to something interesting. Training of tracking dogs involves various techniques. Urho's future training will include more advanced blood work and lines laid with scent shoes.

Blood tracking puppy training: an overnight blood line for a three-month-old dachshund Theo

Another report from Darren Doran from New Jersey who is working with his new puppy Theo. Theo is a son of Moose (FC Nurmi von Moosbach-Zuzelek) and Paika (FC Paika von Moosbach-Zuzelek SW). He turned three months old yesterday.

Rich Stolery called and wanted to do some training this Saturday and meet Theo for the first time. Rich is on the New Jersey tracking permit and owns November, a three and a half year old smooth dachshund our of wirehaired parents. Ember for short, is a sister to my other dog Karl. The heat has been unbearable and Saturday was going to be nasty. We put out two lines by Rich's house at 7:30 pm Friday and we were going to meet at 6 am to try to beat the heat.

Theo's line was very similar to the last one. It was somewhat longer at about 125 yds with two left 90-degree turns. It was made with tracking shoes with doe feet. I scuffed up the dirt at the turns the best I could and added extra blood.The line would end at a deer skin. The area was a ridge top with mature oak and cedar. The soil is what's called red shale around here, and it was dry and baked as hard as cement. There were a few small cedar dead falls, not much underbrush or leaves, and the weeds were burned brown and brittle. I didn't know if the shoes would leave much scent in these conditions. This area also has a high number of deer, and we pushed out a couple sets of does and fawns while putting out the lines.

I'm still trying to learn Theo's working style and ability level with these early training lines. It's important for a young dog to be successful on the training line. Because of the conditions I decided that I would squirt more blood on the ground and bloody the hoofs more while putting out the line. I used 4 oz of blood on this training line. I also had the small pieces of raw deer meat with me that I could toss over his head to re-focus him if needed.

The goal of this exercise was to expand on our last exercise and add a new variable. We were going to drive to a new place, walk in on a lead, track with the collar and tracking leash, go through our starting routine and add the new variable, Rich. Rich was going to be the hunter and accompany us on the line. I also wanted to see if Theo would be affected by meeting a new dog or if the hunter tagging along would impact his focus on the line.

Theo was going first, and it was already 75 degrees. The line was 11 hours old. We walked out Rich's backyard to the training line. Ember was whimpering in the yard by the fence, and Theo left with us and didn't pay any attention to her. We got to the hit site and I tied up Theo. Rich and I pretended to looked over the site. I put out some water for Theo and got out his tracking gear and hooked him up. I picked up Theo and put him down at the hit site.

Theo sniffed around a little and took the line immediately. He tracked to the first turn and right before he got there, I tossed a piece of meat ahead of him. Theo found the meat, but tracked past the turn anyway. He went about 8 feet and turned around, lifted his head and looked at me. I said ''where did he go?'' He started tracking back to the turn, past it and back the way we came. He went about 6 feet backwards, turned around and went to the turn and took the right direction. This was the only time he picked up his head and those were the only words I spoke to him on this line. Theo tracked to the second turn and I tossed the meat. He missed the meat but took the turn perfectly. He tracked the home stretch great and corrected himself a couple of times along the line. I was working hard behind him to keep his leash from snagging. It did get hung up briefly a couple of times, but it wasn't enough to  affect Theo. When Theo got to the skin, he was concentrating on the line so hard it surprised him. I started to praise him, and he got hold of the skin and started chewing it up. He got the rest of the meat for a well deserved reward.

It took 10 minutes to do this line and the goals of the exercise were met. Theo was unaffected by the ''hunter'' with us or the other dog he met earlier. Every time I train with this dog, he impresses me. He has excellent line sense. His methodical and matter of fact working working style doesn't waste any energy or heat him up in this weather. This will be a benefit on a long early season track later. His ability to quickly recognize and correct himself when wrong at this age, I think is excellent. I'm satisfied with his ability to handle different variables and stimuli associated with the training line but not directly related to the line itself.

