The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation Announces Leashed Tracking Dog Handler Exam

The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) announced that a written examination for individuals interested in obtaining a license to use leashed tracking dogs to find wounded or injured big game animals is scheduled for Friday, August 28, 2009, from 10 a.m. until noon at designated DEC regional offices. All applicants for this exam must register before August 21.

Before this exam was first offered in 1990, DEC conducted experimental testing with a small group of leashed tracking dog handlers. Now there are approximately 160 licensed handlers in the State. The leashed tracking dog license is valid for five years.

For further information or to apply to take the exam, please contact:

NYS Department of Environmental Conservation
Special Licenses Unit
625 Broadway
Albany, NY 12233-4752
518-402-8985

Eligible applicants will be sent a letter of confirmation and a list of exam sites. The application fee is $25, which is non-refundable. In addition, the license fee is $50, payable at the same time as the application fee. If an applicant fails the exam, the $50 license fee is refunded.

Deer Search conducts seminars preparing for the DEC tests.

Deer Search Blood Tracking Workshop

This is a long overdue short report from the Deer Search Workshop written by John.

On June 14 six new handlers from the Founding Chapter met for a workshop on training and using dogs to find wounded deer and bear. The event took place at the club house and grounds of the 110 Rod and Gub Club in Dutchess County. Deer Search Blood Tracking Chairman Bill Siegrist and John Jeanneney offered indoor presentations on training and natural tracking tactics.

About half of the workshop took place outdoors in the rough terrain and woods around the club house. Training lines were laid for three Jagdterriers and three wirehaired dachshunds. There was a good opportunity to compare the working styles of the two breeds. Of the Jagdterriers (who all worked quite fast) Lou DiBiase’s Hunter did the best job of staying on the blood line leading to the deer hide.

Mariel, a wild boar wirehaired dachshund owned by Beth and Gentian Shero, followed her blood line with precision (Beth and Gentian are daughter and son-in-law of John Robinson, who is an experienced handler). Both of the dachshunds handled by Gentian and Beth showed great promise. Obviously the two young handlers had profitted from good coaching by the Old Master.

Barbara Schmidt and her boyfriend Bill made the arrangements at 110, and provided the good food that kept everyone going.

Jagdterrier (above) and Wirehaired Dachshund (below) - pics taken at the workshop

Question about training a dachshund puppy for blood tracking

We got this e-mail from David from Louisiana:

Hello,
I recently got a female puppy. She is ten weeks of age. I placed a line for her with a deer liver about 60 yards long. She did good at the start with her nose to the ground. The further she goes her nose tends to come off the ground and she will drift off the trail. I put a turn at the end of the trail and she had trouble with this. How long of lines should I put her on? How many a week?Should I start using deer blood alone? Should I put a deer hide at the end of the line? What should I do if she loses interest on the line? I would appreciate any info.

John's answer:

Hi Dave,

Keep in mind that ten weeks is a young age for puppies to start showing a strong interest in tracking. Some will display strong tracking motivation even before ten weeks, but we have had some good ones who didn't show us much before 13 or 14 weeks. You have to be patient and keep in mind that even when a puppy is not performing well, that little brain is being stimulated as it grows. You will see the benefits later.

Before working a liver drag it is important to make sure that the pup knows just how good that liver tastes. Before you drag the liver to the end and wait a half hour, tease the pup with the liver chunk by swinging it on the cord. Let the pup have a short chew to motivate her when she tracks a little later and gets a chance to eat a little bit.

At ten weeks I would begin working her on a 20' leash of light plastic clothes line. You can guide her slightly and keep her focused by stopping her when she veers off the line. Let her find her own way back to the scent line if possible.

When she gets to the 90 degree turn, stop her gently if she just keeps on going straight ahead. If she does not come back on her own and search for the line, pick her up and set her down on the line again before the turn. Then you can give her some hints with some gentle pulls on the leash.

As for length of the line, start her on 40 or 50 yards and then give her longer lines when she seems capable of handling them. We have 12 week old puppies working 200 yard lines, but every pup has its own time table.

I think that two lines a week is about right, but you have to play the weather. Don't ask her to track any distance when it is 90 degrees outside.

I have found that a liver drag is easier for a pup than a deer blood line with the drops spaced every 12-18 inches. If you have enough deer liver, stick with that until she is doing a good job over 100 yards.

The limiting factor in puppy work is the immature brain, not the nose. Your pup has more than enough nose to smell a liver drag that is two hours old. Start with lines that are at least a half hour old and cover the liver at the end with an inverted feed bowl to keep the flies off. On older lines you should go and replace the liver at the end of the line just before you track.

I would start putting a square foot piece of thawed-out deerskin at the end of the line. Encourage her to grab and shake it.

When she seems to lose interest in tracking, it is fine to give her a vacation of a week or ten days. However, don't let her quit in the middle of a training line. Get her through it to the end and praise her "find", even if you have to give her a lot of help. In general it is better to work puppies before you feed them. Then hunger will be a stronger motivation as they track to the goodies.

There is no single cookbook recipe good for training all puppies. Sometimes you have to play things by ear.

Water Dachshunds! Yes, they can swim and retrieve.

by Jolanta Jeanneney, DCA Newsletter, 2008

Dachshunds are small versatile hunting dogs recognized for their many talents in the field. In North America they are used for tracking wounded game, woodchuck hunting and falconry. Yet, we hardly ever think of dachshunds as the breed able to retrieve waterfowl from water. Wrong!!! Some dachshunds absolutely love water, and the ones who don’t usually can be persuaded to enjoy it, especially when they are introduced to water at an early age.

Many dachshund owners are probably not aware that a “water test” plays an important part of dachshund field testing system in many European countries. In Germany a test for the companion dog title includes evaluating the dog’s attitude to water. The handler throws a floating object at least 20 feet into deep water, and the dog is supposed to bring object back to shore. There is also a separate test in which two shots are fired from a shotgun while a duck is thrown 20 to 26 feet out into deep water. The dog is expected to swim out, retrieve the duck and bring it back to the owner. The VJT, a German club for hunting dachshunds, offers an even more challenging test as a dachshund tested does not see when and where a duck is thrown into water. The dog must find the duck by himself in the body of water, and a shot is fired when the dog is swimming towards the duck. The shot actually goes into the water in front of the swimming dog.

Even if you are not interested in using or developing your dog for bird retrieval from water, it is great fun to enjoy water together with your dachshund. Swimming is an enjoyable and effective exercise in summer when the weather is just too hot for a vigorous activity such as running or even walking.

Familiarize your dog with water gradually. Never force or throw the dog into water as nothing can be more counterproductive. Some dogs do not need an elaborate introduction to water at all. When they see other dogs swimming, they go in and start swimming too.

However, some dogs, and especially puppies, need to become familiar with water in a step-by-step fashion. First, you could take them for walks to shallow streams and brooks and cross the water without making a big fuss about it. On subsequent walks, go into somewhat deeper water. You will see whether the dog is comfortable when he loses his footing. You can entice him to go away from you a bit if you throw an object that the dog has been trained to retrieve on land.

