Tracking dachshund Tucker finds a dead bear in a tree

As told by Ray and Pam Maurier and written up by John Jeanneney

Ray and Pam Maurier of New Hampshire (Lightning Mountain Outfitters) started this tracking season with an unforgettable bear call. Their 13-month-old tracking dog Tucker  (Storm von Moosbach-Zuzelek) took a track from the previous day for 400 yards and treed the bear!

 

Here are the details: The bear had been been shot by a hunter in northern New Hampshire near evening with a .300 Savage rifle. It proved to be a fatal liver hit, but the only blood was at the hit site. The bear took off at the shot and headed for a very dense swamp. The hunter followed the bear down to the swamp, but there was no visual sign to lead him farther.

 

The next day, before dawn,  Ray, his wife Pam and their tracking dachshund Tucker were on their way from southern New Hampshire. As a puppy Tucker had tracked wounded deer the previous season, but Ray was not sure of how he would react to bear scent. In addition it was raining. Rain is no problem when there is a blood trail; the scent hangs on after visual blood washes away, but foot print scent is different. It does not hold up as well to rain.

 

Nothing was a problem for Tucker once he got to the hit site. The unfamiliar bear  scent was kind of weird, but there was enough to go on. Ray could tell by Tucker’s body language that he was definitely on the line. The scent led into some very dense swamp vegetation, and Ray could only follow Tucker on his leash by crawling on his hands and knees. In this fashion they went in about a hundred yards. There were bear trails everywhere.

 

Then Tucker turned and tracked out of the swamp. What was going on? Tucker tracked positively along a beech ridge and up ahead Ray could see a campsite. It seemed very unlikely that a wounded bear would go where humans had been spending a lot of time very recently. Then Tucker stalled. His tail said that there was still plenty of scent, but Tucker could not carry the line any farther. Strange!

 

Ray took Tucker back to the hit site, and they started over. This time Tucker forked off the original scent line to the swamp and tracked up the beech ridge again to the point of “loss”. This time  Ray looked up. Forty feet up in a big tree, there lay the bear, dead.

 

Tucker had never been trained as a tree dog, but when Ray looked up, Tucker’s gaze followed.  Now Tucker understood and he began to bark “tree”. He had never been trained on tree game.

Nothing was simple. The bear had died on some big branches and there was no way to get it down. The hunter called a friend, who finally got there with a climbing tree stand. This took a long time and Tucker barked steadily. It wasn’t easy to get the dead bear loose from the branches, but finally it came down with a mighty thump. Tucker circled and bayed; he was cautious but not fearful.

It wasn’t easy to get the dead bear loose from the branches.

 

It is very unusual for a tracking dog to find a wounded bear in a tree. This was sow bear younger and more agile than a 300 pounder. Apparently when the hunter had gone down to the swamp in the beginning he had spooked the fatally-hit bear before she had time to die. The hunter  did not see her take off, go another 200 yards in a different direction and then tree.

Hunter, Pam and Ray Maurier, who is holding Tucker.



Tucker on the top of his bear!

Joeri's ordeal: disabling disc disease one month from tracking season

It looks like August 27 is not our lucky day. A year ago Tropical Storm Irene messed up our house, and now, a year later to the day, we found ourselves in a difficult situation again.

As most of you know Joeri is a 4 1/2 year old wirehaired dachshund that we imported from Germany. He was a very precocious puppy with a great conformation and nice temperament. He also showed a real talent for field work, especially for natural blood tracking, so for the last couple of years he has been John's number 1 tracking dog. The two are very close. Joeri did not fare as well as a producer, and we stopped using him for breeding two years ago.

On August 20 I noticed that Joeri's gait was a little different and he walked with caution. Not knowing what the reason might be, we crated him and observed. From the way he acted we thought that it might have been Lyme disease or a back problem. Two days later John took him to our regular vet. He tested positive for Lyme and was put on doxycycline, but at the same time he was put on prednisone as he showed some tenderness in his back. He was in some discomfort but not a great deal of pain. He wagged his tail, ate his food. He was put on a strict crate rest.