The last three training lines have been kept similar for a reason. Although called training lines I didn't conduct any real training on the lines themselves. They were simply for observation and they have provided me a road map to move forward with Theo's training. In the future I'll add more variables to the training line itself. Each line will have a specific goal and be evaluated. Theo is still a pup and I don't want to push him to hard. I want to challenge him, but I don't want to make it to hard that he fails.

Rich, the "Hunter" and Theo at the end of his line

Rich and Ember at the end of their line

Spring 2011 Blood Tracking at the NATC - part 2

By Andy Bensing

Part 2

Saturday

After the Friday tests were over it was my responsibility to put the blood down on the three lines for Saturday morning. Claire Mancha, an NATC member who had flown in from Oregon for the workshop, assisted me and it barely took three hours to complete. Because of all the rain the night before, the ground was soft and moist and the deer feet on the tracking shoes stayed moist and sank into the ground the whole time the lines were being walked. I was expecting the Saturday morning Test to have much better conditions than we had on Friday morning but I ended up being quite wrong.

At 1:00AM Saturday morning a torrential thunderstorm came through and it poured for an hour and continued to rain hard for another hour after that. By morning it was anybody's guess how well the lines might have held up but I was not too optimistic. Just to make matters a little more interesting, it continued to drizzle on and off the rest of the day.

The judges for Saturday's test were Mme Agnes de France, Teddy Moritz and myself. The first dog up was from Canada. Steve Durocher's male wirehair Whiskey was raring to go at the start and took great interest in the hit site but unfortunately could not do much with the line. The smell of fresh tracks shortly after the start kept luring Whiskey away from the very faint scent left on the test line after the previous night's rain. Whiskey was called back for lack of progress after 30 minutes and shown the line. After another 10 minutes of working hard but not being able to make progress on the line the judges ended the test.


Steve Durocher (Canada) and Whiskey

The second dog up was John Jeanneney and his wirehair Joeri. Joeri also had quite a bit of trouble trying to lock in on the line but was able to very slowly pick his way along the first 150m of the line until he drifted off to the left and lost contact with it and eventually received a call back for being out of contact with the line for too long a distance. John at that point decided to withdraw his dog from the test. John reported that his dog had never really been able to lock into the line properly and after 20 minutes of trying he thought it would be a waste of everyone's time to continue trying.

John Jeanneney (NY) and Joeri

The third dog up was Steve Durocher again but this time with his female wirehair Flair. Flair took off like a shot right from the start and motored right down the first 115m of the line with no trouble whatsoever. The start of this line was even a little tricky and she had no problems with it. The line started on a logging road and went right up a steep hill and in the middle of the hill the logging road turned off to the right but the line went straight up the hill. Most dogs would have been a little sucked to the right at least for a few yards as the road arced right but Flair kept her nose to the ground and followed the line perfectly straight with excellent accuracy. I was really impressed with the dog's start and it looked like she was going to just ace the line but unfortunately for Flair at about 115m into the test she encountered some distracting cross scent in an area of ferns that started to give her trouble. This seemed to break her concentration for the blood line and things started going downhill from there. Steve was very good at reading his dog and knowing when she was tracking and when she was working hotter scent. He brought her back to the blood line several times but the easy, hot scent kept drawing her away. Eventually Steve just went with his dog and ended up with his first call back. The other judges and I showed Steve where the line was at for a restart but Flair went off again on the hot line and got a second call back.

Training note: I discussed with Steve later after the test what I thought would have been a better way to handle the situation with the hot line. Steve could read his dog very well and clearly knew when she was tracking hot and not on the blood line but he never actually stepped in and let her know firmly that taking the hot line was wrong. I would have given her a very firm "no" and perhaps a pretty good leash jerk for tracking hot. Especially when she went right back in the hot line's direction on the restart after the first call back. I asked Steve if perhaps Flair was a softer dog and could not have handled the correction and he said she was quite tough and easily could handle discipline on the line. I can only guess but I believe his dog could have passed the test if Steve had taken assertive action early on when his dog started to investigate the hot line.

