Blood Tracking Dogs and Snow

Alain Ridel, who lives  at Mont Carmel between the St Lawrence River and the State of Maine, is a long time tracker with a brilliant wirehaired dachshund that he imported from France as a puppy. He has been an active in the Quebec handlers association, ACCSQ,  and he is also a member of UBT.

Alain's specialty  is tracking wounded moose, but he also tracks whitetails. This story supports our American ideas about tracking a scent line under snow cover. However, we would all agree that it is a major achievement to track a wounded deer when six inches of snow have fallen on the line.

By Alain Ridel 

Is it possible for  a blood tracking dog, especially a dachshund, to find a deer after a good snow fall? The answer is YES.

My dog Théo, who is six and a half years old, proved this to me on November 3, 2014. I had already taken several deer calls with Théo after a good snowfall, but we had never been able to recover the animal, and this left me with doubts about the capability of a dog to follow and find a wounded big game animal in the snow.

Monday, November 3 at 11:15 AM, I got a call to track a deer that had been shot the previous day at 3 PM. The hunters had waited an hour, and then they had taken off to track their game. Unfortunately they jumped him  at 180 meters from the hit site, and because darkness was coming (it's dark at 4:30) they decided to wait until the next day despite the fact that snow was predicted overnight.

Tuesday morning, when they woke up, six inches of snow had fallen. In spite of this, they decided to go back to the woods in order to find the deer. They had found blood and  also stomach contents in the bed where they had jumped the deer. Despite three hours of searching by three people, they had found no sign of this wounded deer. There were only numerous tracks in the snow made by other deer that had roamed around all night long. They decided to call me. So I found myself out in the woods in a six inch+ layer of snow, and I was there to find a deer that had been wounded nearly 24 hours earlier.

When I started Théo at the hit site, the only place that the hunters had marked, he stuck his nose, and practically his whole head, down into the snow; after several minutes he took off on scent line, which only he could figure out because there was no visual sign that I could use to confirm that he was on the right line. But as usual when we tracked together, I accepted the fact that Théo is better in these matters than I am, and I had full confidence in him.

Obviously this search took place without much of a track to follow, but at every bit of remaining   scent, I could read my dog like a book. He would enthusiastically plunge his head down into the snow, and as I followed  10 meters behind, I could hear him breathing in the scent of that deer.

The first 180 meters to the deer's bed, from which he had been jumped the day before, took 25 minutes.  Théo showed the bed to me as he scraped down to the ground where blood and stomach contents were still visible. Two other times he dug down to the earth and showed me blood on the soil that he had uncovered. With the  snow often coming up to his chest, Théo  also had to contend with fresh deer tracks everywhere, but he was never  distracted and never left his line. The area was also tracked up by the hunters, who had searched, but that did not bother him either.

After an hour and 55 minutes, he found the buck dead, half buried in snow, on the edge of a lake. He had traveled 1,315 meters.

Summary

The search took place 24 hours after the shot.

There was more than six inches of snow.

The temperature was -8 Celsius,  17.6 Fahrenheit.

There were numerous  deer tracks in the snow.

The search lasted for an hour an 55 minutes.

French version: Les Chiens de Sang et la Neige?

Est-il possible à un chien de sang et, particulièrement à un teckel de retrouver un chevreuil  après une bonne chute de neige?

La réponse est : OUI

Mon chien Théo, âgé de 6 ans et demi m’en a fourni la preuve le lundi  le 3 novembre 2014.  J’avais déjà effectué plusieurs recherches avec Théo après une chute de neige abondante mais, nous n’avions jamais pu récupérer l’animal blessé, ce qui me laissait un doute sur la capacité d’un chien de sang à suivre et retrouver un gibier blessé dans la neige.

Lundi, le 3 novembre, à 11h15 , le téléphone sonne pour une recherche sur un chevreuil qui a été tiré le dimanche, 2 novembre à 15h., les chasseurs ont attendu une heure, puis sont partis a la recherche de leur gibier.  Malheureusement, ils l’ont relevé à 180 mètres de l’anchuss et comme la nuit allait tombée (il fait nuit à 16h30), ils ont décidé d’attendre le lendemain pour poursuivre leur recherche malgré  de la neige annoncée pour la nuit.