We have a small pond on our property, and our dogs swim in summer at every opportunity we get. I know that watching the pleasure our dogs get from swimming is good for my soul. Some of them are obsessive retrievers, and the whole thing is about swimming after the object and bringing it back. And doing it again…and again…and again. Some just love swimming. But the highest prize for “joie de vivre” in water goes to Bernie. He absolutely loves the water. He jumps in, paddles in such a way that the water splashes all around him. Then he barks while he tries to catch the droplets. When you watch him, you cannot help but smile. To be useful for waterfowl retrieving, Bernie would have to go through a structured training to learn “fetch and give”, but we enjoy his antics in water so much that we let him be just a pure pleasure hound.

Puppies should be introduced to water early, when they are bursting with curiosity and enthusiasm, before they enter a fear-phase in their development. It certainly helps when their puppyhood falls into the summer months. The pups in the picture are just nine-weeks-old; they did not show any inhibition about getting into the water, especially when they saw that we were wetting our feet as well.


Dogs develop at their own rate; some are precocious, some are not. In 2008 we imported two pups from Germany, Joeri and Tommy, whose difference in age is 6 weeks. The picture shows a 5-month-old Joeri who loves to swim and retrieve. For a month he watched older dogs swimming, and then he took his first plunge when he was 4.5 months old. A 3.5-month-old Tommy is really tempted to join his playmate but he is not ready yet.


If you do not have access to waterfowl, you can use retrieving training dummies and bumpers. They can be purchased from outfits like http://www.gundogsupply.com/ Here Billy is shown with his favorite duck dummy. As a pup Billy was not a natural water dog. John applied training techniques used for retrievers, and now Billy is reliable retriever on land and water.

Bernie at full cry, trying to catch droplets of water, which he splashes on purpose. More in this video:

Joeri's woodchuck

This is Joeri with the woodchuck he killed. The dachshund is a very versatile hunting breed.

Training a blood tracking puppy with scent (tracking) shoes

Some puppies and adults are not that interested in fake blood trails, and tracking shoes that leave tracks of actual deer hooves are an useful training tool in such situations. To lay a scent line you use a little deer blood, but the dog tracks the interdigital scent of the deer for the most part. For some dogs it maintains the their interest much better than artificial blood trails.

The scent shoes look like heavy rubber sandals that you strap to your rubber boots. There is a well-made aluminum casting attached to the heel, and on this casting are mounted two hose clamps, one above the other. The two sets of hose clamps, one on each sandal, firmly hold deer hoofs. You can walk along through the woods and fields and easily lay a deer track.


Yesterday we tried the scent shoes with Poppy, a 15-week-old pup who seems quite indifferent when it comes to the blood scent. Yet, we can see that in other situations she uses her nose very well. She is game aggressive as she was very possessive of the woodchuck that the pups cornered in their pen.

The line we prepared was easy, around 45 minutes old, 150 yards long, mainly done with scent shoes and some deer blood.To see what happened, watch the video clip.

The tracking shows can be purchased from the United Blood Trackers online store.

Below I have included John's article that was published in Full Cry in 2006 dealing with training to track an individual deer and the use of scent shoes.

What a Tracking Dog Can Do by John Jeanneney

I guess we’re stuck with the term ” blood tracker” but it’s certainly misleading as a description of the whole job that a tracking dog can do. Yes, a trained blood tracker can follow a heavy or a light blood trail, but his real value becomes apparent when there is no blood at all to be seen.

The lack of visible blood may be due to rain or snow cover, which are not much of a problem for a good dog. But my dogs have taught me that they can be a big help when there was never any blood on the ground to begin with.

On December 18, 2004, I shot a buck with my muzzle loader. It was a long, standing shot, but I was almost positive, on the basis of his reaction, that I had hit him hard. I went down to the hit site to check things out. There was no hair; the brisk wind could have explained that. But there was absolutely no blood either. I worked out along his escape direction for a hundred yards; there was not a drop of blood and no drag marks or other sign in the frozen leaves. Finally, I went back to the house and got my tracking dog Sabina. Equipped with her tracking leash, my handgun and a light we went back down to the hit site. Now I let Sabina check it out.

“Yes”, she said. “You hit him hard!” Let me explain that I "read” Sabina a lot in the woods by her body language. I had full confidence now, but we tracked more than a half a mile before I saw a spot of blood. Shortly after that we jumped the deer. What followed was a long and exciting chase that I’ll tell another time. The point I want to make now is that a smart dog’s nose can tell us all kinds of thing about a deer. There’s a lot more to it than just letting the dog tow you along in the direction that the deer went.

You don’t want to spend a whole day trying to track a deer that is only slightly wounded. A skilled dog will show you the widely separated blood drops and smears that tell you where the deer is hit… perhaps too high (high blood smears) or perhaps too far back so that you know you have a gut shot deer, destined to die for certain. A dog can certainly pick up the scent particles that drift off a wounded deer; they know the deer is wounded for sure. But I’ve discovered that they also use other kinds of scent to recognize and follow an individual deer.

I‘ve been learning a lot by using a fancy German invention called the Faehrtenschu. (You have to be very careful how you pronounce this word) I had some doubts about the Faehrtenschu at first, but now I am convinced that it is the best advanced training tool we have short of actually tracking real wounded deer.

Very briefly the Faehrtenschue are like heavy rubber sandals that you strap to your rubber boots. There is a well-made aluminum casting attached to the heel, and on this casting are mounted two hose clamps, one above the other. The two sets of hose clamps, one on each sandal, firmly hold deer hoofs.

You can walk along through the woods and fields and easily lay a deer track. Of course a smart dog knows that this is not the real thing, but he likes to track it anyway. At first I dribbled a little blood along sections of the “F” shoe track, but then I stopped using blood altogether and found that it worked just as well. I could lay out a track in the early evening, and then my dog would follow it twelve hours later. He did this through alfalfa fields and wooded areas that I knew had been frequented by deer during the night. He was also able to do this on a 24 hour line if the conditions were decent.

The dog was probably following the interdigital scent from the deer feet in the “F” shoes, but I wondered if he was also using my own human scent to help him stay on the line. My wife pointed out that in the summer I often have so much human scent that a duck could track me.

Well, I tried an experiment. First I used lots of deer hunting soap in all the right places. Then one evening I laid out a half mile line in open fields, marking it with widely spaced, red surveyors’ flags. Then I changed the deer feet in the “F” shoes to those from a different deer. Early the next morning I laid cross trails with the new feet cutting back and forth across the original track. I marked the new cross lines with pink flags that were not set right on the intersection where they would be a clue for the dog.

My human scent was on both the original track and the cross tracks laid with feet from the second deer. When I worked the dog at mid morning, he hesitated a moment at the intersections, but then he always took the proper, original line. It was pretty clear that for him each set of deer feet had a distinctive, individual deer’s scent. Probably the individuality was in the scent given off by the waxy substance in the interdigital glands which are positioned on top of the foot where the two cloven halves come together. This scent, which is not placed in direct contact with the ground, holds up amazingly well. All this made me wonder if dogs rely on interdigital scent much more than we realize when they are tracking a wounded deer.

