The VDD-GNA 40-Hour Blood Tracking Test (VSwP) in Fayetteville, NC

Andy's post about The VDD-GNA 40-Hour Blood Tracking Test (VSwP) in Fayetteville, NC, generated a lot of heat and I removed the story along with comments from the blog. A very mild disagreement over some details of the test was escalating into the very heated discussion that I was not willing to post. However, since this blog is committed to reporting news on blood tracking, we are not going to exclude information about the test.

So for the record we are reporting that on Sunday, February 20, in in Fayetteville, NC, two dachshunds participated  in the VDD-GNA 40-Hour Blood Tracking Test (VSwP).

• Eibe vom Merreche, a standard wirehaired dachshund bred by Hans Josef Broich (Germany) was handled by her owner Andy Bensing, PA. Eibe  passed the test with the Prize I performance.
• Qua-Linea Enyo, a standard smooth dachshund bred and handled by her owner Sian Kwa, NC, also passed with the Prize I performance.  Enyo was awarded the trophy for the best performance of the weekend.

Congratulations to both handlers and their dogs!

Hunting with German teckels

Josef Ramacher from Germany is going to be one of four presenters at F3 Hunting Workshop in North Carolina on March 12-14. More info on Josef is posted on the workshop website at http://www.fffworkshop.com/41201.html Josef's own website is at http://www.vom-hirschfaenger.de/main.htm. He is an experienced hunting judge, and is very passionate and knowledgeable about training his teckels for hunting. These are some pictures of Josef and his dogs.

Mike and Tank are off to a great start!

We got this report from Sian Kwa, who is a breeder of Tank, the puppy owned by Mike Monroe. Mike lives in Florida but he hunts in South Carolina. It is great to see dachshunds being taking seriously by hunters!

Mike and Tank with his first recovery

In Mike's own words:
"On September 24 or so I picked up my puppy from Sian Kwa, he was eight weeks old. The next week I took him to my hunting club in South Carolina; 'Tank' was nine weeks old then. An older man in my club came to me saying he had a deer down and requested help in tracking him.

I went to the shot site and found a small amount of blood spatter. A very sparse trail from that. I went back to my camper, picked up 'Tank' and took him to the site. After a few minutes of calming him down he picked up the trail. After about fifteen minutes he had located his first deer. Keep in mind he was nine weeks old.

The next week there my hunting partner shot a large doe near the spine. We had no blood and it had started to rain slightly. I looked 'Tank' in the face and told him I had nothing to work with. He looked at me as if he understood what I had said. I put him down where the shot had been made. Tank nosed around about a minute then started working in a semi circle fashion. My partner said the deer had gone that way.

We let him work for a little over a hundred yards and into some very thick gall berry brush. It was so thick that I had to crawl behind the dog. In about fifteen yards, we found the fletched 1/3rd of the arrow. We quit the trail to give the deer time to die. We went back the next morning and trailed the deer until I decided the deer had not died quickly or was still alive.

The first week end of December my wife and I went back to my club to hunt the end of a storm front. At about 5:30 pm I shot a doe, which was quartering to me. I got about twenty inches of penetration. The deer left with my arrow. About ten minutes later a second doe walked in. I shot this one full broad side, with a complete pass through. I had good blood and some gut material at the site, however, I had no blood after that. My wife does not like to search after dark, and with the gut material present I decided to back out and wait til the next day.

I went back to the site at about 10:30 am and put 'Tank' down where I last saw the deer. We had a NW wind of about 12 mph, so we cross winded that. Tank went down a well used deer trial for about forty yards, made a hard right turn and walked right to the downed deer. Keep in mind; I had no blood whatsoever to start him on.

My wife started walking the edge of the swamp the second deer went into. She located three drops of blood. I put 'Tank' on that. 'Tank' started toward the first deer site again due to the wind. When I realized what he was doing I picked him up and went back to the blood.

This time; 'Tank' went into some brush following a lightly used trail. We had gone about eighty yards. For some reason 'Tank' stopped and made a circle to his left, went through the same brush as before, walking right to the downed deer. This is a twelve week old puppy! He had found two deer that had been shot fifteen hours prior. All I can say is 'Thanks for a champ of a dog'.

We are now one week from Christmas. I shot another large doe, with a compete pass through. I had good blood at the site, and fairly good blood initially, but it was spread out after that due to the speed with which the deer left when shot. I went back to camp for 'Tank' and some help. We were in a swamp about a fourth of a mile from my truck. I put 'Tank' down and let him start to work. In just a matter of a few seconds he was off at a rapid pace. We found the deer in about fifteen minutes or less. I probably could have found the deer, but it would have taken at least an hour and a half to do it.

The next day, one of the men in the club who trains bird dogs came to me and said " I have been in this club for over twenty years, and have seen a lot of people bring in what they call trail dogs. But, that dog of yours is the best I have ever seen. He truly loves what he does".

