Two gut-shot deer recovered by Karma in one morning

Kevin Armstrong with Karma (recovery #4 above, recovery #5 below)

Karma has had a red letter morning on 11/8/09; in the evening of 11/7 I had two calls at home from hunters who believed they had paunch shot deer. I advised both to leave the deer alone over night and that I would meet the first hunter at day light. Thank goodness both hunters followed my advise and did not disturb the deer.

We found 2009/4 (trail 18) in less than 15 minutes, about 200 yards from the hit location. As soon as the deer was tagged Karma and I were off to Canandaigua for trail 19/2009. That deer was a bit more difficult due to the very thick swamp cover but it was still an easy recovery, less than 400 yards from the hit site. That deer was not bloated at all, indicating that the deer had been alive most of the night.

Karma and I had our celebration at Dunkin Donuts by 9:00 AM!

It doesn't get much better than this for a deer tracking team. It is so nice when the hunter listens to our advise.

This is Karma's 4th tracking season. I know better than to brag on my dog during hunting season but I have so much faith in her at this point that I rarely doubt her. It is a joy to see this wonderful little dog blossom into a first rate tracking dog.

First blood tracking season for young dogs and puppies

There is no better way to train a pup or a young blood tracking dog than to take her on easy tracks of real wounded deer. We have already had a number of posts on this topic this year:
http://borntotracknews.blogspot.com/2009/10/training-young-or-inexperienced.html
http://borntotracknews.blogspot.com/2009/10/working-with-young-blood-tracking-dog.html

Below are the examples of young dogs and puppies working in the field:


Chris Barr from Indiana wrote a week ago:

Today I shot a small buck and as luck would have it, it only ran about 40 yards before going down. I wanted another good training track for Gerti so while my buddy went to my house to pick up Gerti and my tracking gear, I took some of the blood that I collected from the deer when I gutted it and extended the blood trail another 80 yards or so in the direction the deer came from. Gerti didn’t seem to mind that the blood track started 80 yards prior to the hit site, she was just tickled to have another deer to maul. It was 9th natural track, 3rd deer to chew.

***

Kyle Stiffler from Michigan has a young puppy Misty (Berta v. Pfauenbrucke bred by Andy Bensing) and you can see her working an easy track here. His more experienced tracking dog is two and a half years old Moose (Moose v Moosbach-Zuzelek).

Kyle says: The track in the video was only 2 hrs old & about 150 yards long. Fortunately for me the heart shot was not a challenge. But she followed it with very good accuracy & she loved the find. She knows when it is tracking time as does Moose when ever I put on my tracking pants. She even got another track for me last night, also an easy track with too much blood. She has worked 7 tracks so far.

Misty is a sweetheart with a very good tracking drive. It is great having an opportunity to only track her on found deer as Moose tackles the hard tracks. We have been having alot of fun with a new baby in the house. Although sometimes the extra energy at bed time is a little too much.

Kyle, Kelli, Misty and Misty's buck

Joeri recovers two more deer for hunters in the Capital District

Joeri continues to do well. The two pictures below show the deer that he found today for Edward Maynard of Scotia, NY. This was a large six pointer. The blood trail was 15 hours old, and the hunter managed to track the deer for 100 yards. Joeri advanced it for another 350 yards. The deer was found dead at the end of the light blood trail.

Joeri tracked this spike on November 1 in suburban woods for 0.6 mile (according to GPS). The deer was stomach-shot, and the trail was four hours old when Joeri started to track. The buck was jumped several times and he circled repeatedly in small area. John had to put the deer down.

James and Aspen, a blood tracking team from Montague, Texas

When Carl Eisenhard, DVM, from Springville, NY bred his wirehaired dachshund Blue Hill Alice to our Billy, one of the puppies Blue Hill Aspen went to a blood tracking home in Texas. James Willard from Montague, just a short distance north of Dallas, has been tracking with Aspen for the last two years.

Recently we received two pictures of the deer Aspen recovered.



In James' words: The doe was bow shot, the arrow hit the opposite shoulder so there was not an exit hole, despite the large hole in the top of her back there was almost no blood. The track was about 3.5 hours old. I had to let Aspen find a starting point herself and then she went straight to it. The doe had traveled about 100 yards.