The ability to track individual animals certainly applies to following a wounded bear with a tracking dog. This is obvious to bear hound men, but may not be so obvious to others. I find that bear foot print scent lasts over 40 hours, and this is what a dog has to go on when all blood is absorbed by the fat and hair. You are lucky to have the dog show you a blood smear on a tree trunk every few hundred yards. This confirms the line, but it is not what the dog is tracking.

I have actually had hunters tell me, “ I didn’t call you because there wasn’t any blood except right at the beginning. I thought you had to have blood for a blood tracking dog.” There are times when I wish that the term “ blood tracker” had never been invented!

From Full Cry, October 2006, p 66.

Tired dog - Emma after running rabbits for two hours

Today Emma ran rabbits for two hours. This is how she looked like when she was done.

A video of a blood tracking wirehaired dachshund puppy working a deer liver drag

Today we have been working with our wirehaired dachshund puppies, and decided to post a video clip of the best track of the day. Grock is 13 weeks old today, and he worked a deer liver drag, which was 2 hours old, around 200 yards long. There were many turns and you can see them marked with red flags (Grock did not see the flags the way they were placed). There was a breeze, and temp was 70F.

Grock is still very much a puppy; you can see it when he comes across a piece of the black plastic and starts to carry it. But his nose made him follow the scent line regardless distractions. He had a lot of trouble in one spot when he had to take a right turn into the wide open path, where there was a strong breeze. Otherwise he nailed it, and you can see really well how he corrected himself at the checks. He tracks at a high speed but so far he has been quite precise. For that performance we gave him a 9 on the scale of 0 to 10.

News from Germany about Joeri's family

Our Joeri was bred by Rosi Bauersachs from Germany. Few days ago we received e-mail from Rosi's daughter Anne, who wrote about recent accomplishments of Joeri's siblings. Thank you Anne and congratulations!

In the last two weeks Jette and Justus at tented two tests. First they went to our Begleithundeprüfung. They completed the whole test (BHP-G: water, obedience, searching for the owner). Jette was the best dog of the day with the whole points (220 points). Justus have had 192 points and also a first prize.

Few days later they both were entered in a blood tracking test. Justus and Jette got a first prize (Justus 100 points, Jette 92 points); in addition Justus was the best of the day. Moreover, Isidor (Ilena's brother) and Joschka (Joeri's brother) passed the fox-earth-test last week.

We are proud of the teckel and their owners.

Anne

Above - Justus and Jette, Joeri's littermates

Below - Jette, Ilena and Kobolt. Jette and Kobolt are Joeri's siblings and Ilena is Joeri's dam. Kobolt comes from the 2009 litter that was a repeat breeding that produced Joeri.

Idaho proposal about the use of blood trailing dogs needs your support

We got this e-mail from Rod Halvorsen from Idaho:

Hi Folks! Great news!!

Fish and Game Department has accepted my proposal about the use of blood trailing dogs for public review.

My proposal is "Issue 6" under "Opportunity for Public Response and Comment on 2009 Proposed Rule Changes":

See http://fishandgame.idaho.gov/apps/surveys/09bgRule/

Feel free to vote! I hope it passes. If so, it will be effective for the 2010 season.
Rod

Please take a minute of your time and vote in support of Rod’s proposal. Forward to your friends. Thank you!

Portable tracking dachshunds

Today I received a nice e-mail from Sally M. from Vermont. Sally says:

I've been meaning to send you this picture for a long time - it's of Petey in his 4-wheeler box. In the spring, I make maple syrup but I only boil about half of my sap. The rest I bring to a farm down the road with my 4-wheeler. This year I made a box for Petey so he could come with me. He took to it immediately - he would sit down and lean against the side of the box with his nose in the air, thoroughly enjoying the ride. While I unloaded the sap, he got to run around a big hayfield full of gopher holes. He wore a harness and was hooked to the box so he couldn't jump out, plus the sap was really heavy so we had to go slowly. I felt pretty comfortable that he was safe.

Petey's doing just great. He had a good winter, only one trip to the vet for porcupine quills. He's matured beautifully, physically and mentally. I don't know the first thing about proper dachshund conformation, but I can at least see that he's strong and straight, athletic and moves well. He has a great personality too - he's calm and quiet, well-behaved, friendly and confident. Though he still tries to hump the cats, eat their poop and will roll in really disgusting things.

I am planning on bringing Petey to the UBT workshop in NH and am looking forward to it. Hopefully you'll be there and will get to see him in person. Sally

Thank you Sally, as always, it is great to hear from you. We both will be at the workshop, and I am really looking forward to seeing you and Petey.

One of the advantages of dachshunds as tracking dogs, is their size and portability. These days a lot of hunters use ATVs, and dachshunds can be transported this way with ease. Below there is a picture of John and Billy taken in 2006 on one of the local deer calls. It was quite a haul up the steep mountain and getting there on a four wheeler really saved time and our energy.

Working dogs as pets

This post by Patrick Burns should be read by everyone who is planning to get a blood tracking dachshund puppy
http://terriermandotcom.blogspot.com/2009/06/whats-wrong-with-working-dogs-as-pets.html

Very well said!!! Below are pictures of working dachshunds in Spain:

Upcoming blood tracking workshop in New Hampshire

Download the flyer and registration form from the United Blood Trackers website at http://www.unitedbloodtrackers.org/laconia-premium-list.pdf

NATC Blood Tracking Test - May 30, 2009

On Saturday, May 30, the North American Teckel Club held a blood tracking test at Rockaway, NJ. The test was judged by Mlle Agnès de France, Andy Bensing and Teddy Moritz.

According to the regulations the blood line is 1000-1200 meters long, has three right angle turns and three wound beds. No more than 0.25 liter of blood is used for the line preparation. The dog has to track on the special tracking leash, which has to be at least 6 meters long.

The evaluation of the dogs at the blood tracking test is accomplished with multiplier and score numbers. The following categories of performance are tested and evaluated as follows:

A) Working method on the blood line (multiplier 10)
B) Tracking accuracy (multiplier 8)
C) Desire to track (multiplier 7)

Performance is evaluated as follows:
Unsatisfactory score 0
Insufficient score 1
Satisfactory score 2
Good score 3
Very good score 4

For the I Prize the minimum required total score is 85 points, for II Prize 68 points and for III Prize 50 points.

Above - Billy handled by John Jeanneney got III Prize , 60 points. Below - Owl handled by Patt Nance got III Prize, 50 points. The judges were Mlle Agnès de France, Andy Bensing and Teddy Moritz.

Congratulations to handlers and their dogs. A big thank you to Andy Bensing for the pictures.

NATC Zuchtschau 2009 - Joeri vom Nonnenschlag goes "best in show"

On Sunday, May 31, the NATC held its spring Zuchtschau at Rockaway, NJ. The show was judged by Mlle Agnès de France, President of French Club des Amateurs de Teckels. Altogether there were 24 entries.

This is a very different type of show than an AKC dog show, where the emphasis is put on competition. At a Zuchtschau each dog is evaluated individually according to the FCI standard for dachshunds #148. The critique of every entry is done aloud, and it is also recorded on a special form. The owner of the dog receives the form with the results of the evaluation. Dogs are given a rating and the three highest ratings are:
Vorzüglich, V (Excellent)
Sehr Gut, SG (Very Good)
Gut, G (Good)

It was a good day for our young males as both of them, Joeri vom Nonnenschlag and Tom vom Linteler-Forst, got a Vorzüglich rating. At the end of show a winner was chosen for every coat type (smooth, longhaired and wirehaired). Our Joeri was the wirehaired winner, and then he was chosen to be the "best in show". The pictures below show show the judge Mlle Agnès de France with winning dachshunds and their owners (many thanks to Ed Wills for the pictures).