As of now January 10th, 2010 'Tank' has found seven of the deer I have put him on. One I did not go into, and one did not die or walked until she did, the third involves inexperience on my part and 'Tank's'. He is now a little over five months old. I can only imagine what he will do in a couple of years."

Blood tracking adventures of Ryan and Oskar (standard smooth dachshund) from Indiana

I saw Ryan's post about Oskar on one of the archery forums and asked for permission to post it here. He agreed and actually expanded it. Thank you Ryan! And congratulations to awesome Oskar!

In Ryan's words:

"Thanks for letting me brag on Oskar a bit - he has been all we hoped for and more. Getting into a tracking dog has been a work in progress for us - I think I bought John's book 4-5 years ago and have read through it at least 3 times. Our research into the right dog for us has taken the last couple of years, and we couldn't be more happy with the outcome.

Oskar is a standard smooth coat dachshund from Sian Kwa's July 2009 litter. We brought him home from North Carolina to Indiana at 8 weeks old (Sian had started the pups on short blood tracks at 6 weeks) and began our serious training with him right away. We used a combination of techniques from John's book and advice from Sian to direct his training. We were very pleasantly surprised with his progress (this is our first experience training a blood tracking dog), and he was soon working artificial lines up to 300 yards long with several 90 degree turns.

Oskar at 9 weeks

Oskar tracked his first deer at 12 weeks - a doe I harvested in the early Indiana archery season - and took to it like a champ.

Throughout the fall/winter he has tracked a total of 12 fatally wounded bowshot deer (with 12 recoveries), 6 of which were easy tracks - 30-70 yards long, 4 were moderate difficulty - 200-300 yards long, and 2 were difficult - 500 and 800 yards long. The last two deer would likely not have been found without the dog. Not bad for a 5 month old pup!

He also tracked one non-fatally hit deer (brisket shot) and was pulled from the track at 200 yards upon confirmation of the non-fatal injury. One unknown track was attempted for a gun hunter that did not know hit location and had 2 small spots of visible blood and only minimal knowledge of the flight path of the deer. This track was a non-starter.

Oskar's final track of the year was a real eye opener for me with 25 years of serious archery experience and participation in probably 80-100 blood trailing situations without a dog. I shot a good sized doe - hit looked good, maybe just a tad back, but a solid passthrough shot in the ribs with a big 160 grain Snuffer on a 7 yard broadside deer. Gave her a couple of hours to be sure, then went back with a two helpers and Oskar. Figured this would be a simple 75-100 yard track in the snow, then load her up and bring her home.

We started the track at approx 10 degrees F in several inches of snow and a very high deer traffic area about 3 h after the hit. Tracking went well with moderate blood for the first 75 yards, then got into a tall (3-5 ft) grass field and things became interesting. Two hours later we had found 6-8 wound beds with decreasing blood and covered around 450 yards of trail in the grass field before the dog took me across a county road. After the first approx 150 yards in the grass the blood was very spotty, even in the snow. After crossing the road I heard the deer jump and go off - keep in mind I had watched the (shaving sharp) Snuffer tipped arrow go through her ribs several hours before this.

Oskar started tracking hot at this point and we took her another 200 yards and came upon her bedded down 10 yards away, still alive. We are not allowed to carry a weapon when tracking with a dog so at this point things were at a dead end. After 20-30 min the doe jumped up and ran into the timber. Assessment of the wound bed showed only a couple of spots of blood and no visible blood on the flight path.

I decided to back out at that point, and my helpers convinced me that I had a non-fatal hit (shoulder or back) and that the deer would live. I was very pleased with Oskar's performance on this track considering that my previous working dog experience (beagles) has convinced me that scenting becomes problematic around 10 degrees F and below. He also maintained focus and drive for the entire track of several hours in these temperature and snow cover conditions.

That night I kept thinking about the situation and I was convinced that this deer was mortally wounded - I knew what I saw at the hit. I went back in the morning with Oskar and put him in the deer's last bed. There was an additional 1-1.5 inches of new snow, so there was no visible trail, but he tracked directly to the dead deer approx 75-100 yards further into the timber. The coyotes took one hind quarter, but I salvaged the rest of the deer and got closure for myself (and Oskar) on the track.

This is a virtually unbelievable situation to me - the deer was hit 3-4 inches forward of the diaphragm through the chest and there was a visible broadhead hole through the back lobe of both lungs. I can only attribute this deer living so long (around 5h) and travelling so far (approx 800 yards) to very bad luck in evidently not striking a major vessel/artery in the back of the lungs.

The top picture is the entry wound, and the bottom is the exit wound.