The buck was shot by a 10 year old boy on youth weekend. His dad called and told me the story. I thought we should wait a while so we started tracking about 3:30 that evening. The buck had been rifle shot that morning about 7:30 am. The dad was 100% sure the buck had gone to the South across a large opening. Aspen found the buck in the worst brier patch I have ever been in. The buck had gone a short ways to the South and circled back to the North. The track was just a couple hundred yards long but this buck would have definitely not have been found with out Aspen

James can be reached at jwill.bowhunter@yahoo.com

Karma recovers a gut-shot deer for Kevin Armstrong

At 8 AM on 11/5/09 I had a good shot at a nice doe and took it. The hit looked good; low in the ribs. The deer left tail low at a hard run. After 1/2 hour I got out of the stand and followed a fair blood trail for 80 yards to where I found my arrow. To my surprise there was paunch material on the arrow shaft so I backed out for the day. At home there was a call from a neighbor that he had a buck hit in the shoulder. Though all evidence indicated a shoulder hit the hunter was positive he had killed the deer and would not believe the evidence. Trail #15 of the season ended with a frustrated hunter and a tracker frustrated with the hunter.

At 4 PM, in a freezing drizzle, after an 8 hour wait, I took up the trail (#16/2009) of my deer. Karma took me 300 yards where we jumped the three other deer that had been traveling with my doe. We cruised through the bedding area to a deep gully where, thinking she was tracking the healthy deer, I pulled her off and took her back to the first 80 yards of marked trail. This time she followed the same trail to the deep gully. Grudgingly I followed Karma's insistent advise and there in the bottom of the gully was our deer, still alive, but very sick. I dispatched the deer and the celebration began. I wish I had a better photo but I guess this the best an excited old, worn out, sweated up, hunter in a gully bottom, in the freezing rain can do.

Some times Karma has to track one for The Gipper.

Kevin

Two finds for Jake owned by Bill Siegrist, NY

Jake with the doe he found. Below picture includes the hunter Jake recovered the doe for.

Bill Siegrist, a longtime member of Deer Search and chairman of its Blood Tracking Committee, has been tracking for the last seven years with Jake (Drake von Moosbach-Zuzelek), a son of Alfi and Vamba. Bill just retired after a forty-year-career as City of Poughkeepsie Detective - click here to read more about it.

His e-mail brought the pictures and this info:

Attached are a couple of photos of a 105lb Doe Jake found 10/24/09. Jake also found a 135lb 6 pointer this morning. The hunter shot it at 445pm 11/2 and we started out at 6:30am this morning and Jake made short work of it.

Bill - congratulations on the fine recoveries and best wishes for a happy and very active retirement!

Great week for Joe and Doc, a blood tracking team from Indiana

Joe Walters and his two and a half years old tracking dog Doc (Magnum von Moosbach-Zuzelek) had a good week and recovered two deer. The picture below shows the buck recovered on November 3. What a great shot! Thanks Joe for sending it to us.

"Yesterday morning Doc located his third find on a buck after making a loss and me having to take him back to last blood. Track without loss would have been about 1/4 mile. I have to slow him down. He works entirely too fast."

The other buck was recovered on October 29 and this is what Joe wrote:

"I got a call at 7pm from the same two guys that I tracked for before. A Rage broadhead pass through on lungs and the deer went 200 yds. Doc tracked it out of weed field across cut beans into a woods and found it. I'll send you some pics later. I couldn't believe the deer could go that far with such a big hole through it's chest. The entrance was small but the exit hole was two inches. More blood the last five yds that on the entire track. In fact I only saw blood once before we got real close. I was looking down at rope on ground to see which way Doc went and told hunter that deer was headed back out to bean field when I spotted deer with Doc latched onto it. Good boy."

As you can see from the pictures Doc wears Garmin Astro and Ruffwear harness when is tracking.

Joe asked how to slow Doc down as his tracking speed is excessive. First, a dog has to be trained to "slow" down away from any tracking situation. Just like you would not start to teach your dog to sit when he is busy tracking you would not start training him to slow down in such a situation. The command "slow" or "easy" has to be first introduced when you heel your dog on a regular leash, and then set-by-step progressively implemented into more complicated situations.