Other pictures from the show can be accessed here.

Blood Tracking Adventures

by Jolanta Jeanneney for DCA Newsletter, October 2007

I have no doubt that the fall is my favorite time of the year. No more hot and humid days which prevent us from working with the dogs. We live in north-central New York, surrounded by the Helderberg Hills, where strong winds and deep snow do not make winters dachshund-friendly either. But September and October can be simply gorgeous when maple leaves change their colors and the woods entice with a wonderful scent of wet, decomposing leaves on the ground. This is also when dachshunds get a chance of real work – tracking wounded deer and bear for hunters. Our deer hunting season opened this year on October 13 and it will close on December 18. John, who is a principal tracker in this family, has distributed cards advertising our tracking services in local stores with hunting supply, coffee shops and any places that might be frequented by hunters. Also, as members of Deer Search (www.deersearch.org) and United Blood Trackers (www.unitedbloodtrackers.org) we get referrals through these organizations.

Last Sunday (October 21) was beautiful with temperature over 75 degrees. Leaves were spectacular, at their peak of color. We were tracking a wounded deer for a hunter in Rensselaer County, an hour drive from our place. Just when we were coming back from the field, another hunter called. By pure chance, he was only 20 minutes from us and he could not locate a deer wounded too far back in the early morning. Dogs can usually track successfully deer with this type of wounds. Even though there might not be much blood to work with, the scent left by the deer from the stomach wound is quite strong. After we met the hunter, Steve, who led us to the hunting grounds, it was quite a surprise to see his friend Jeff there. Jeff is an avid and experienced bowhunter but he has never seen tracking dogs in action. He had a camcorder in his hand so the pressure was on.

We had Elli and her son Arlo with us. Arlo is a littermate to Henry Holt’s Bear, Sherry Ruggieri’s Auggie and Dixie and our Amy and Emma. He is now four and a half years old and we got him back last December when his owner could not keep him any longer. For a while we were thinking about evaluating him and if he showed a good potential, re-selling him as a tracking dog. He was not worked at all by his previous owner but he was very promising as a puppy. We really liked what we saw last spring/summer in training on artificial lines, and also we have grown fond of him. Then this fall he finished his field championship with ease and three first places. We made a decision to keep him as we got attached to him; he seems very happy here and he is a hunting dog with a wonderful personality. Anyway, we decided to let him lead on his first natural deer call.

We started to track at 5:30 pm. The hunter showed us a short trail of sparse blood and Arlo followed it well. He was calm, tracked at a pretty slow pace and started to advance trail with a lot of confidence. Jeff thought that the deer must have veered off to the right but Arlo turned left to the field of golden rod. We did not see any blood but it is usually the case with a deer hit in this way. At this point we had no choice but to trust Arlo. The scent trail came very close to where our vehicles were parked. For a short time I had some doubts whether we were on a right track, but Arlo showed no hesitation. Jeff and Steve moved to the side, scouted the field ahead and saw that the bedded buck got up and started to move away. We saw the buck; his tail was down and his back was hunched up.

Arlo continued to track the cold scent methodically but then he hit the hot trail. It was not easy to handle Elli and trying to take pictures at the same time! When the dogs got on the hot line, they both opened and a quick pursuit followed.

The next 20 minutes were pretty hectic. Steve tried to arrow the deer, which bedded again, but unfortunately he missed. We got close to the buck several times but every time he would get up on his feet and run again. Even when we thought that he expired and Arlo jumped on him, deer got up, shook Arlo off, and ran again.

Finally Steve caught up with the buck again and put in another arrow. What an incredible will to live this deer had! Arlo, usually extremely possessive, pulled on the buck's leg but was not overly aggressive. Perhaps having been thrown off the deer cooled his appetite for a direct confrontation.

Elli was very possessive of the deer so we let the dogs enjoy their find one at a time. Jeff and Steve were very happy with getting this deer. We got back home at 9 pm very happy with dogs’ work. An e-mail from hunters was already waiting on our computer: “Steve and I wish to thank you very much for the exciting and successful search. The dogs worked amazingly well and Steve never would have recovered his deer without you guys and the dogs. You made a believer out of Steve and I with those dogs. Great way to end the day - don't you think.”

It is going to be a memorable call, and I posted some pictures at http://jola.smugmug.com/gallery/3693829

Two days later, we received a call from another distressed hunter. He arrowed a deer the previous evening at 5:30 pm. He was sure that the deer was shot in the stomach. We started to track at 10:30 am and John handled a two-year-old Bernie. It was a warm day, temperature around 70 degrees, and overcast sky. There was a good blood trail even though red leaves on the ground made spotting blood drops a bit difficult.

Bernie showed a good desire to track but he was too fast and not very focused. It was good to have a long blood trail to work with so we could actually evaluate Bernie's work as we were sure of where the deer went. After 150 yards of veering through the woods, the deer went into patches of goldenrod. Bernie was pulling ahead, and he was not very accurate. When we ran out of blood line, we did not have much confidence about whether Bernie was on the right track. We searched and searched but could not see more blood. After one hour we decided to take Bernie back to the car and bring a more experienced Billy.

It was not an easy task for Billy to track through the terrain already trampled by three people and one dog. I was getting a bit discouraged as we could not find more blood and advance the trail. I could not believe that the deer, which was bleeding so much, all of sudden, would stop leaving any blood behind. While John was working with Billy, the hunter and I decided to look a bit to the right of the track - the only direction not explored yet. We were successful and found more blood at the edge of another goldenrod field.

We marked the blood and called John with Billy. This time we were very optimistic about finding the buck. This new blood trail was not disturbed by us or another dog and in the very thick cover Billy should not have had problems with following it. We were right! Now Billy was pulling with a great strength and he acted very sure of himself. Forty yards later (and two hours from the start with Bernie) we found the deer. It was a very sad site as unfortunately coyotes got there first! The damage was severe and the meat was not salvageable. It was a lesson that these days in our area a hunter risks losing a wounded or dead deer to coyotes if he chooses not to track at night. Billy got his reward by tugging on the deer and getting a piece of venison.

This deer call illustrates well how blood tracking relies on a partnership of handler and his dog. We found this deer thanks to Billy but on the other hand he would have a very hard time locating the deer by himself given the circumstances.

Pictures from this call are posted at http://jola.smugmug.com/gallery/3702985

Laurel Whistance-Smith has been breeding dachshunds out of German bloodlines for at least 15 years. Last year she sold one of her puppies, Josy, to Christian Elwell, who is a big game outfitter in Alaska with a passion for hunting whitetails around and working with dogs. He spends late falls in Ithaca, NY. Recently he reported about his experiences in New Mexico.

“Hello Laurel, I’m in between trips for a couple of days and wanted to update you on Josy. What a dog. She had a ball this summer on my float trips. I got a life jacket for her and she rode on top of the gear while we floated.