After the second restart Flair seemed to settle in a little better but her concentration was clearly diminished from chasing all the hot scent. She was able to pick her way along the next 140m but as she approached the first turn she wavered off the line and ended up catching a piece of the second leg and bringing it back to the corner. She worked the check at the corner for quite some time and Steve could tell his dog was struggling and did not have the line so he would not let her go too far off from where she last had it. They circled a bunch of times and eventually the judges decided that the dog and handler needed to make progress or the test would be terminated. The handler was informed that he needed to make progress for the test to continue. At that point Steve gave Flair her head and just went with her. There really was no other choice. Unfortunately, she went off in the wrong direction and Steve and Flair received a third call back and the test was over.

It had been another tough day of conditions and the conditions had made it too difficult for any of the dogs to pass the test.

Part 3

Epilogue

And now for a funny story (depending on your perspective) and a little bragging. The NATC event was held at a Boy Scout camp in northern New Jersey. Most of the participants were staying in cabins right on the grounds. The night after the test, at 4 AM Sunday morning Eibe woke me up and kept standing on me. She wouldn't go back to sleep so I decided to let her out thinking she must have had to take a leak. Well as soon as I opened the cabin door all heck broke loose. She bolted out and around the door, and all I heard was a blood curdling scream that sounded like her guts were being ripped out. When I looked behind the door I saw something furry and two feet high fighting with my dog and the both of them disappearing off into the woods 10 yards away with my dog still screaming. I thought a coon or a coyote was dragging my dog off!

When I finally ran close and got my flashlight on all the commotion (bare foot and in my underwear no less) it turned out that it was a skunk! I don't know who had a hold of who at that point but I just reached in and grabbed Eibe by the back of the neck and when I picked her up the skunk came with. I gave the whole thing a shake and the skunk came loose and I ran for cover. Luckily I did not get a direct hit from the skunk but Eibe sure did! I tied her to a post while I surveyed all the damage. She continued to moan for another couple of minutes as I looked her over. Her chin and neck were solid yellow from the skunk spay and she had a bloody snout with a small hole in her nose but that was the only damage to her. I don't know how well the skunk faired but I did not go back to check. Luckily I had some Skunk Off in my first aid kit so we went right to the shower house and I washed her down. I thought it took pretty good care of the smell but when I got to breakfast that morning my friends thought differently!

Before the skunk incident Sunday morning I had planned to take Eibe out after breakfast to see if she could work one of the Tracking Shoe test lines at 40 hours that were not completed on Saturday at 20 hours. After her great performance on Friday under difficult conditions I thought she just might be able to do it and I knew it would be fun to try. After the skunk incident I thought at first the skunk in her face would prevent her from smelling anything but at the last minute I decided to give it a try anyway. I picked a line that had the last 600m, 2 wound beds and 2 marking points untouched and my plan was to get within 50 meters of the first wound bed using my GPS and then have Eibe do a search start to find it and begin the track from there.

Eibe's unofficial 40 hour line - click to enlarge

The search start was harder for Eibe than I expected but with a little guidance from me using the GPS she eventually found the wound bed I wanted to start from. During the search, we actually bumped the line two times and she indicated it but I wanted to be positive about the start so we kept searching for the wound bed. After finding the wound bed I started Eibe on the line. The first 120m were very difficult. The scent was so faint and there was so much other scent around that I think Eibe had a hard time figuring out which one she was supposed to follow. Eibe got off the line twice and I questioned her and she returned to searching and eventually got locked in on the line.

She went the next 240m slowly but with little trouble. As she tracked along out in front of me I could smell the skunk scent wafting off of her but it seemed not to give her any trouble. I had laid the line two days before so I thought I remembered exactly where it had been laid. At one point I thought she was off to the side 5 or 10m but right at that moment she stopped and stood solid and when I looked down she was standing over a marking point. Boy, was I proud of her!

We eventually got to a more open area where the canopy was not very dense. Part of the line was actually laid down a grassy logging trail and I knew for sure where it was but Eibe could not smell anything. I suspect the open canopy allowed the rain to hit the line harder in this area but for whatever reason this area was very difficult for Eibe. She spent a whole lot of time searching and trying to figure it out. I had to question her two times for taking heightened interest in cross trails, but I did not help her back to the line and just left her work. Hoping to blow through the difficult area I eventually I picked her up and restarted her back on part of the line where she clearly had it before but that did not work either. Finally I decided to cast her with a directed search wide around the difficult area. You can see from the GPS map how much trouble this area gave her. During the cast she picked up the line about 50m in front of the difficult area and she back tracked the line back to the edge of the difficult area and found the wound bed. When she reacquired the line after the search and found the wound bed I could tell she was smiling. I know I was!