Gunner from Quebec recovers a paunch-shot deer

Gunther's brother, Gunner, has been doing really well during his first tracking season in Quebec. The picture shows the paunch shot buck recovered by Gunner last week. The buck was shot at 7 am and was recovered at 12:45 pm; the length of the track was 275 meters. The buck had to be put down, which according to the regulations has to be done by the hunter. Gunner's owner Guy Marcoux-Filion wrote that if he were able to do it, the buck would have been put down at 10:30 am, when the deer was jumped. When that happened, Guy backed off and resumed tracking at 12:30 pm.

Gunther's long track - blood tracking in the water

We have some serious catching up to do here, but thankfully got a lot of stories and pictures to post. Let's start with the track submitted by Don Dickerson from Michigan. This is his first tracking season with Gunther, a seven month old son of Billy and Gilda.

"Jolanta,

I wanted to fill you in on a very long track that Gunther and I went on yesterday. I was so impressed with him I just have to tell you and John the story, and because he is the product of your kennel I want you and John to know what an awesome job he did.

I got a call from a good friend yesterday morning. He said he had hit a very nice buck with a bow in the morning at about 9:30 am. He said that he found part of his arrow at the hit site and good blood. He tracked the deer about 20 yards, made sure he had good blood and then backed out. His plan was to go home for 2 hours and then come back and track. I told him to please stay off the blood trail and if he did not find the buck within the first 200 yards to call me right away and I would bring Gunther out and track. Well, I got a call about 2 hours later, my friend had jumped the buck about 60 yards into the track. He backed away again and called me.

The conditions were dry, warm and breezy, so I told him we should wait a couple of more hours and then start tracking with Gunther. I met my friend at the site at about 2 pm. Gunther immediately picked up the trail and we tracked for about 200 yards before we again jumped the buck. There was good blood in places but not great blood. It was bright red, but no bubbles. The hunter was thinking he hit the deer high. Although we were pushing the deer, the decision was made to keep tracking because of the warm dry and breezy conditions and the fact there was not a lot of blood. We were also convinced the deer was not gut shoot, so the track was on. Gunther took us through several very large corn fields, a bean field, small swamps, woodlots, across a road and through and over just about every type of terrain possible. Together and with the help of other people to sight blood we were able to solve many stalled points where there was very little or no blood.

There were several times when I doubted Gunther was on the track, but I trusted him and his nose was confirmed over and over again by drops of blood on the trail. We tracked over 3 miles! It took almost four hours to cover. We finally came to some water, it was a very shallow pond/swamp, about 1 ft deep with a mucky bottom, there was no blood leading up to the water, only Gunther's nose. He looked at me and jumped into the very muddy slimy pond, he sat in the water looking at me as if to say "..are you coming or not?"

At this point I did not know if he was even on the track, jumping in the water seemed very unusual for him because to be honest he is not that crazy about getting wet. He doesn't like going out in the rain and when I had him in the pool this summer he worked very hard to dry himself off after getting out of the water. Although he doesn't seem to mind getting wet when he is tracking in wet grass. So, when he jumped in the muddy stagnant water I knew something was up, but I was finding it hard to believe he could track the buck through water.

Gunther seemed to know what he was doing....and I trusted him. Once I found a place I could cross without getting too wet he continued to lead me across the narrow pond/swamp to the other side. At this point he starting pulling hard on the lead again, there was still no visible blood and we were now in hard woods, heavy dry leaves covered the woods floor. About 80 yards or so into the woods I started to doubt he had tracked the buck through the open water, but at that very time I began to doubt him I looked down and saw good blood again! I yelled to the hunter and another friend that was with us that I had blood, they had gone in another direction not believing that Gunther had tracked the buck through the water. One of my friends was standing next to Gunther when he had jumped in the water, when this friend walked up and saw the blood he said something I will never forget "..regardless of how this turns out and even if we don't find the buck....he (Gunther) has made a believer out of me." We were all amazed that he actually tracked the buck through the open water, it made the hair stand up on my arms I was so proud of my dog. We continued on another 100 yards or so and jumped the buck a third time in very very heavy cover. After searching for another 90 minutes, finding the blood trail again and the buck going through some more water we lost the trail.