We are extremely pleased with Oskar and he is becoming a great tracker as well as a great pet and gets along well with our other dogs (rat terrier, beagle, and basset hound). The only caution I would give to prospective owners is that these dogs are definitely hunting dogs, not couch dogs, and someone expecting the stereotypical American dachshund might not be the best fit for one of these dynamos.

Ryan"

Longhaired and smooth dachshunds can track too!

From time to time people ask us whether only wirehaired dachshunds can be used successfully for tracking. We addressed this question in the past - see http://borntotracknews.blogspot.com/2008/10/can-longhaired-and-smooth-dachshunds-be.html.

Rob Miller from Michigan has been very successful tracking with a mini longhaired dachshund Scout. He writes about his blood tracking adventures in his blog http://scouttracker.blogspot.com/ Just last weekend he recovered two deer on one day! Congratulations to you Rob and Scout. Great job!

Rob has just acquired a new puppy that he is going to develop for blood tracking. It is a standard smooth dachshund bred out of European hunting bloodlines by Sian Kwa from North Carolina. More information about the litter that Rob's pup comes from can be accessed here.

Jim Mayer from Michigan has a year old pup bred by Sian, and Dozer found his first deer two weeks ago. Dozer is showing a very good potential, and Jim is proud of his dog who recently was able to advance a difficult trail with almost no blood. You can read about Jim and Dozer's tracking at http://yooperstracking.blogspot.com/

Patt Nance reports that longhaired standard male Odin out of her breeding, who is owned by Stan & Alecia Wenner of North Carolina, is also a successful blood tracker. Pictures of his finds are posted on Patt's website at http://www.fieldworthy.com/Dorndorf_News.html

It is not the type of coat that matters but what kind of blood lines a dachshund comes from. You maximize your chance of getting a good blood tracker when your puppy comes from hunting bloodlines selected for working attributes and functional conformation over many generations.

This year's first recovery for Jim Mayer's Dozer

Sian Kwa's Enyo gets Prize I in the JGHV Blood Tracking Test

Last Thursday and Friday the Southeast Hunter Chapter of VDD-GNA held the JGHV Blood Tracking Test (Verbandsschweissprüfung) at Cataula, GA. The VSwP can be run as 20-hour test or 40-hour test. The only dachshund entered, in the 20-hour VSwP, was a chocolate and tan five-year-old standard smooth female FC Qua-Linea Enyo bred, owned and handled by Sian Kwa from Chapel Hill, North Carolina. The judges were Frank Wagner and Karl-Heinz Kraus from Germany, and Lynn Whiteley from Utah; Forrest Moore from Georgia was an apprentice judge.

Huge congratulations are in order to Sian as her Enyo got Prize I.

I asked Sian for her impressions and this is what she wrote:

"During the test, I saw many fresh deer tracks. It was fairly straightforward to keep Enyo on the blood trail in the beginning despite the deer tracks. A mixture of deer and hog blood was used.

The terrain in Georgia did not consist of much ground vegetation. No briars. Mostly planted pine forest that is thinned out, with some creeks and areas of red clay and some with sand covered with pine needles, stumps and branches. The test weather was beautiful. Sunny, around 60s, but it had drizzled and lightly rained the night before. Great scenting conditions! Blood was visible at fairly regular intervals.

In other words, fortunately the test situation was not too difficult. However, at some point I did not recognize Enyo's behavior. She repeatedly returned to a certain area where the top soil was visibly dug up in the vicinity of some holes. After the test I heard those were armadillo tracks and dens. Enyo had never smelled an armadillo before, so she was very intrigued by the scent. She started checking out each hole... I had a tough time getting her on the blood trail again. It took me some minutes and picking her up twice to get her to work the blood again. It always feels a lot longer than in reality.We reach the dead feral pig in 35 min.

Later, apprentice-judge Forrest Moore who kept count of the performances of the dogs and handlers, told me Enyo was only 20m parallel off the track only once but corrected herself and went back on the trail shortly after. The rest of the time she was exactly on the blood trail when she was working.

The judges thought the team work could not have been better. They complimented me for my calmness and confidence (but meanwhile my back was soaking wet...) and Enyo for her accuracy, and ability to correct her mistake and find the trail back again. The judges made it sound that our performance appeared 'textbook', but as you know no matter how you look at it, blood tracking tests are always nerve wracking... mostly for the handler.. ;-)"




Sian Kwa with Enyo and JGHV Sw judges Karl-Heinz Kraus from Germany and Lynn Whiteley from Utah; senior judge Frank Wagner from Germany; apprentice-judge Forrest Moore from Georgia

Hi from Jim and Dozer from the Upper Peninsula in Michigan

Hi, my name is Jim and my dog is Dozer. This is my first dachshund we got him at Thanksgiving from Sian Kwa out in NC. He is five months got to get him out as much as i would of liked so i've been making him study as you can see.


He can only handle out 20 minutes, and then he gets tired.