Eibe over wound bed

At the wound bed I turned her around and pointed her in the right direction and she motored down the 50m she had just back tracked. The next 100m or so there was apparently not much scent and she slowly picked her way along. At one point she seemed to be stuck in a small 10 foot diameter area and just kept searching very hard and deep with her nose even under the leaves. I thought she was maybe after mice until I looked at my GPS and I realized that this was the area where there had been a marking point. The marking point was no longer there but it must have left a lot of scent or at least the critter that carried it away did. I encouraged her to continue on and the last 100m or so went pretty easy. All in all it took us 1 hour and 50 minutes to cover 600m of difficult 40-hour-old tracking shoe line. Eibe found and indicated the one wound bed and one of the two marking points and likely the second marking point as well.

Eibe Finishing a Difficult 40 hour Blind Training Line NATC 6-2011 from Andy Bensing on Vimeo.

Training note: On my ride home from New Jersey I was contemplating the weekend's tracking activity and my dog's  performance (on both tracks). This was the fourth time in a year that Eibe was in a test where she was able to do quite well even under difficult conditions and all or most of the other dogs in the test either struggled or could not finish. I think the reason she does so well can be attributed to two main abilities that she has, and neither one has to do with her having a great nose. Actually, I am coming to believe that her ability to smell is really just average. I think Eibe's most valuable natural ability is her ability to concentrate and stay focused for long periods of time. That's what seems to get her through the tough times. Secondly, she is very trainable and easily absorbs the training exercises I set up for her to learn new skills or unlearn bad tendencies. I believe that the combination of these two abilities and a strong hunting drive has enabled her to accomplish as much as she has already at barely 4 years of age. I really look forward to the next 6 or 8.

Spring 2011 Blood Tracking at the NATC - part 1

By Andy Bensing

Part 1

On June 9 through 12, 2011 the North American Teckel Club held its Spring Hunting Workshop and Conformation Show. As part of that event, John Jeanneney, Darren Doran and I were responsible for laying out and organizing the DTK sanctioned Blood Tracking Tests. This year the blood tracking tests were 20- hour-old Tracking Shoe Tests. Each blood line was 1000 to 1200 meters long and was laid by the tracklayer walking with tracking shoes on and putting a squirt of blood on the ground every 10 meters or so after the first 50 meters where there was only blood at the hit site. Three and a half ounces of blood total were used for each line.

Tracking shoes

There were two 90-degree arching turns in each line. Two simulated wound beds and four marking points were dispersed along the line as well. For this test we used 3" diameter slices of birch wood soaked in blood as the marking points. We laid 1" cubes of deer lung on them when the line was laid but as usual, the lung was long gone by morning but the scented wood was still there for the dogs to find.

Marking points

Here's a poor quality but funny photo of John sharing his leg cramp magnesium supplements with Darren at the end of the day. Darren had flagged out three 1000m test lines and then went back and walked them again wearing the tracking shoes for the test the next day.

Darren is grimacing in leg cramp pain as John smiles happy to be able to help.

Since DTK sanctioned Blood Tracking tests are very hard to find here in the USA, the NATC set these tests up as actually two separate tests, one was held on Friday and another was held on Saturday. John Jeanneney and I both wanted to enter a dog so I entered my dog for Friday while John set those lines up, and I set up Saturday's test so John could enter that day.