On Sunday, August 26, Joeri felt much better, but when I put a leash on him for his last bathroom walk, he jumped up, his body twisted a little, and he yelped. I could see that things were worse. He moved very slowly and with difficulty. By Monday morning he had deteriorated. We made a phone call to orthopedic surgeons located 50 minutes from us and got an appointment at 1 PM. This was emergency. Unfortunately John had a personal medical appointment that he could not cancel so I drove Joeri by myself to the Pattersonville clinic and I could see that he was really hurting.

He was examined, and luckily he still had some deep pain perception in his hind legs, but when I left him there he could not use them to walk any more. A CT scan revealed a herniated disc behind his last thoracic vertebra. The ruptured disc material was filling approximately 40% of the spinal canal and there was a severe degree of spinal cord compression.

The sooner a herniated disc is treated surgically the better, and odds for a full recovery decrease with delay. Joeri was operated on Monday evening, and the vet’s report said that “the herniated nucleus pulposus was carefully removed from the spinal cord and the spinal canal to decompress the spinal cord”. According to Joeri’s surgeon, around 80% of dogs recover after this kind of procedure. There are no guarantees that this is not going to happen again. As far as I know Joeri's problem was not caused by any injury, and according to his doctor Joeri’s disc would have ruptured sooner or later.

We picked Joeri up on Wednesday afternoon, and the final bill was $3954. The first couple of days were very challenging. Even though Joeri had been on pain medication and muscle relaxants, you could see that he was in pain, especially in the mornings. As far as medical issues go, I have always believed (and still do) that when a dachshund's back goes down, this is the most traumatic experience that a dog and owner can go through.

John and I have been extremely lucky over the years. When you read statistics that 1 in 5 dachshunds will experience a back problem at one point in life (some very mild that respond to crate rest), our experience has been more like 1 in 50-60. Since we joined our breeding programs 18 years ago we have not owned a dachshund with a back problem (until now), and we probably produced 4-5 that had to be treated (one was put down). But there is no doubt that the dachshund is predisposed to premature aging of spine, and Intervertebral Disc Disease (IVDD) is  the number 1 health issue in the breed.

We have been selecting against disc disease in our breeding program, and have been trying to stay away from it. It is not easy as not much is known about heritability (genetic control) of the disease. However, there is hope and progress is being made. It looks like Scandinavian countries are leaders in this field, and I will write more about it in another post. Another complicating factor is that since our breeding is based on imported dogs, there is usually limited information available to start with. Joeri’s breeder responded to the bad news by writing “We are surprised to hear bad news. The feeling of surprise is intensified through our breeding experience (more than 30 years) – our own dogs showed no back problems”.

Joeri’s recovery has been going really well. He could take small steps on Wednesday evening when he got home.  Now, three days later, he can come out of his crate on his own and can walk to the main entry door. He has a long way to full recovery but so far his progress is quite remarkable. One thing is certain – he is not going to track this fall. We are fortunate that Tommy will be able to assume the role of John’s main tracker.

Joeri, 60 hours after surgery, was not feeling great. This was Thursday morning, and he was much better in the afternoon.

Joeri on Thursday morning.

I am going to write more about IVDD in dachshunds in the near future. This post is dedicated just to Joeri and his surgery. We'll keep you updated on his progress. For those who’d like to read more about disc disease in dogs a good presentation of basic facts is given here. The most comprehensive website about IVDD in dachshunds is at http://www.dodgerslist.com/, where you can order a DVD for just $3.00.

Dachshund puppies available to blood tracking homes

Update: all puppies mentioned in this post are spoken for.

If you are thinking about getting involved in tracking wounded deer with a dog, there are a number of puppies available to blood tracking homes.

Let's start with the Northeast.

1. Genti and Beth Shero from Poughkeepsie, NY have a litter born on August 1. For  For more contact them at gentian@trackingdogsupply.com, 845-222-3261, http://trackingdogsupply.com/

Billy and Mae's puppies bred by Genti and Beth Shero.

2. Laurel Whistance-Smith from Ontario, Canada, has one very promising female puppy available from the litter born on May 16. Contact Laurel at 705 277-9183 or manverspack@nexicom.net.

On the West coast:

3. Claire Mancha from Portland, OR has two standard smooth pups out of European lines. Her e-mail is claire@whiz.to. More information available here.