The entire track was over 3 miles, through every terrain you can imagine, including water and it took over 5 1/2 hours. Gunther never gave up. My little almost 7 month old tracker was exhausted and so were the rest of us. I am so darn proud of him as are all of my friends. We didn't find the buck, which was still going strong after 3 miles, but we had a memorable day of tracking, one that I won't ever forget."

Working with a young blood tracking dog

John Gereau is Managing Editor for Denton Publications, and he is based in Westport, NY. You can read about him and his wirehaired dachshund Cedar here.

Cedar was born in June 2008 so she is still a very young dog. She was bred by Dale Clifford, and is out of "Sabrina" (Jessie von Moosbach-Zuzelek) and a wirehaired male imported from Poland Henri Anons.

John wrote in his recent e-mail: "After half a dozen unsuccessful calls & much encouragement from Dale Clifford out in Hamburg, we located our first deer Oct. 16 and then another small deer that had been gut shot with a muzzleloader on Oct. 22."

John Gereau and Cedar - a tracking team from the Adirondacks

The correspondence that we get from new handlers shows how easy it is to get discouraged when you start with a young pup. Some deer are not mortally wounded and even the most talented and experienced dog is not going to recover them. Don't evaluate your dog by the number of recoveries but by the effort and quality of her work. Blood tracking dogs get better with maturity and experience, and what you see in their first or second tracking season is just a glimpse of their potential. Be patient.

We discussed this topic on our borntotrack yahoo group and this is what Kevin Armstrong from Deer Search wrote to a new handler with young pup:

My experience with hunting dogs boils down to one simple principal: If you want a good hunting dog hunt him a lot. You can bet that a 6 month old pup who has not found a deer yet is going to screw up. She will screw up quite a bit the first year or two.You'll have to get used to it and not let it bother you too much. Do as you are doing. Try to learn from the experience. My experience with these Billy/Gilda bitches is that they are hard headed and self willed. The night time woods is full of wonderful scent of all kinds of creatures that she would like to meet. Finding deer by following the body and blood scent may have not even clicked in her head yet. She wants to follow the coon scent and the skunk scent and the healthy deer scent. That is the most natural thing in the world. Be happy that she wants to follow scent. You know she is following animal scent by the way she is pulling you. You know that the fake blood trail is just an exercise with her by the way she does not pull like that on a training line. She is just like my dog. Karma could care less about an artificial line. She will follow it because she knows I want her to but her little heart is just not in it. On a real deer trail she pulls as you so aptly put it "like a plow horse". Don't worry, it will click but it will take some time.

I whole heartily agree that she needs trails with dead deer at the end. I grill the hunter mercilessly before I take a call. I only take calls where I feel there is a fair chance to find a dead deer or where the hunter is so sick from wounding a deer that I follow the deer till I (we) jump it and the hunter can see that he (she) has not damaged the deer very much. In Deer Search we send new dogs and new handlers out on any call that comes up just so they can get experience. It is a good thing. After a dozen trails or so and the new handler becomes certified he can pick and choose his trails as he sees fit. As a result Karma did not get a recovery until the third trail she took. Even though she was with an experienced tracking dog, a Master Handler, and a couple of highly experienced deer hunters we still did not get the 16 hour old trail of a gut shot buck figured out until the second restart. After that she had a couple of set-up kills and a few more trails with unrecovered deer until at 7 months old she made her first solo find. Payday!

In theory this work is a piece of cake. We take the dog to a few drops of blood and expect it to lead us over hill and dale to a dead deer. Fact is that it is never anywhere near that easy. Even a seeming slam dunk is rarely a slam dunk. It is really hard work to recover several deer in a season. Really hard!

I advise that at the first opportunity to get her some set-up kills that you take her out to them. When she finds the deer let her maul the deer till she works herself into a frenzy and you can hardly pull her off. Hold her back but let her stay with her prize while the deer is being dresses and pulled out of the woods. Tell her what a good girl she is. Make sure she knows that this is what you want her to do. She will take it from there.

Bottom line is you have an inexperienced puppy who doesn't yet know what her role in life is. She needs experience, the more the better, and the handler needs patience, the more the better. With ample experience and patience you two are going to be a great tracking team before you know it.