We had no trouble with bears this summer thanks to Josy. A three year old Brown Bear had been terrorizing rafters at the head waters of the trip. No one had had the opportunity to pepper it with bird shot and it was becoming quite cheeky. When it came into our camp one night Josy lit out after it and chased it over a mile down stream at which point it dove in and swam for the other side, not to be seen again. This was only one of the many times she kept our camp and perimeter free of bears. She has a zero tolerance policy for them.

The big news is the time we spent on the Vermejo Ranch in northern New Mexico. The ranch itself is over 900 square miles and it has the best elk hunting in North America. This year was the first year New Mexico has allowed blood tracking with leashed dogs. Josy and I were invited to come down and see how we could do during bow season. Nothing like starting at the top. There were quite a few chuckles when people first saw the scurfy, short dog. A few people had heard of the breed, but no one really had any clue.

Our first call for elk was a gut hit bull we followed up 24 hours after it had been hit. We worked for six hours on hot, dry, rocky ground with almost no visible blood. Almost three hours later, through lots and lots of fresh elk tracks, we found the bull. Amazing how she worked. She is so determined.

The last elk we found was also hit really far back. She lost the line in the middle of the track and took 45 minutes to figure things out before she began to tug hard on the leash. We would find pin drops of blood every 10 meters or so. After three miles she stopped and made a hard left and started going up hill. Two miles away we found the bill, a large 6X6 so it was 3.2 miles and 1200 feet in elevation gain. There is no way in Hell any human could have found either of these bulls.

As for the people that laughed. I think that there might be a little corner in northern New Mexico where the cowboys have dachshunds instead of heelers.

Season total on recovered animals is: three elk and one black bear – not bad for seven days”.

Appreciation for Deer Search tracking services

The letter below was written by Kevin Harris to Kevin Armstrong from Deer Search. Kevin and Ron Betts recovered a trophy buck (159 5/8 score) on November 11, 2008.

May 14, 2009

Kevin,

Here is a copy of the official score sheet I just submitted to New York State Big Buck Club for their next record book. I hope it makes a nice addition to Karma's scrapbook which I know is full of great success stories and adventures.

No words can express my gratitude to You, Karma, Ron, and DEER SEARCH for helping me recover that magnificent buck. It is an experience I will never forget as long as I live! The work you do on behalf of hunters and the wonderful creatures they pursue is priceless.

The support you provided to me after the recovery is most appreciated as well. Your guidance and advice helped me pursue things the honorable way, and all has worked out positively. (We) have a record book buck to show for our honest ethical efforts! You have been a great mentor and friend. Thanks.

Sincerely -

Kevin Harris"

Kevin Armstrong with Karma and Ron Betts with Effi

New Field Champion Joeri vom Nonnenschlag

I spent last weekend attending dachshund field trials, which took place at the Central New Jersey Beagle Club, Sergeantsville, NJ. As I was judging field champions on Sunday at the Dachshund Club of America Annual field trial, I took only two young males with me - Joeri and Tommy. On both days Joeri placed first in a stake of open all-age dogs, and since he already had one placement from the last fall, he met all the requirements to get a title of the AKC Field Champion. You can see pictures taken on Saturday at the trial here.

The French Connection - Blood Tracking Workshop in Quebec, Canada

by John Jeanneney
Full Cry June 2009

One of the North American hot spots for tracking wounded big game with tracking dogs is certainly going to be Quebec. They shoot a lot of moose up there, and with their early season starting in September many of these moose are not found until after the meat has spoiled. If a moose is shot in the late afternoon of a warm day and left to be found in the morning, chances are that the meat will be inedible. That means that the equivalent of 400 pounds of deboned meat is wasted. Because the body mass of a moose is so great, and the heavy coat is such good insulation, the animal spoils from its own body heat.

Quebec’s Ministry of Natural Resources and Wildlife decided that their existing laws did allow for blood tracking, although their interpretation, as it was written, is not very practical. For example a firearm cannot be carried while tracking with a dog.

In good part because of the influence of guides and outfitters, interest began to grow among hunters in general. When I gave a workshop last June at St- Apollinaire near Quebec city, there were about 35 enthusiastic people in attendance. An organization was formed after the workshop, and it was called the “Association of Tracking Dog Handlers of Quebec”. (The French acronym for this jawbreaker is ACCSQ.) This year’s workshop, which I attended as a member of the Association, drew 66 people who paid $100.00 or more for the two days. The Association had also opened up discussions with the Ministry about improving their regulations in various ways. A representative of the Ministry was present at the workshop.

The new Association in Quebec had made fruitful contacts with the French, multi breed tracking organization, UNUCR, which has over 2000 members. Some of these, like Patrice Stoquert, a forester whom I accompanied in 2007, take 100s of calls a year. Certainly the big game species in Europe are quite different from those of Quebec and there is a wild boar problem much more serious than the wild hawg issues of our American South. In France wild boars tear up the agricultural fields as if they had been invaded by a drunken gang of giant rototillers; wild boars even invade the suburbs to raid garbage cans. Boar hunting drives go on in France through most of the year, and this makes for a lot of tracking. But despite the differences in game species almost all of the French experience is valid for Quebec and the rest of North America.

The Association brought over from France my friend Patrice Stoquert, who uses Labs, and Philippe Rainaud, who tracks with European wirehaired dachshunds of the type I use myself. Wirehaired dachshunds are the most widely used blood tracking dogs in France, and it looks like dogs of this breed, also known as “teckels”, have already become the most popular dogs for this work in Quebec. No one seems deterred by the fact that moose or even a black bear are considerable bigger that a 20 pound dachshund or that the handler and accompanying hunter cannot carry a firearm. I hope that the regulations are changed before someone gets hurt.

Stoquert and Rainaud are old hands at giving workshops in France and they have a smooth, well-organized presentation. I have presented a few workshops myself on the subject, but there were important new things that I learned from them.

One of the first things to be learned in wounded game tracking is to evaluate the hit site for information about where the animal has been hit. This is pretty straightforward, but Stoquert and Rainaud showed that there is more to it than meets the ordinary eye at the hit site. They hung a road-killed deer up in a standing position about ten feet in front of several different lightweight tarps of white plastic. Then they shot through the deer with various high power rifles, a 12 gauge slug gun and bowhunting arrows. The holes and splatters on the tarps showed that there was actually a cone-shaped spray of metal particles, tissue and bone fragments around the bullet hole in the tarp behind the deer. It could also be seen that the projectile sometimes changed its trajectory by as much as 30 degrees in passing through the animal. Observers could see that a wider and more careful search for sign at the hit site would yield a better sense of what the tracking task ahead might produce.

Road killed deer hung up to demonstrate how bullets and particles exit from an animal that has been shot. Yves Martineau, ACCSQ President is holding rifle.

Rainaud also pointed out that an experienced dog, one with a hundred calls or so in his memory bank, can also inform us about the condition of the animal being tracked. If you know how to read your dog, his body language and the looks that he gives you over the first few 100 yards of track, you will know whether to forge ahead to the end, or on the other hand, pick up the dog. Stoquert and Rainaud, pointed out again and again through the weekend just how important practical experience is for both the handler and the tracking dog. Breed and genetics are an important base, but great tracking dogs are made on the trail, a trail that may be 24 hours old with little or no blood.