Resource Guarding Training by Andy Bensing

An interesting post from Andy Bensing, who is an owner of Peacock Bridge Kennels, boarding and training facilities in Reading, PA. 

Aryl is a six-year-old wirehaired dachshund that recently had been returned to me because he no longer "fit in" to the owner's lifestyle. I originally sold him as a puppy to a tracking home in the mid-west. During his first few years he received quite a bit of tracking training and opportunities to take natural lines. Some of his finds were quite challenging. He also had some pretty nice obedience training done including the use of the e-collar.

When I got the call that Aryl needed a new home I of course agreed to take him back and thought it would be relatively easy to place him in a new tracking home. The only problem reported was that he did not particularly like kids or women as he growled and sometimes snapped if picked up by either. He reportedly had never actually bitten anyone. When I got him home and checked out his tracking ability it was great, but unfortunately it turned out that his aggression problems were much worse than reported. It makes finding him a new tracking home very difficult unless they could be reduced.

Here is a video of the work my wife and I are doing to work on one of those problems, Resource Guarding. I wish I had videoed him when we first started. You will see him quite aggressive on this video but it was much, much worse 2 months ago.

We will continue to work on all his issues with the hopes that he will become manageable enough that we can place him with a tracker that has enough dog experience to handle him and value his tracking ability enough to override the extra responsibility of owning a dog like this.

 

Blood tracking with Alaskan Malamutes in Sweden

Today we got a really interesting e-mail from Marit and Fredrik in Sweden. Make sure that you check their post as it is very informative. And while you visit their blog, don't miss their outstanding photography. They live far north of the Arctic Circle!

Hi John and Jolanta,

We enjoy reading your blog and have recommended it to the readers of our own blog: http://www.northernmost.se/archives/9695

We live in the north of Sweden with our pack of Alaskan Malamutes that we train in blood tracking and have gained many useful tips from your books.

Have a good tracking season!

Best regards,

Marit & Fredrik
Northernmost Alaskan Malamutes

 

 

Thank you Marit and Fredrik for mentioning us in your post and recommending our books!

Tuesday, a four-month-old puppy, shows a lot of promise for field work

I will blame the Olympics for interrupting my flow of blogging. It was a lot of fun to watch TV at night, but the blog suffered because of it. As it turned out it has been harder to get back to the routine than I anticipated. Also this has been an exceptional summer as far as the weather is concerned, and it is hard to spend much time in front of the computer when you really want to be outdoors.

I  am planning to write a post about biddability in dachshunds as this topic has been on my mind for quite a while. But it will be easier to start with something not as difficult so let me write a little bit about Tuesday. She turned four months old on August 6, and we could not be happier with this little pup. I don't know how big/small she is going to be when she is mature but at 4 months she was about 11.5 lbs. This is pretty small for our dogs at this age.

We really like her personality - she is intelligent, curious and responsive; her energy level and excitability are not excessive. She is nose oriented and has been doing really well in the blood tracking training. Her tail action shows that she started to respond to the rabbit scent on the lawn and in the woods, and follows it for some distance, but she has not opened yet. This will probably come between the age of 6 and 7 months. When I take her for the walks she ranges further and further with every outing but she also checks back with me regularly.

Yesterday Susanne Hamilton was visiting us, and she owns Tuesday's grand sire Buster (FC Clown vom Talsdeich). She was completely smitten with Tuesday, and declared her to be very "special". It is easy to see why as this puppy is very social and affectionate, and she seems to love everybody she meets. A couple of weeks ago we took her to an outdoor concert in a nearby town of Altamont, and Tuesday had a blast. She was not concerned about loud music and commotion at the grounds.

Below are several pics taken in the last two weeks.

She is a very agile puppy and now she can get on the top of the picnic table by herself.

Conformation-wise Tuesday has some good qualities: good proportions, nice length of legs, correct angulation, excellent coat, lovely head. Her topline does not look very good right now, but this might improve with age. Also the length of ribbing could be better.

Colors in our mid-August woods and fields

Pictures of dachshunds have dominated the blog for quite a while so it is time to broaden our horizons. There is so much beauty around us!
 