A blood trail that ended with a gut pile

Yesterday we drove to Delanson, NY to track a buck for a hunter who hunted on the property, which is familiar to us. This is where Sabina recovered a wounded deer three years ago. The place is loaded with coyotes, and we have noticed three or four of them in the field on our way there.

We were greeted by Chuck (hunter) and his friend Don. It was a beautiful day - sunny, warm with the temperature in the low 60s.

Chuck and Don followed a very sparse blood trail for 1/4 mile. The hunter thought that the buck was liver hit, and we decided to use both dogs Billy and Joeri.

This time I decided to use our GPS and brought along a camera as well. The cover was incredibly thick with shrubs and wild grapevine, difficult to penetrate, and we put dogs on the last blood that hunters could find the night before. It was a difficult start and dogs made two small loops without finding more blood. Joeri was searching very well, and I decided to re-start him. This time he veered a bit to the right where we found "new" blood! I asked Don who was behind me to mark it with orange biodegradable tape. Joeri started to pull strongly, and I knew that now he was locked on the deer. John and I decided that I and Joeri should proceed in the lead. We tracked at a steady pace for almost two hours. We knew that we were tracking the right deer as occasional drops of blood confirmed the trail. This was not a liver hit deer. The blood was bright red, and we also found quite a few smears on a waist-high grass. This deer never bedded and was not getting any weaker. Finally after 1.6 miles (according to the GPS) Don and I decided to terminate the track.

Joeri did an incredible job on this 15 hour old trail. He checked himself two or three times but basically he was on the blood line for its entire length. He is very easy to handle as he does not pull too strongly. He is also easy to read when he loses the trail and frantically wants to recover it. He also proved to be very responsive. There were times that we had to crawl on our knees and elbows, and at one time I dropped the leash. Joeri was moving ahead, but when I called him, he stopped and waited for me to catch up.

It was a difficult decision to terminate the track because Joeri was still tracking the deer and we were seeing occasional droplets. He really wanted to continue, and when I stopped him he whined with frustration. I tried to reassure him that he did a great job but we tracked "enough". Little we knew what was waiting ahead.

The pictures show blood droplets on the leaves when we terminated the track.

Don and I were a long way from our cars, and we had to find our way back. Chuck and John with Billy decided not to follow us half-way through as the cover was so thick and Joeri was doing a great tracking job by himself. No more than 30 yards from where I had picked Joeri up, we stumbled upon a gut pile. Could it have been from the deer that we tracked? Possibly but not likely. The pile was not hot fresh, probably several hours old, and Joeri was not that interested in it. We felt that we were pushing "our" deer ahead.

Anyway, Joeri and I had a great time tracking, and hunters were very appreciative of what we have done. Their deer either is going to live or it ended up shot by another hunter. We will never know for sure.

Jolanta with Joeri

Kevin and Karma - Deer Search at its best

Gunn, Kevin Armstrong & and his wirehaired dachshund Karma pose with Karma's first recovery of 2009 and with Gunn's first DSI recovery. Kevin and Karma took seven trails this week until we finally got a reward for our efforts. Eventually they jumped all the deer on the other six trails. Only one of them seemed to have a serious wound. They all earned this one!

Below is the second recovery of the season celebrated by Karma and her sister Effie.

Trust your dog?

posted by John Jeanneney

I like these stories about the good things that happen when you trust your dog. Almost always I will take my dog’s opinion about where the deer went before I blindly trust a hunter. I still don’t understand how hunters can be wrong so often. You have to be diplomatic and let the dog, not you as handler, point out his mistake.

But even dogs have their limitations; even a dog can make a mistake, and this is especially true for young dogs. Don’t blindly trust your dog for 100s of yards; keep looking for that speck of blood to confirm your trust. And read your dog.

I remember when Sabina tracked a bear from the hit site for a half mile. Then she gave me a look that said, “This isn’t the right bear.” We went back to the hit sight and this time she took a line in another direction….to the right bear.

Chris Barr from Indiana send us this report from his last deer call. He is tracking with Gerti (Gwen von Moosbach-Zuzelek), a six and a half month old daughter of Billy and Gilda.