As previously stated, Stoquert and Rainaud are Lab and dachshund men, respectively. Therefore, they are thankful that they are licensed to track in France rather than in Germany. In Germany, using these two breeds, they would not be qualified to become licensed trackers. In Germany only handlers of the specialized blood tracking breeds can acquire a state license, subsidies and the authorization to track onto any property, even without landowner permission. In most of the German states this means having a Hanover blood hound, a Bavarian mountain blood hound or a dachshbracke. There is a lot of politics behind these state preferences and prejudices.

Actually Stoquert, a French forester with a British Lab, is invited to track at the big state sponsored drive hunts in Germany across the border from where he lives. The hunt managers are most interested in what a dog can accomplish!

Both Stoquert and Rainaud praised the nose of the bloodhound-based Hanover blood hound and Bavarian mountain blood hound. But they pointed out that both dogs are slow to develop psychologically. Their period of wacky adolescence often extends to three years. At the other end, their lives are comparatively short; they are usually dead or too old to work by the time they are eight. On average they have only about five years to fulfill themselves in the tasks for which they were bred. In contrast a dachshund or a Lab will be useful for double that length of time.


Patrice Stoquert, French workshop presenter from UNUCR, giving advice to Jacques Dion on handling his wirehaired dachshund.

The workshop was divided about equally between indoor discussion and field work using a few demo dogs at various stages of development. There was a tendency for even the more experienced Quebec dogs to work too fast. If you have to run to keep up with the dog at the end of the tracking leash, you are going way too fast to see the blood sign that will help indicate the condition of the deer. They pointed out that an excessively fast dog wastes more time than he saves. Tracking dogs in Europe are trained to point out blood sign, and some do this naturally with little training. Partnership and cooperation between handler and dog are at the heart of tracking wounded big game. Obedience training is important, but “command and obey” are not enough.

Dog pictures - testing my new camera (Sony DSC-HX1)

Today I am posting some pictures that I took with my new camera Sony DSC-HX1. Over the years I have used two super-zoom digital cameras from Panasonic Lumix series and I liked them a lot. However, they don't do well in low light conditions and their burst mode is not fast enough for taking action pictures (running dogs for example). Until I can afford a really good DSLR camera, I decided to upgrade to the latest camera from Sony. Sony DSC-HX1 seems to have what I was looking for. A powerful 20x optical lens is an equivalent of 28-560 mm; in macro mode you can take pictures 1 cm from the object. The burst mode shoots up tp 10 frames per second. A special feature produces panoramic pictures (see below), and video can be recorded in high definition. The camera is not too heavy at 18 oz. It has many other useful features, and so far I have been impressed.

Above - Billy von Moosbach-Zuzelek, below Olana v Moosbach-Zuzelek, Billy's niece

This is Keena with her favorite toy

Panorama picture of our grounds (on the right side of the fence). This is where our dachshunds can get plenty of exercise.

Pictures showing spring in the Helderberg Mountains.

NATC Spring Seminar and Zuchtschau

Dates: Thursday, 28 May through Sunday, 31 May

Zuchtschau Judge: Agnès de France - President of the French Dachshund Club

Presenters (in alphabetical order)
Andy Bensing – Dog trainer, DTK/NATC hunting judge, and President of the United Blood Trackers.
John Jeanneney – Author of Tracking Dogs for Finding Wounded Deer, DTK/NATC hunting judge and founding member of the NATC, Deer Search and United Blood Trackers.
Lisa Kennell - Canine Enforcement Officer, Procurement Officer, Instructor and Course Developer for the US Customs and Border Protection Agency, expert on scent detection and tracking.

Seminar topics will include hunting, canine scent work, blood tracking, obedience, gun steadiness and water retrieval.

Training and testing will be offered for blood tracking, obedience, gun steadiness and water retrieval.

A Zuchtschau (conformation show), where dachshunds can receive written critiques from an FCI judge, will be held on Sunday.

Schedule

May 28-29, (Thursday all-day & Friday AM)
Blood tracking covering the following topics:
• Blood Tracking as a Handler/Dog Team, PowerPoint, John Jeanneney (Techniques of tracking, handling the leash, reading your dog.)
• Laying a Blood Line, Andy Bensing (practice in the woods.)
• Working with Young Puppies, Powerpoint, John Jeanneney
• Intermediate training, 5-8 months, Andy Bensing
• Adolescence, John Jeanneney
• Work Available Dogs on Demo Lines, Andy Bensing and John Jeanneney
• Working with Hunters, PowerPoint, Andy Bensing with John Jeanneney
• Prospects for tracking wounded deer in New Jersey in 2009-10, Rich Wolven

May 29, (Friday PM)-
Scent work, “Understanding and utilizing the dog's olfactory system”, Lisa Kennell

May 30, (Saturday)-
AM: Official DTK/NATC blood tracking tests.

Training and practice for BHP-1 and 2 (German companion dog tests that combine some aspects of the AKC’s obedience and CGC tests)

PM: training & practice for BHP-3 and water retrieval test

May 31, (Sunday)
AM: Official DTK/NATC Zuchtschau (conformation evaluation) by Mme Agnes de France, a DTK conformation & hunting judge and Dachshund breeder

Followed by BHP-1 and 3 tests, water retrieval test, and gunsteadiness test

In addition, there will be evening presentations by Mme de France on hunting in France and on conformation from the FCI point of view. These presentations will most likely be held on Thurs and/or Friday night.

For the registration form e-mail Carrie Hamilton at hamiltce@juno.com

Registration fee per day* -
$40.00 dog and handler team ($30.00 for NATC members)
$25.00 additional dog
$30.00 attendance w/o dog ($20.00 for NATC members)

Registration fee all four days* -
$100.00 dog and handler team ($75.00 for NATC members)
$25.00 additional dog
$75.00 attendance w/o dog ($50.00 for NATC members)

Test and Show fees*:

DTK/NATC 1000 meter Schweiss & Fährtenschuh (blood tracking) test fee is $60.00. Dogs/handlers must meet certain preconditions**. NATC 500 meter test without judges at $30.00 may be offered depending on the number of dogs entered in the 1000 meter tests.

Zuchtschau advance entries: First adult dog $20.00, puppies $15.00, each additional dog/same owner $15.00. Gate entries (day of event): $25.00

Gun steadiness, water test and companion dog test (BHP-1 and BHP-3 will be offered) advance entry is $5.00, $10.00, and $10.00 (for each part), respectively. Gate Entries are $10.00, $20.00 and $20.00, respectively.

* Advance Entry / Closing Date: May 21, 2009 – Register early as space for certain activities may be limited. Registrations will be accepted on the day of the workshop but for anyone training a dog, registration on the day of the workshop or postmarked after the closing date will be charged an additional $25.00.

** Handlers who have already obtained a JGHV/DTK/NATC blood tracking title on one of their dogs may enter other dogs in that test. For novice handlers who have not put a title on a dog, the following are ways to demonstrate that you and your dog have reached a basic level of proficiency: 1) passing an NATC 500 meter test, 2) having a certification for your dog from another acceptable organization such as the United Blood Trackers (UBT) or Deer Search Inc (DSI), and 3) arranging individually for an NATC judge to observe and attest to your dog’s preparedness.