Lundi matin à leur réveil, il avait tombé 6 pouces (15cm) de neige, malgré cela, ils ont décidé de retourner en forêt pour essayer de retrouver ce chevreuil car, sur la couche du cerf relevé le soir d’avant, ils avaient trouvé à part du sang, du fumier de panse.  Malgré 3heures  de recherches à 3 personnes, ils n’avaient vu aucun indice de ce chevreuil blessé à part de nombreuses pistes dans la neige de chevreuils qui avaient voyagé toute la nuit. Ils ont donc décidé de m’appeler, et je me suis retrouvé  en pleine forêt avec une couche de neige de + 6 pouces  à la recherche d’un chevreuil qui avait été blessé il y avait presque 24h00.

Suite à la dépose de Théo à l’anchuss (seul endroit de la recherche que les chasseurs avaient marqué) celui-ci commença en mettant son museau et pratiquement toute la tête dans la neige, et au bout de quelques minutes il parti clairement sur une voie qu’il était seul à comprendre car il n’y avait aucun indice visuel pour nous confirmer qu’il était sur la bonne voie, mais comme en recherche, je pars du principe que Théo est meilleur que moi, je lui aie fait entièrement confiance

Évidemment, cette recherche  c’est déroulée avec beaucoup de perte de  voie, mais à chaque fois je lisais mon chien comme un livre ouvert et celui-ci replongeait gaiement la tête dans la neige, et nous qui étions à une dizaine de mètres (30 pieds) derrière lui, nous l’entendions inspirer tous les sentiments de ce chevreuil,

Le premier 180 mètres jusqu’à la couche où le chevreuil avait été relevé le jour d’avant a été atteinte en 25 minutes et Théo nous l’a montré en grattant la neige jusqu’au niveau de la terre où le sang et le fumier du chevreuil se trouvaient encore.  Deux autres fois (drapeau rouge) il creusa la neige et à chaque fois il y avait du sang sur le sol découvert.  Avec de la neige souvent plus haute que ses pattes, des pistes de chevreuils fraîches (Théo n’a jamais pris un change) de nombreuses traces de pas (les chasseurs dans leur recherche) ,   il retrouva ce cerf mort sur le bord d’un lac à moitié enseveli par la neige au bout de 1h55 de travail sur une distance de 1315 mètres.

Pour résumer la recherche :

-    - recherche effectuée 24heures après le tir,
-+ de 6 pouces  de neige au sol,   
- température de -8 degré,
- nombreuses pistes de chevreuils dans la neige,
- durée de la recherche  1H 55 minutes .                                            
  

It looks like a White Christmas this year in the Helderbergs

This picture was taken on the night of December 9. Then it snowed pretty much for two days.

This is a view from our field onto a barn and dog yard. While it is a beautiful picture, it also brings back a memory of all the inconveniences of winter in the country: being snowed in and feeling isolated, a need to get a long driveway plowed, a dog yard filled with snow etc etc.

These two pictures were taken after a sunset, without a flash or tripod. The ISO setting was 20000.

Young dogs love to play in the snow. This picture shows Luna and Volt having a lot of fun for as long as it is not too cold!

Winter has arrived

On Wednesday, a day before Thanksgiving, first winter storm arrived. We probably got around 8-10 inches of snow, enough to affect travel plants for many. We were invited by friends who live 35 minutes from us and on Thursday afternoon roads were in a good condition. The snow is still with us and it still covers trees and bushes. The sight is magical.

This is our dogs' yard during the storm.

A view from our kitchen window on Wednesday afternoon.

Thanksgiving morning, just after sunrise.

On Friday morning we realized that we must have quite a few deer around here judging by the number of their tracks in the snow.

If the snow stays on the ground, it will be pretty much the end of tracking season for. We will continue to hunt if it does not get too cold.

A very tough winter for all of us in the Helderbergs

This is one of the toughest winters that I remember in the 15 years we have lived here. Snowfall is almost double of what we had last year. It has been cold, and today is an exception with temperature above freezing. It will dip much lower tomorrow again. Wildlife has been suffering.

The picture below shows "our" deer a month ago, and they looked in a really good shape. Actually this winter we have seen more deer on our property than ever before. They feed in large groups on the browse at the edge of the field. One morning we saw 20 deer there, and our neighbor reported seeing 30. They come to his bird feeders and try to to eat sunflower seeds.

February 12 - deer looked in a good shape.

Few days ago we had yet another winter storm, which left a glaze of ice everywhere. It stayed on for two days. This is when I took the three pictures posted below. It sure looked beautiful, especially in the sun, with trees sparkling as they were decorated with Christmas lights, but deer were not able to feed at all.

Brunches were covered with ice, and deer stayed hungry.