"Saturday night we finally got the call we'd been waiting for. The hunter, a good buddy, was sure he had a double lung on a broad side deer 15 yds away. Shooting from a tree stand the hunter was sure entry was high on right side and anticipated exit low on left side. We gave the deer almost 3 hours before getting to the hit site. The deer took off to the south in standing corn after the shot. The only blood was about elbow high on corn leaves on the right side of the row. We found about 10 inches of the fletched end of the arrow shaft at the hit site.

Gerti and I took off on the track with her pulling hard. We went about 220 yards when the deer left the row and we lost the blood. The hunter was "100% sure" that he heard the deer go to the right towards the middle of the field while he was still on stand after the shot. We marked the point of loss and the 2 hunters started fanning the rows to the right. I backed Gerti up 20 yards or so on the known track and let her go again. This time at the point of loss she turned hard left and headed out of the corn. Did I mention that the hunter had said that he was "100% sure" that he'd heard the deer make a right turn?

Anyway, Gerti was pulling as hard as ever when I found a drop of blood on a corn leaf as we were leaving the field. When I found a spot of blood on the leaves about 10 yards into the woods I called the hunters over. This was the last visible blood. Gerti took us another 50 or so yards into the woods right to the deer.You can imagine my excitement. Some things I was happy about first of all was that the only visible blood in the corn was about 3 feet above Gerti's head. As we found out later, there was no exit hole!!! Surely there was some blood on the ground but you couldn't see it so I give Gerti some props for that.

Second, Gerti took the track the polar opposite direction out of the corn than the hunter swore he heard the deer run. This point I must gloat about for a second. My buddy was afraid that Gerti was destroying evidence at the point of loss by winding up the corn leaves with her leash. The second time he voiced his disapproval over this it kind of ticked me off which is why I picked her up and backed up the known line and re-started her. He's a very accomplished hunter but he lacks much confidence in Gerti, at least before tonight. I'm not sure what puzzled him more, the fact that he was wrong, or that Gerti was right?? He'll never tell.I feel that we'd have found this deer eventually without a dog but Gerti definitely found it first and much more quickly than we would have, so I'm calling it a find.

Chris Barr with Gerti and a doe she found

Don Dickerson from Michigan shared another story along the theme "trust your dog". Don is tracking with Gerti's brother, Gunther.

"I got a call from a good friend on Tuesday morning. He had hit what he described as a very nice big buck at 8 am Tuesday morning. The shot was 35 yards with a crossbow. He thought he had hit the deer to far back, no lungs but also had what he described as a lot of dark blood and was almost sure had hit the liver. He tracked the blood for 300 yards before losing it and called me.

I wanted to get tracking right away because the weather was suppose to get dry, hot and windy, not good tracking weather at all. I left the office and drove home and picked up Gunther (6 1/2 mo Billy/Gilda pup). Gunther picked up the blood trail right away and tracked the first 300 yards right to the spot where the blood trial was lost by the hunter. My buddy was amazed at how fast Gunther and I got there, he said it took him and another guy 45 minutes to track what Gunther did in about 10 minutes.

There where no bubbles in the blood, the blood was fairly dark and there was a fair amount of blood, but it tapered off quickly after the first 300 yards. I was convinced and convinced my buddy that it was not a liver shoot, the deer just went to far for it to be hit in the liver. Gunther veered to the North across a short grass open field, not on a deer trail, although there were several trails crossing at the last blood sight. All of the heavy cover was to the South of the last blood. We were all convinced that the deer had to have gone to the South towards the heavy cover and not crossed the open field where Gunther was taking us. But I allowed him to go that way about 100 yards or so past a small bush, right up to 3 coyote dens! At that point I was convinced that he was on the coyote track and not the deer, having seen no blood and not being on a deer trail, so I pulled him off the line and took him back to last blood at the 300 yard mark and started him again, only to have him take the same line right past the bush right up to the coyote dens again.

At this point, thinking we were all smarter than the dogs nose, I took Gunther down into the South swamp, after finding nothing after an or so search I took him back to the 300 yard mark and he again took the line to the small bush right by the coyote dens.....and low and behold this time we found a small drop of blood on a piece of grass next to the bush right by the coyote dens! Guess what? We were wrong and Gunther's nose was right! "Trust your dog...trust your dog...trust your dog" I have read it over and over in John's book and on these blogs....now I will...trust my dog. I let Gunther continue on the line up a hill down a deer trail and guess what? More blood about 200 yards further, Gunther was right on.