To be honest, I did not feel properly prepared for entering my dog in this test. I had had a very busy spring and did not get the training time in that I would have preferred leading up to this Tracking Shoe Test. As I havd written about before I spent quite a bit of training time getting my dog ready for a 20 and 40 hour VSwP in February and the Deer Search competition in April which were both blood only, no tracking shoes, events. After the Deer Search Competition in April where we came in a very disappointing 3rd, when I went to switch back to tracking shoes for the NATC event, I noticed a little problem with Eibe's work and I was only able to get three training lines in to work on it. It had gotten better but not really yet to my full satisfaction. I don't like to enter any event that I do not feel fully prepared for but there was a low entry for the NATC event so against my better judgment I entered anyway.

Friday

There were two dogs entered for Friday's test. Eibe and I were up first. I knew already on Thursday when the lines were laid that the test conditions would be difficult on Friday. The forest floor was very dry as it did not rain for quite some time. With a "blood only line" I would not have worried but when a line is laid with tracking shoes and minimal blood I have had difficulty in the past. When the ground is hard and dry I do not think very much scent is transferred from the tracking shoe to the ground when the line is laid. In training I sometimes see my dog in these conditions actually do more of a search from blood spot to blood spot than actual tracking the scent from the shoes. To top off the dry conditions when laid, Thursday evening it rained several times quite hard. Again, with a blood line it would not be a concern but it has also been my experience that tracking shoe lines do not hold up to rain as well as blood does. I knew Eibe would be able to find some scent but I also knew it would be very hard.

Well as soon as I started Eibe on the line my suspicions were confirmed. It was going to be difficult. It took Eibe 13 minutes just to get started and go the first 50 meters including her circling back to the hit site twice until she finally locked in on the track. Eibe found and cleanly indicated a marking point about 60m after she finally got locked in and went another 200m without much trouble. From that point forward the next 500m of the line was a series of short runs of 20 or 30m that she could track relatively easily and then dead spots were there was apparently little or no scent so she had to basically search through the dead spots to find the next piece. When I looked at the gps map of our track afterwards I could see that in addition to the normal small, few second long checks that a dog normally makes when tracking, Eibe had 8 large checks along the way that were 5 to 15 minutes long each. Two times she was just stuck in those big checks in the dead areas and I did a directed search with her and cast her out around the dead spots and she was able to re-acquire the line.

Eibe found and solidly indicated both wound beds and 2 of the 4 marking points along the trail. Actually, the second marking point she found was a big help for her. She was working hard to find her way through one of the dead spots and the wind shifted a little and she caught wind of the marking point and went directly to it about 10m away from where she had been searching. She indicated it by standing over it rock solid and I think she was as proud of it as I was. From that marking point forward the last 150m of the line was a little easier and went relatively quickly compared to the rest. I found out later from the tracklayer that he had gone a little light on the blood on the first part of the track and had pretty much of the 3½ ounces left near the end so he put it down a little heavy to use it up by the end. That's probably why it got easier.

The whole line ended up taking us 1 hour and 58 minutes to complete. I was very grateful that the judges gave me that time, appreciated my dog's hard work and recognized her determined focus to keep working under the very difficult conditions. I was not really sure how much time I was going to be allowed to have to finish the track because the DTK rule as to time limit has changed several times back and forth over the years. The latest translation I had said a limit of 1½ hours but as with most things the judges always have some discretion. At 1 hour and 15 minutes into the test I knew I had at least 300m still to go so I asked the judges if I was under any time constraints. If I were then I would just push my dog along and hope for the best. When the judges said time was not a factor then I relaxed and let my dog continue on at her own pace.

When it was all over and the judges finished conferring, Eibe and I were awarded a score of 92 Prize I. The score is composed of 3 parts, Method, Accuracy, and Desire and my score reflected that the judges felt Eibe's method was excellent, accuracy was very good and her desire to track was excellent. I was very happy with the score and it was what I was expecting and what I thought my dog deserved after working so hard.

GPS map of Eibe's track - click to enlarge

Judges John Jeanneney (NY), Mme Agnes de France (France), and Teddy Moritz (NJ/DE) with Eibe and me after a successful 20 hour Tracking Shoe Test.

The second dog up on Friday was Patt Nance's young longhaired teckel, Viljo. I did not see this dog work so I can't report much about how things went. All I know is that he had some difficulty at the start and was not able to complete the line.