Deer lost a lot of weight. Some of them (not the one in the picture) look really thin.

Craig Dougherty, our friend and outdoor writer, wrote this article for the Outdoor Life blog two days ago. "As I write this, western New York is cleaning up from yet another winter storm. My whitetails may be in trouble. I’m not sure they can take another hit this late in the season. We began to sound winter deer alerts more than a month ago as the winter weather continued to intensify and spring seemed but a distant fantasy. Sadly, not much has changed since then. Most mature does entered winter with a 90-day supply of fat reserves, but those reserves are running dangerously low. It may be the middle of March, but the thermometer is still saying winter. Most Northern areas are well into what the Winter Severity Index (WSI) refers to as “severe” to “very severe” winter conditions."

We see a lot of wildlife activity on our driveway. I wonder how many different tracks you can see here.

John gets some outdoor exercise every afternoon when he goes for a walk with a dog. His walk are limited to local roads that are plowed. The picture shows Tommy.

Let's hope that the second half of March will bring some warmth and snow melting!

Spring training in the snow

by Andy Bensing

I have two 13-month-old pups, Addi and Axel, and I am hoping to take to the Deer Search Competition in April.  I would prefer to train on open ground but the weather has not been cooperating so I am practicing in the snow.  I do like training in the snow as it is a great way to practice line control.  Here is the set up I laid out today to run the pups on tomorrow.  I laid out 2 lines like this today.  I will run each dog tomorrow at 24 hours on their own individual training line and then swap lines and run the pups again at 48 hours on opposite lines.

Blood and hair at the hit site

That looks like a lot of blood doesn’t it?  Training in the snow lets you see how much blood you are really putting down with a VERY small squirt.  What you see in this pic is one small squirt.  When I squirt this amount every other step, about every 5 to 6 feet, it meters out the blood to 8 ounces over 1000 meters, which is the concentration of blood put down for most blood tracking tests around the world.  

Less than 10 meters after the start I try to trick the dog by putting some blood both ways at the first “Y”.  It is only natural for a dog to just continue straight going the easiest path on the right but the blood line actually bears to the left through the rougher snow.  The prevailing wind tomorrow will likely be coming left to right so that may help the dog a bit.  Regardless, right after the start the dog will have a potential issue to deal with.  This kind of set up discourages overexcited fast starts which can get a dog in trouble.

I am approaching another “Y”.  I am walking in the left hand tire track and dripping blood in the right hand tire track.   The wind is from left to right and will certainly be in that direction tomorrow.  By running the blood line up over the rough snow  into the far left tire track it will set up a great misdirection exercise for the dog tomorrow.  The dog will almost certainly get sucked to the right for several reasons.  First of all before the “Y” the blood is already in the right track and the wind will continue to drift scent down that  track quite a distance even after the blood line goes to the left.  The dog will also naturally be sucked down the easy path of least resistance to the right as well.  At some point the dog will realize he has lost the line and will begin to search.  With the wind likely coming from the left at that point, hopefully the dog will work the check into the wind, and have to cross some deep snow and 2 empty tire tracks to re-acquire the line.  Watching your dog do that work and knowing EXACTLY to the inch where the line is allows you to learn a lot about your dog and teach the dog a lot as well if need be.

You can see how I just simply drove around the field a few times setting up crisscrossing tire tracks.

 Another kind of misdirection not at an intersection.  I just switch over to another tire track right on a straight section.  Wind from left to right makes this more difficult.

Here is a tricky turn with a short backtrack.  I took the bloodline to the left in the left tire track past the intersection about 10 meters then brought it back in the right tire track to the intersection and went to the right.  I will enjoy watching the dog work this one out.

Here I am going from the right tire track, over the rough snow into the far left tire track.  Notice all the natural deer tracks.  By tomorrow afternoon there will be even more and likely right in the tire tracks themselves. This should be interesting.

Here is a video https://vimeo.com/87678126 of my male, Axel, doing the exercise the next day at 24 hours.  I had not checked the weather forecast closely and as it turned out it rained pretty hard overnight.  That rarely causes a problem with artificial trails laid on bare ground but it did seem to make a pretty big difference with the blood line laid in the snow.  Axel had very successfully work blood lines laid in snow tire tracks twice before and had virtually no trouble.  As you watch this video you will see that scenting was much more difficult on this rained on line. Additionally, because of the rain I had a hard time knowing exactly where the line was at.  The rain had washed most of the visual blood away.  Normally when you lay lines in the snow the next day you can see faint brownish smears where the blood is but the rain had washed that all deep into the snow.  The snow was pretty frozen when I worked the line.  Perhaps that prevented much of the scent from percolating up out of the snow or maybe it was just gone similar to the effect rain has on artificial lines laid on bare ground when it rains on that artificial track before the blood dries on the ground and leaves.