He has been a lot of fun and we are really enjoying him. The weather has been really cold and we got alot of snow here in the UP of MI. He's doing great on overnight blood work and is a little retrieving fool. Ran a couple lines with him; he seems to do well considering he went from NC weather to 3ft of snow and 10 deg temps. I will keep you posted as soon as the weather warms up and we get out a little more. He seems to handle the cold well. He loves going out and playing with my lab in the snow which is great cause he'll get lots of cold weather work up year. Hope his retrieving keeps up; we might try him on duck hunitng with the labs next fall.

For more information on Sian Kwa's dachshunds and available puppies, see http://www.nchuntandfish.com/forums/showthread.php?t=10294

Can longhaired and smooth dachshunds be used for blood tracking?

Each tracking season we get several inquiries asking whether “wires” are the only coat variety of dachshunds to be used for tracking wounded game. Another variation of this question would be this inquiry “I was talking to a young lady at the woods and water show last weekend who told me about the blood tracking dachshunds. I did notice that most pictures show wirehair and shorthair being used for the tracking is there any reason the longhaired version we have wouldn't be able to track deer?”

A short answer is “Good blood trackers (and poor blood trackers) can be found in all sizes and coat varieties of the breed”. A long answer is more complicated.

In the United States and Canada dachshunds have been bred for many generations purely for their pet and esthetic characteristics, without any selection for the working qualities such as hunting drive, nose, line sense, gameness, voice, focus, perseverance and so on. Even though the AKC treats three coat varieties as one breed (and does not specify the coat variety on the registration certificate), we know that the most popular dachshund on our continent is of the smooth type, followed by longhaired, and the wirehaired variety is a distant third.

On the other hand, in Europe wires are most numerous; longhairs are second followed by smooths. According to the DTK (Deutscher Teckelklub) records in 2007, 7080 puppies were registered, and 5105 (72%) were wirehaired, 1207 (17%) were longhaired and 768 (11%) were smooth. In 2008 in Bundessiegersuche in Chorin, Germany (National Blood Tracking Competition for dachshunds) there were 17 entries, of which 13 were wires, three were smooths and one was long. The winners of the competition were all wires but two smooths did very well as well and got 100 points:

GS 2008 Maja vom Escherberg with her handler Ursula Zuther-Grauerholz: 1.Pr.100 Pkt

Dachshunds used for blood tracking in America are usually bred from hunting European bloodlines, and it looks like the ratio of coats resembles more the ratio found in Europe than in the American pet and show stock. Perhaps beginnings of Deer Search had something to do with it too. John Jeanneney brought his first wirehaired dachshund from Europe in 1965 and started to breed wires out of German hunting stock in 1968. His Clary von Moosbach was a great inspiration for hunters who saw her work, and she attracted many future trackers to the organization. Today most dachshunds used by Deer Search members are wires.

Also according to the long tradition, the German foresters and hunters have used wires mainly, but there are some excellent European bloodlines that have been bred for hunting in the two other coats. And as I mentioned, excellent blood trackers can be found in all three coats. A great deal depends on breeding priorities and selection criteria that a breeder applies. Patt Nance from Ohio has been breeding her ”von Dorndorf” standard longs for a long time, and she selects for dachshunds who “are smart, sound, spurlaut, of functional size, stamina, and speed, and who own a spirit of cooperation as well as a will to succeed”.

One of Patt’s longs, Odie, is used for tracking wounded deer by Alecia Wenner from North Carolina.


One of the most talented smooth blood tracking dachshunds I have ever seen was Boris owned by Anatoly Sarser. Boris was half German/half American, and he had a superb innate tracking instinct.


Just recently I received a report describing a nice work done by an eleven-week-old smooth coated Jake. Sian Kwa wrote: “I have placed a pup with a experienced bow hunter about a week ago. Hunter shot a deer on Friday. Deer fled. Hunter and his friend followed the deer and tried to look for blood. It poured that day... They could not find any blood and could not find fresh tracks either. The hunter thought of getting the pup out of the truck just for fun. Pup followed scent exactly where they saw the deer disappeared. Then turned a direction that they thought the deer did NOT go. Hunter put pup a few meters back on scent line. Pup went again to the same direction. They just let him work. About 20-30 yards down they finally saw some diluted and spread out blood. They found more blood later. About 150 yard down the pup all of a sudden stood still and refused to move. Nose up in the air. Due to this behavior, the 2 hunters started to search around. They found the deer hidden in the thickets in an overgrown ditch.”

Jake looks like an excellent blood tracking prospect: “Joel shot another deer last week and saw it fall down in the brush about 90yrds further. He went home, waited about 4 hrs and took Jake with him to the beginning of the track. Put Jake on the trail where he shot the deer and Jake again found the deer.” Check with Sian, she still has two puppies available.