-----------------------------

Location: The seminar and show will be held at Winnebago Scout Reservation, 102 Timberbrook Rd., Rockaway, NJ. Camp phone number is (973) 983-9075

Directions

From Rt. 80 east, take exit 37 (Hibernia/Rockaway). At end of ramp there is a traffic light. Make a left onto Rt. 513, Green Pond Rd. Go 6.5 miles on Green Pond Rd. to Timberbrook Rd. Make a right onto Timberbrook Rd. and go 1.3 miles to camp entrance.

From Rt. 23, take the Green Pond Rd. exit. Take Green Pond Rd. (Rt. 513) 5.1 miles to Timberbrook Rd. Make a left onto Timberbrook Rd. and go 1.3 miles to the camp entrance.

Accommodations

Best Western, (973) 625-1200 or 1281
Rt. 80 and Green Pond Rd. Rockaway, NJ (a.k.a. intersection of Hibernia Rd. and Rt. 80)

Dogs allowed; $25 per dog per night.

One king bed per room, with pull-out couch, $79

-----------------------------

Hampton Inn, Morris Ave, Denville (just off Rt. 80 exit ramp)

No dogs in room except service dogs.

Room prices vary according to day of the week and whether the customer has AAA or AARP:

May 27 Wed. AAA $151.05 + tax, AARP 143.10 + tax, Regular rate $159.00 + tax

May 28 Thurs. AAA $122.55 + tax, AARP $116.10 + tax, Regular rate $129.00 + tax

May 29/30 Fri/Sat AAA $75.05, AARP $71.10 + tax, Regular rate $79.00 + tax

For those that don’t mind more rustic conditions, space can be reserved in one of the camp bunkhouses (bring your own sleeping bag or bedding). Cost to stay in the bunkhouses is $25 a night or $70 to stay for the entire seminar. There is RV parking but no hook-ups. Cost for RVs is $15 a night or $50 to stay for the entire seminar.

Meals: Meals will be available on site at $5 for breakfast and $7 for lunch.

Reprint of Tracking Dogs for Finding Wounded Deer

A couple of months ago we ran out of the paperback version of John's book Tracking Dogs for Finding Wounded Deer. Today we got a delivery of the reprint. Now we just need to update our website, and will be ready to start selling the paperback again.

Results of the Deer Search Blood Tracking Competition

As we announced the Deer Search Annual Blood Tracking Competition was hosted this year by the Western New York Chapter on the weekend of April 18-19, 2009.

Of the seven entries only two dogs placed in the competition, which allows one hour for finishing the track. First place (Prize II, score 82) went to Tabitha Von Munterkeit (Wirehaired Dachshund), owned by Dale Clifford. The second place (Prize III, score 74) went to a German Shorthair Pointer Rio owned by Ron Hausfelder. Congratulations Tabitha and Rio!

Billy von Moosbach-Zuzelek handled by John Jeanneney was clocked out, but he was allowed to finish the certification track (certification does not pose the time limit) and got Prize II and score of 75.

From the left: Andy Bensing (Judge), John Jeanneney with Billy, Bill Siegrist (Judge).

Professional Tracking

From Full Cry, May 2009

At the highest level, tracking wounded big game becomes a real profession, and there are some tracking dog handlers that make a good part of their living doing this. Dan Kendall, who wrote this account, is a retired Fire Chief from Miami Florida. He gives us a sense of the passions and pressures of working on a professional basis. There are many good tips for amateur trackers that come out of his experience.

Vars with a trophy deer find

Dan’s tracking partner is Vars, a Bavarian Mountain Bloodhound; the two had worked together for several deer seasons in Georgia before spending the 2005 season in the big buck country of Illinois. Dan worked there under contract for a big outfitter who leased the hunting rights on thousands of acres. At this time the use of tracking dogs to find lost deer for clients was still quite new. Dan Kendall begins:

“Because of the amount of deer up there in Illinois and the fact that I was also working as a guide, we decided that Vars and I would be called in after the other guides had checked to see if they could find the deer on their own. In all we went on 21 searches and found six of the deer. It was bowhunting only so we wound up with quite a few non-lethal hits. We would determine this only after long tracking jobs. We also had a problem with property line disputes, and had to call off some of our searches because of this.

At first things were tough because there are so many deer up there that it was common to have 50 to 75 deer cross the path of the wounded deer after the shot. Vars and I had worked quite a bit in areas with lots of deer, but we had never encountered anything like this. It was tough, in the case of gut shots and the less than perfect hits, to make the decision to wait and give the animal time to lie up and die. It seems that most shots were taken late in the afternoon, and therefore we would wait until morning to track the animal. I would say the average age of the tracks was 16 to 18 hours, and there would have been literally 50 to 100 deer that had passed through the area overnight. That was a lot of information and distraction for a young dog like Vars to figure out, but he did well. We both learned a lot.

Because we were able to drive relatively close to most of the starting points, at first I would just hook his tracking leash and collar on to him at the truck. I realized very quickly that this was a mistake. He would start tracking from the time that we got out of the truck and by the time we got to the actual hit site he would already have crossed at least 20 fresh tracks.

I then started hooking a short leash on to his regular collar and made up a tracking fanny pack with his long tracking leash and collar and my GPS, compass, water, knife and stuff to properly tag the deer if we found it. I was carrying my camera too but got superstitious about this after we didn't find any, so I quit taking it. Hooking him to the short leash and walking him into the hit site made a huge difference.

When we got there I would tie him to a small tree and go to the hit site with the hunter and guide to get a general idea of the hit and the direction the deer had traveled after the hit. In bowhunting the travel route of the deer after the hit is the most important piece of information you can have because they usually don't start dropping blood to the ground for 50 to 75 yards. For some reason most of these deer ran off with the arrow sticking out of them so you didn't even have that to analyze.

Another problem was that late October and November is the time when whitetail deer are breeding in that part of the country so every time a buck was shot there would be other bucks and does with him, and they would all scatter in different directions. I would say that 90% of the time I would have to work several lines before we would get onto the right one. I would have the hunter get back into the tree stand and watch as Vars and I worked a line so that he could tell us if he was headed in the same direction the injured deer had run after the hit. If for some reason (and it happened a lot) the hunter had no clue as to the direction the deer ran after the shot, I would have to work a line, and if I didn't find blood or some other signs of a hit after 75 yards, I would take Vars back to the hit site and start again. On some tracks I would re-start him five or six times before we would finally get on the right track. Boy would I get excited when we found blood and confirmed that we had the right track.

I was frustrated at first. I just didn't know how we were going to be able to work in an area where there was so many deer, but somehow Vars did it. I'm amazed at his ability. The problem was that most of these deer were either gut shot or hit in such a way that they would not die quickly. They needed time to lie up and die, but this meant that you had to cope with all the deer tracks that would be in the area. Coyotes were a real problem too.

It was a tough situation that an experienced tracker can appreciate. At first I think the owner of the place thought we would find every deer that was shot, but of course this was not the case. I feel successful if I can carry the line farther than whomever it was who started the tracking job before me. In most cases I was able to determine that the deer would live or had gone beyond property lines that made us stop.