The video is long, 10 minutes, and you don’t have to watch the whole thing to get the idea, but if you do watch it all take notice of how I work the dog to balance helping him to be successful and allowing him to make his own mistakes to learn on his own.  You will see how by handling the dog properly Axel eventually figures out how to work the much more difficult scenting conditions than he is used to.  By the end of the track he is nailing it.

When I ran my other dog Addi on her line it was even harder and she took almost to the end to get it figured out.  For whatever reason, the visual blood on the snow was completely gone.  There was only one or two places on the line where I could see a slight discolor in the snow and I believe the available scent was even less than on Axel’s line as well.  Because of the poor scenting conditions I did not run the opposite  lines the next day at 48 hours as planned.  That looked like a disaster waiting to happen. 

As you might have read in a previous post, I had laid a tracking shoe only / no blood  line down in the snow the same day as these lines for my Eibe.  Interestingly, the rain on the tracking shoe line gave my Eibe no trouble at all.  Whether that was because she is an experienced dog and knows how to adjust quickly to different scenting conditions or tracking shoe scent on snow holds up better to rain I can’t say.  But it certainly gives raise to some interesting questions.

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.

Dachshunds clowning around in the snow

The picture was taken yesterday when a little bit of new snow was coming down. It is cold, in the morning it was 5F (-15C) and the snow crust is so thick and hard that dogs can run on the top.

Bernie, Mielikki and Kunox are very playful dogs and like to clown around.

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.

Four days after the shot, in deep snow, Thor finds the deer

By Bob Yax
Deer Search of Finger Lakes
owner of Thor von Moosbach-Zuzelek, born April 6, 2012

With gun season being such a tracking bust due to all the snow, (we only took 3 calls) it was nice to get back on an Archery call this past weekend.  At least the hunter knew where he hit the deer!

We ended up with a  fun track (body search) and recovery yesterday in the deep snow.  Thor did a great job trudging through the snow that was over his head in some places    The hunter, Jon, had intestine hit a buck,  with a bow, last Wednesday evening.  He tracked it 100 yards that night, then backed out.  The next day he did a big area search for it, with no luck.   It snowed quite a bit since then and it had not been above 20F degrees, so there was hope that the deer might still be good.  We couldn’t arrange a good time to track until Sunday afternoon.

Yesterday we just basically did a casual walk through some areas that Jon had already searched and some areas he didn’t.  Thor would periodically start following pretty fresh deer tracks in the snow.  I’d pull him off after a short while so that he would focus more on the general air scenting that I wanted him to do.  About an hour into our search Thor picked up his nose and headed downhill towards a creek in fresh undisturbed snow – I thought “this is good”.   After about 40 yards, still air scenting,  he crossed the small creek and headed into thick brush.  Not long after, he stopped and buried his nose in the snow.  At that point I saw a spot of blood next to his head (it was the 1st blood we’d seen).  When I looked closer I saw a small tuft of deer hair.  At that point, I thought that Thor had just found some old part of a deer, (it was actually the butt end of the deer that a fox had started chewing on)  the hunter then yelled “there he is” and pointed to the half rack sticking out of the snow.  Holy crap! We found him!  He ended up about 400 yards from the hit site – maybe in his 2nd bed?

The hunter proceeded to gut the nice 9pt.  It wasn’t frozen solid but was very cold.  It had no unusual odor, so there’s a chance the meat may still be good – I’ll find out from the Hunter.

It was a good end to the season; I wish it wasn’t over!  Eleven recoveries just like last year. 

Thor with "his" very cold buck.

Pictures of dachshunds in the snow

Today (Sunday) we had a really nice day and dogs managed to get out and get some exercise. We still have a lot of snow, and it will be a while before we have bare ground. How different the beginning of this spring is from a year ago! Anyway, the picture above shows Mielikki running rabbits in our pen. Hopefully Mielikki is pregnant as she was bred to Sky two weeks ago.

I was going though some old pictures today and a couple of them caught my attention.  They both were taken a couple of years ago.

This picture shows Tommy plowing through the snow. It was taken in January 2011.

This is a lucky shot of Gilda shaking her head. I like the effect it created. Somebody made a comment on Facebook that the picture shows "brainstorm".
On the 27th, in three days, Gilda is going to be 11 years old. Happy Birthday Gilda!