Patt Nance (OH) and Viljo

Remi's blood tracking training

Justin Richins from Utah sent us this video a couple of weeks ago. Justin, I hope that by now you see more signs of spring. For those who missed earlier posts on Remi (Remy von Moosbach-Zuzelek, a son of Joeri and Gilda) -- he is a wirehaired dachshund, and in the video he is just over 9 months old. He has done really well so far in real tracking and training on artificial lines.

The video shows Remi's work on a line, which is 17.5 hr old, laid with scent shoes and blood, and it includes a lot of sharp checks. I think it is another stellar performance. Remi has some very minor difficulties, and Justin analysis and conclusions are sound. Thank you Justin for sharing!

Another winter training line for Remi

Here’s another very instructive video illustrating the education of a talented young dog handled by Justin Richins, a big game outfitter in Utah. Justin himself is still in his first year of tracking, but like Remi he has a passion for tracking and natural talent for  working with his partner.

Justin’s approach in winter training is innovative. There is a wintering area for mule deer where he lives, and a major highway, roads and a railroad run through it. The toll of road-killed deer is  heavy. Justin finds a recently killed deer, removes the hind hoofs and  attaches them to his tracking shoes. For this training session he hiked down the road about a mile and then laid a track with the deer’s interdigital scent (from those hoofs), and with deer blood back to the deer carcass. This is a long track for a puppy’s training exercise, but Remi never loses his enthusiasm.

For Remi the toughest aspect of this training exercise is the abundance of healthy deer in plain  sight. When Remi sees or smells the deer, his natural instinct is to go for them. He is still in the process of learning that a healthy deer is of no more interest than a cow. Justin does an excellent  job of refocusing Remi on the old, cold training line without harsh reprimands. This is the most important single aspect of training.

Training for natural tracking is not a matter of command and obey, as in retriever training. When Remi gets off the scent line, note that Justin asks him, with a questioning tone of voice, “Is that right?” Remi reflects and responds. The tracking dog must feel free to use his own judgment. In natural tracking the dog will usually be the only one who knows where the scent line is.

Remi on a Scent Shoe Track in Utah

Sometimes an exceptionally-gifted puppy and an inspired natural handler come together. This video is a good illustration of that combination. You will see that in this partnership Remi listens to his handler and Justin, the handler, “reads” his dog.

For most eight-month-old puppies this exercise would be too much to ask. Normally it takes an older dog to deal with the distractions of snow, freezing creeks and fresh deer tracks. Don’t force this on your own puppy. Wait until you are sure that he is ready.

Advanced blood tracking training

The Value of Efficient Training Lines - Part 1

By Andy Bensing

It takes a lot of time and effort to set up a good blood tracking training line for an experienced dog so I am a big believer in getting as much as possible out of that time for both dog and handler. I had a great day training this morning with my dog Eibe, which was in big part the result of setting the line up with specific goals in mind for my dog. I never just" lay a line out" for my dogs. I always have a plan.

This particular line was 650m long in a hardwood forest and had two major obstacles for my dog to work out. The first was a 30m diameter "star" and the second was a 30m backtrack in a shallow stream. Additionally on this line I had several small wound beds with pieces of deerskin laying on them for the dog to indicate. The track was laid with tracking shoes. I am working on using less and less blood with my dog and on this line I squirted blood on one hoof every 200 steps. In addition to a couple of turns, I had a 50m wide "hook" in the line near the end. Deer often circle around to watch their back trail before bedding down; often found dead in that bed. If I were working with a less experienced dog, I would never pack so much into one training line. But my dog has been doing great lately, and all these scenarios I set up were just expansions on things she had successfully done before. In a series of short articles I plan to explain each part of what I did on this training line and how each plan worked out.

 
Weaning off Blood
 
If you want to work with less and less blood, one option is to put less blood on the line and see what happens with the dog. That's fine if the dog can do it, but what if he can't and begins to struggle a lot? Or worse yet, just quits due to the difficulty? I guess you learn something about your dog in that situation, but I would prefer to salvage the day in that case and give the dog an incentive to try even harder next time he has difficulty.
 