At one point I had gone nine jobs without finding the deer. Man was I frustrated. Then I hit a streak and found three in a row, two in one night. Here's that story.

A guide had informed me at lunch that one of his hunters had gut shot a deer at nine am in the morning. I told him that we would wait until dark and then go look for it. At three o'clock the same afternoon the same guide informed me that his other hunter had shot a deer and told him "I'm afraid I hit it a little far back".

Now we had two deer shot "a little far back". Vars and I had been on a tracking job that morning where we had actually jumped a doe and watched as she bounded off out of her bed and jumped a fence onto property that we didn't have permission to track on. We had followed a bloodless track for approx. 200 yards when we jumped her. The only confirmation of a hit was the few drops of blood we found in her bed. I was confident that this deer would live.

We had 22 bowhunters in camp for this hunt, and I was praying no one else would hit one "a little far back" that evening. As it turned out the weather really went bad and we were dealing with light rain and winds of approximately 20 mph by dark. I questioned my decision to let these deer lay. But that's the nature of tracking for a large operation. The owner wants you to find the deer as soon as possible, but you know through experience that to start too early is a huge mistake. Although I was guiding, I was mainly hired as a tracker and the decision of when to start was my decision, and I always erred on the side of more time. "Time is a good thing" became my motto, but in the back of my mind I was saying to myself, "Although time is a good thing now Vars and I will have to deal with the fresh scent of dozens of other deer crossing the track of the wounded deer".

Let me add that this is a trophy bowhunting area (perhaps the finest in the world) for whitetail bucks and these are hunts of a lifetime for most of the hunters in camp You have the added pressure of finding this deer of a lifetime for them.

Anyway, lets get back to the two "a little far back" deer we needed to track that night. I decided to track the one shot in the morning first, and we went to the site. The guide had slipped into the area at around two pm just to see what he could find and to look for the arrow. He had found the arrow, and much to my dismay had brought it back to camp with him. I had already given the guides instructions to leave the arrow where they found it. I guess in his excitement he forgot. The arrow was covered with long white hair and looked like it had been dipped in a clear liquid. A gut shot for sure. He also reported that the only sign of a hit, other than the arrow, was a few hairs on the ground. From his conversation with the hunter he had a good idea of the route the deer had taken when he left the area, so we had that to go on.

When we got to the area, with Vars on the short leash, I tied him to a tree nearby and inspected the area with the guide. With nothing more to go on than a general direction the deer had gone, I told the guide we would just have to see what Vars could do. I put the long leash on Vars. The first scent line he took was up a main trail in a direction opposite the travel route of the wounded deer. As soon as I realized this was a fresh track in the wrong direction I shortened the leash and headed back to start him over. The hunter had described that the deer had taken a few leaps forward and then whirled and followed his back trail until he went out of sight approximately 50 yards from the stand. On the second try Vars hit this track and made the quick change of direction so I felt confident he was on the right track. I've learned that Vars tracks in a different matter on an old track than he does on a fresh one; he moves much more slowly with an almost sneaking along demeanor, and that's what he was doing. At about the 50 yard mark Vars made a 90 degree turn and headed into a thicket. He went right through the top of a fallen tree. I knew this was the sign of a mortally wounded deer.

It took me two or three minutes to negotiate our way through the area. The guide asked if I thought the deer had gone through such a thick spot, and I just said "you've got to believe". This deer headed for the thickest, nastiest ravine you can imagine. I was literally crawling at one point to get through. Vars was out of sight at the end of the 30 foot tracking leash, and I was just following the rope. This went on for about 50 or 60 yards and then the line went slack. I knew he was standing at the deer. I literally crawled up the rope to Vars and found him standing on a beautiful Illinois ten pointer that would easily score 150, Pope and Young.

I carry two-way radios and had issued one to the guide at the start. I had told him to stay back while I worked out the track in this thick cover. Man was he excited when I radioed the "Vars found the deer" signal. Man was I happy. The guide was familiar with the area and now knew exactly where the deer was, so we left that deer to go look for the one shot at three pm. Here's that story.

The weather was really turning nasty now, and it was raining steadily with the wind blowing at 20 mph and gusting higher. The temperature was near 40. I think Vars thought his work was done for the night as he slept en route to our next attempt, but he jumped up and got excited when the truck came to a stop; I got out my fanny pack and put my headlight back on.

Again we went through the routine of hooking him on the short leash and walking him to the hit site. I tied him to a tree and again went with the guide to where the deer had been standing when the hunter shot. This buck had run off with the arrow. He had also been with another buck and three does when the arrow was released, but we had a good description from the hunter of the route the deer had taken. Again, there was no sign of a hit at the site, and again Vars started tracking an unwounded deer. We actually tracked three of the unwounded deer before Vars hit on the wounded one and we went in the general direction the hunter described that the deer had taken. Man, deer do some crazy stuff when they get shot with an arrow, and this one didn't disappoint us. He apparently jumped across a dry creek (actually an erosion ditch) at a spot where the banks were vertical and approximately five feet high. It was only about six feet across at the crossing point, and I know that a buck in fairly good condition this early in the his escape run could easily jump across.

Well, Vars and I weren't as agile, and we wound up in the bottom of the ditch checking every crossing where you would have thought the deer might have crossed. This is where teamwork comes in. I decided to take him onto the high side just to see if he could pick up the track. At the exact spot opposite where we had tracked to the ditch he hit the trail again and off we went. He was in that "sneaking" mode so I felt good about this line. At approximately 75 yards into the track I saw a dried drop of blood on a log that crossed the trail. It hadn't rained hard enough yet to wash the sign away.

I then found blood about every 20 yards or so along the line that Vars was working. This deer had taken a path through fairly open timber, which I was thankful for, after the last track. I knew he was "locked on" this buck. We followed the line another 100 yards or so when we came to a picked corn field. Experience had already taught me that sparse blood in a corn field is nearly impossible to see so I had to "believe". Vars was definitely "locked on" this deer. We had gone about 200 yards out into the field when the guide stated that we were going to run out of property if the deer made it out of the field. We had come a long way, and I was concerned that this deer was going to get away when Vars started tracking in a zig-zag pattern and my hopes picked up. This is usually a good sign. I was shining my headlight across the field when I saw his antler sticking up. I can't express my emotions! Let's just say I was emotional about the whole thing. After going deerless over the last eight tracks we had just found two in the same night! Man was that exciting. I was really proud of Vars. I hate to put into human terms the relationship that a tracker has with his dog, but it's the only thing I can relate it to. It's like watching your child perform at a recital, play or sporting event. You just want them to do good and Vars had just "done good".

Var's status around camp was elevated to a new level that night, and I must have looked like a "proud Dad" when the other hunters were asking the two hunters and the guide if that was the "tracking dog" that had found the two deer and they would reply "yep that's ol Vars", and then they would all want to give him a pat on the head and make a friend out of him. They understood that they might need his help at some point.”

John's note: As you can see “blood tracking” with a dog involves much more than following a line of blood drops. Vars demonstrates this. Handler Dan knows how to look for sign, “read” his dog and guide him when needed. This partnership of handler and dog accomplishes more than either could achieve on their own.