This was not a routine track for Andy Bensing and his dachshund Eibe

By Andy Bensing

Cold, late season hunting draws very few hunters in MD and NJ where I do my tracking so a January 16th call in the snow was a pleasant surprise.  Maybe because it had been 3 weeks since my last track, but I got great pleasure from this call, and there were quite a few interesting aspects to it.  The doe was gut shot with a 20 gauge slug from 180 yards the night before.  The amazing report from the hunter started like this,
" I started tracking the deer 45 minutes after I shot and to my amazement I found her just inside the woods 50 yards from where I saw her leave the field and she was just STANDING there wobbling in some thick stuff.   I stood there 15 feet away for a few minutes in amazement that she did not run off and expecting her to fall over and die.  When she didn't, I made my way up to her through the thicket and decided to try and push her over.  I actually touched her and when I did she just kind of wobbled away into the dark.  I went home, waited 2 hours and went back with my wife to hopefully find her dead a short distance away.  We tracked a fairly easy blood trail about 100 yards past where she had been standing but the blood ended and that was it."

Here is a photo the hunter took with his cell phone while he stood there before he touched the standing deer.

When  got the call that night I decided to wait until morning before tracking.  I expected a pretty easy find of the gut shot doe. The hunter reported he got an excellent look at the location of the hit when he walked up to the standing deer. I doubted she would travel very far if she did not even want to run off when the hunter approached.  Well, for some reason when I started my dog, Eibe, she had a very difficult time picking up the line through the 4 inches of heavy wet snow that had come down during the night.  I knew there was good blood under the snow as reported by the hunter but Eibe just could not lock in at first.  I actually restarted her 3 times at the hit site in the first 45 minutes.  She could not even make her way all the way down the path the hunter had tracked visible blood the night before.  On the 3rd restart, I had the hunter dig down under the snow and find some visible blood. 

Eibe had tracked in the snow maybe a dozen times in the past and I never had to do that before but I gave it a try and it worked.  Getting a good nosefull of that blood seemed to set things in motion, and we started to make some progress.  We got to the hunter's point of loss with a little steering help from me and then Eibe picked her way along independently in a logical direction.  She would lock in and zip along for 50 yards or so, then the scent would seem to dry up, and she would search a few minutes, pick it up again and zip right along for another 50 yards or so.  Four or five places along the way I was able to see a comforting blood smear on a branch or a dot or two of frozen blood coming up from the disturbed snow off Eibe's footprints. 

After Eibe finally was able to lock in on the trail it took her 45 minutes to find the deer dead about 500 yards past where it had been touched by the hunter the night before. The deer took one last jump across a creek and died on the other side.  With the snow partially covering the deer, I thought at first she was just a rock but when Eibe dove into the frigid water, grabbed her tail and yanking, the snow fell off and there was no doubt.

When I got to the deer I could see the bullet sticking out her side, and it looked like it smacked into her, mushroomed but never entered her.  What the ??????  Further investigation revealed that I was looking at the exit side of the shot.  The 20 gauge Remington slug had mushroomed nicely and tumbled around in the deer as it passed through the guts on a 45 degree angle from back to front. It had just enough energy left to punch the tail end of the bullet through the deer's skin but the lip from the mushroom hung up in the skin and prevented the bullet from exiting.  I have seen arrows clog an exit hole but never a bullet doing the same.  Not amazing but pretty interesting to see.

Winter strikes with full force

While last winter was mild and easy this one has already produced around two feet of snow. It all started on December 26.

The night shot taken while I was standing in our garage and our yard was illuminated by outdoor lighting.

The next morning was beautiful even without sun. During the first storm of this winter we received 14-16 inches of snow. We had to postpone our post-Christmas plans to meet with the family.

No sun, no color. Everything looked monochromatic.

I put snowshoes on to make trails in the snow for our dachshunds. Young dogs love to play in the snow but for older ones like Asko, cold and snow are a challenge.

This is Sky, who raced around with Tuesday, and he ended up like a snowman covered in the snow.

This is another picture of Sky. This particular shot was a hit on Facebook, and many people commented that it should make to the next year's calendar.

Yesterday we got more snow, probably 7 inches or so. We had to cancel our travel plans again. Instead we went for a nice walk in the woods. We saw a lot of animal tracks, mainly deer, but also fox and coyote footprints.

John snowshoeing.

Jolanta: I really enjoyed the winter scenery.