There are several ways you can safely wean your dog from blood on the line, but the one I have been using lately is to put less and less blood. When the blood gets really thin, as I am pushing the dog's known limits from previous training lines, I have the line come to a wound bed or marking point (piece of skin, bone, or hair). Using tracking shoes works great for this by putting the blood on just one hoof and refreshing the blood at greater and greater distances. As you walk the blood coming off the hoof naturally gets thinner and thinner as it wears off the hoof until there is no actual wet blood coming off. Only hoof scent is being transferred to the ground. (Dabbing in the same manner or putting more and more distance between squirts will accomplish the same thing.) By having this spot of heavy scent available, if the dogs is really struggling with the thin blood, I will have a good chance of carefully manipulating him towards the bed without him realizing it. When the dog finds the bed, this relieves the stress that has developed while he was trying so hard. Perhaps this gives the dog incentive to keep trying longer next time before giving up. I always have my dog lie down on the special the sign I left at the bed, and I give him a piece of meat as a reward for finding it. This gives the dog also a chance to rest mentally and physically before continuing.
 
Coming out of the bed I will have the dog continue on a thin blood line that I have laid. My reasoning is that the refreshed dog will have an easier time with the difficult conditions after the rest period at the bed. I continue on a thin blood trail for 30 to 50m coming out of the bed. At this point I will have refreshed the blood on the hoof and let it dwindle away again. With the heavier blood only 30 to 50m away, there is a good chance that the dog will bump into it, even if he is unable to track directly out of the bed on the thin blood. He will have a successful continuation of the line. Of course like with any training line, everything must be well marked in the field so you can see it coming as you work your dog. I put double ribbons to mark a wound bed or sign location and hang the ribbons pointing up to indicate where I change from light to normal or heavy blood. I like to use clothes pins with colored tape for marking. They go on and off easily and allow me a lot of flexibility in positioning them on a branch to indicate different things that I do when I lay the line.
Eibe’s Performance on this Line:
 
As it turned out, Eibe had no trouble with the thin blood and the minor trouble I went to in laying the line in the above way was not necessary. The thinner blood made her work a bit harder at places, but she did not need me to "save" her anywhere. I did notice, however, that at the points where I refreshed the hoof, she would speed up indicating the tracking was easier. This is common sense and might not seem noteworthy to the reader, but it led me to a thought I had not considered before. What are "Hard" conditions for my individual dog? In the future I will experiment with increasingly difficult conditions even to the point of ridiculousness, but I will always have a planned safety to save the day before she actually quits.
 
With this idea of saving the day in mind, I had a similar experience just a few days ago on a 1100m training line that had been washed away by a thunder storm less than an hour after I had laid it out. When I went back the next day to try and run that line it was nearly impossible for my Eibe to follow it. I had refreshed the hoof every 100 steps on that line but Eibe took ten minutes to go the first 30 meters, and that was about it. After about 20 more minutes of very systematic searching on her part she got frustrated and picked up another incorrect natural line and just started to track it. I corrected her verbally with "NO", and she went back to searching. As luck would have it, she then searched down a logging trail that crossed the line in an area near where I had refreshed the hoof. She picked up a small piece of the line which led her in a direction where she wind scented a wound bed with a small piece of skin in it. When she found the wound bed and lay down on it, I do not know who was happier, Eibe or me. I praised the heck out of her and gave her all the meat in my pocket as a reward and called it a day. I mention this experience not to point out how wonderful my dog is (although she really is quite wonderful and amazing ), but rather to show how having a plan, and having things well-marked can pay off big time in training.
 
As soon as I saw that the line I had laid was almost imperceptible to Eibe because of the rain, I formulated a new plan. I decided to see how long and efficiently my dog would search when there was almost nothing there to find. I hoped to learn something about my dog. I could do this safely because I knew there were several locations not too far away where I could give the dog an opportunity to successfully find something if things got too difficult.
 
So I did learn that my dog will search for 30 minutes without wavering; she learned that if she stops searching and tries to follow "junk" I will catch her, but that if she just keeps trying, even when she wants to give up, she will eventually be successful on the original line. That's all good stuff!
 
Next installment.....
 
The "Star"