To make a long story short, Gunther tracked the buck over 1/2 mile, and the buck did eventually go to a swamp and near a creek. We lost all sight of blood and after about 5 1/2 hours of tracking at 3 pm, after looking in all the swamps and bedding areas, the weather now hot, dry and windy, we called the search but also now convinced that the buck was not mortally wounded. I at one point found a fair amount of muscle tissue, I am convinced the shot was high on the deer, likely not hitting any vitals. John says"...the next best thing to not finding a hunter's deer is being able to assure him/her that the deer is alive and will likely live". Thus, although we did not find the buck, the hunter was happy to know it was still alive, Gunther got a lot of valuable tracking time and he never gave up and I learned a valuable lesson....TRUST YOUR DOG!!!!!

No deer at the trail end but a good learning experience for Joeri

We took this deer call last Tuesday, on October 20. Dick F. shot a six point buck on Monday morning and spent all day following and marking a sparse blood trail. He called us on Monday afternoon but John was already out on his second call of the day. Unfortunately there was nobody else available. It was a long drive for us as West Sand Lake is 50 miles from where we live.

By the time we got there the blood trail was 26 hours old; the day was dry and cloudy, around 50F. The hunter managed to track the deer for around 1000 yards. He thought that the deer was chest shot.

John took Joeri on this call, and I went with them to take some pictures. Below is a pictorial report documenting the track.



Above - when walking up to the hit site Joeri is always on a regular leash. The tracking collar and leash are put on the dog when he is supposed to start tracking.

Above - the tree stand from which Dick arrowed the buck.

Below - the ground in these hardwoods was covered with dry leaves and spotting blood on the red speckled leaves was a challenge.

Below - Dick did absolutely an outstanding job when he marked the trail with orange biodegradable tape.

Above - at the hit site John puts a tracking collar on Joeri.

Joeri followed the marked trail very well, and we could see some blood throughout the trail. The blood was dry as this trail was old.

Joeri is a careful tracker whose tracking speed is just right - not too fast and not too slow. This was a very difficult track for him, and we could see it by watching his body language.

There were several spots with more blood as shown on the picture below.

It took Joeri 45 minutes to get through first 1000 yards of the trail that was marked. This was a good training experience for Joeri. When the blood stopped, Joeri took us down the hill across the road onto a new property whose owners Dick did not know.

When we picked up Joeri 200 yards after the last blood, we did not know whether Joeri was on the right trail or not as we could not verify it. There was no blood, no beds and no other sign of the wounded buck.

It took us at least 30 minutes to get back to Dick's cabin. It is always disappointing when a wounded deer is not recovered. John wrote on his tracking report: "I doubt that a mortally wounded, chest-shot deer could have gone this far".

We enjoyed the time we spent with Dick, who is a very interesting person (and a very conscientious hunter). This is always an extra bonus when you track for other hunters. You get to meet people from all walks of life, and there is an element of adventure involved.

Tracking season starts well for Cabela, a Wirehaired Pointing Griffon

We got this picture and e-mail from a friend of ours Joe Burns from Ravena, who is also a member of Deer Search. He tracks with his young Wirehaired Pointing Griffon Cabela.

This is a picture of the deer I shot on Saturday afternoon at 4:45 pm. After the shot the deer took off and because it is so thick, I didn't know which way it ran. After 15 minutes I got out of the tree stand and checked for my arrow. No arrow and no visible blood. At that point with it starting to get dark I called Teri to bring out Cabela. At 6:15 pm I brought Cabela to the hit sight, the first thing she did was locate my arrow which was a clean pass through. After I put a tracking collar on her, she went to the left through the thick brush. In my mind as the hunter I thought for sure the deer went to the right. Always trust your dog immediately came to mind only because I heard you say it enough times. I had no visible blood for about 50 yards when Cabela came across a few drops. Then we had no blood until another 50 Yards where it started to become steady. Cabela with her nose to the ground pointed out the five point buck laying dead at the bottom of the hill. I was more excited that Cabela found the deer then I was shooting it.

What would have taken me hours to find only took her about 15 minutes.

Joeri discovers himself as a blood tracker

Yesterday was a great day for Joeri, who discovered himself as a blood tracker. It was a great day for us too as this young dog is everything we have ever looked for in a working dachshund. Had we had a bottle of champagne in the house we would have opened it and celebrated. Well, we were too tired to do it anyway, but we both agreed - Joeri is the best dachshund that we have ever imported.

John does not like to brag about our dogs so reluctantly he wrote this short report:

"Joeri began his day in the Albany Pine Bush, a preserve of undeveloped land that runs east to west through the heart of the suburban Capital District. The deer had been hit late the previous afternoon, and the hunter was not sure of his shot placement; he had lost the blood trail quickly. It was a challenging line that had 100 yards stretches without visible blood. Joeri, with Jolanta handling, was right on for almost a half mile as occasional drops of blood confirmed. In thick cover Joeri jumped the deer, which seemed to be fine. We walked back along a suburban street to our parked cars. The hunter was relieved to know that the deer is going to be fine.

Jolanta, Joeri and Jason (hunter)

The afternoon track was a bit more exciting. Joeri had done so well in the morning that there seemed to be no need for Billy as a back-up dog this time. I went alone with Joeri to meet the hunter on his 300 acre forest property in nearby Westerlo. This was not suburbia! Now we were working a very sparse, seven hour line blood line. The hunter had done an exceptional job that morning, eye-tracking more than a quarter of a mile, but he had lost the trail where the buck had crossed a creek onto an island.

From the hit site Joeri worked the unmarked trail smoothly, even though the blood was dried up now and very difficult for us to see on the red spotted maple leaves; the real challenge began at the point of loss on the bank opposite the island. Beyond that point we could find absolutely no blood. Joeri crossed the creek to the island, worked across it to the other side and then crossed water again. He tracked down along the far bank and finally hooked back onto the island at its lower end. The cover was thick here, but when Joeri’s nose went straight up in the air, I knew we had the deer. He was a big, nine point buck, dead but still warm. Joeri was very proud, but I was even prouder."

Joeri on the top of the 9 pointer he recovered.

Buster and Danika - like father, like daughter

On October 12-15, 2009 I attended two field trials held at Swatara Beagle Club in Elizabethtown, PA. The trials were associated with the Dachshund Club of America 2009. I'll write more about the trials over the next few days but today I'd like to focus my post on just two dachshunds: Danika and Buster.

FC Danika vom Nordlicht, TD SE is owned and handled at all events by Cheri Faust from Madison, WI. Danika is 3.5 years old, and she was bred by Larry Gohlke. Her dam is FC Fredrika von Moosbach-Zuzelek and her sire is FC Clown vom Talsdeich aka Buster.

Danika was entered in one trial only in a class of 37 Field Champion bitches. She won that class and then beat her sire, who was 1st out of 38 Field Champion dogs. This way Danika became Absolute Winner of the Metropolitan Washington Dachshund Club Trial on October 13.

Above - Cheri Faust and Danika

Danika getting a beautiful rosette for winning the FC Bitches stake. Judges - Sandy Horskin (left) and Carrie Hamilton (right).

Danika as Absolute Winner at the trial with 136 entries

Danika being held by Susanne Hamilton

Susanne Hamilton with Buster (Danika's sire) and Cheri Faust with Danika

On October 14 at the Dachshund Club of America National Field Trial Buster repeated his win from the previous day and was 1st in the FC Dogs stake (34 entries). Next day he also won the Best of Field Champions run, defeated a winner of the Open stakes, and this way he became Absolute Winner of the National Trial (135 entries). Buster won a national trial before - in 2006 in Georgia. More info on Buster is at http://www.born-to-track.com/dogs/buster.htm

Susanne and Buster

Susanne, Buster and four judges: Jean Dieden, John Merriman, Robert Schwalbe and Jerry Price.

It took many hours for Susanne to drive home, from Pennsylvania to Maine. When she got home late that night, her phone rang and as it turned out a hunter needed Buster to track a wounded deer. Susanne and Buster went on a call, and were successful at recovering a nice 9 pointer.

Danika and Buster are examples of great versatile teckels in the European tradition.

Congratulations to Cheri and Susanne!