This is Rubus odoratus, also called ornamental bramble or purple-flowering raspberry. It  has really spread in our woods, and I would say this year it seems like a dominant shrub there. The flowers are striking. When they first open they are very intense, vivid purple, and the petals are very  silky, delicate and thin. The color of flowers fade pretty quickly. This perennial does not have thorns and its leaves are large and almost resemble maple leaves.

Rubus odoratus produces very ornamental red fruit that looks like a flat raspberry. The berries are edible but they are on a dry side, and when it comes to taste they can't compete with other berries around here (blackberries and raspberries). 

Our drought is over and now, in mid-August, green color dominates. I don't see too many ladybugs around here this year, but this one helped with a nice picture.

Quite a few species started to set seeds and the next couple of weeks the color palette will be shifting gradually to yellow, orange, red and brown.

 

Congratulations to Darren Doran and his four-month-old blood tracking dachshund Theo

Theo (Theo von Moosbach-Zuzelek) turned four months old on August 6, and one day later he passed a UBT I blood tracking evaluation. Andy Bensing from Reading, PA, was a United Blood Trackers judge. Now Theo's owner and handler Darren Doran from New Jersey will be able to put him on the Special NJ Permit required to track in that state.

Darren Doran from New Jersey with a four-month-old Theo at the end of successful 525 yard track. We are very proud of Theo and so pleased with this tracking team's accomplishment.

Darren has been training Theo's very diligently. I posted several of his tracking reports but not all of them. When a couple of weeks ago Theo did well on a four-hour-old 450-yard line prepared with the scent shoes and 2 ounces of blood, Darren asked me not to publish the report as he did not want people to think that all puppies can do this. He said "I've been very careful to never ask Theo to do more than he is able. But I think Theo is something special."

It's really nice to hear Darren's opinion as it confirms our experience with S- and T-puppies. After all we have Theo's brother Sky and Theo's sister and litter mate Tuesday, and we think very highly of them. It looks like the breeding of Paika (FC Paika von Moosbach-Zuzelek) to Moose (FC Nurmi von Moosbach-Zuzelek) has produced pups with a really good potential for blood tracking and hunting. But inborn talent does not guarantee that a tracking dog will succeed. A key component is a dedicated owner who takes dog training seriously and makes sure that once the dog is trained he used on a real thing.

We hope that Theo continues to do so well! In the next post we will talk more about other S- and T-pups.

Niya, a young wirehaired dachshund from Hungary shows a great potential for tracking and hunting

Last weekend was very busy and filled with fun, dachshunds and friends.We wrote about Genti and Beth Sheros' puppies in the previous post. 

We also had a chance to get to know Sherry Ruggieri's wirehaired dachshund puppy Niya, which she imported from Hungary. Niya's registered name is Tüsöksori-Ugrasztó Husniya, and she is five months old. She has a perfect tight coat with nice furnishings, and her size is quite small, just under 12 lbs.

Niya has never been exposed to water before, but she took to our pond like an otter. She did not need any encouragement at all, just entered the water and started to swim. Sherry was a little nervous to let her go all the way as Niya looked like she wanted to swim across the pond. You are a good and brave girl Niya! We finished the session with throwing a ball for her, which she promptly retrieved.

Sherry Ruggieri watching Niya, who is just about ready to swim.

 

Niya is a natural swimmer and retriever.

When we did some blood tracking work with Niya on Friday and Saturday, we quickly realized that she is ready to pass UBT I evaluation. Both John and I are United Blood Trackers judges and eligible to judge Niya. The UBT-I demonstrates the basic skills necessary to track wounded game by assessing the ability of the handler/dog team to follow an artificial blood trail. This is not a test comparable to a 20-hour-old line prepared according to the European tradition. More information about the UBT evaluation program can be accessed here.

Early Sunday morning John laid a 400 yard track for Niya with scent shoes and three ounces of deer blood. The line had two turns and one wound bed. Niya was put on the line two hours and 20 minutes later, and her performance was flawless. It took her 15 minutes to get to the deer hide placed at the end of line, and she showed a good interest and aggressiveness towards the hide.

Since Sherry, a United Blood Trackers member, lives in new Jersey, now she will be able to put Niya on a special permit required to blood track in that state.

Niya at the end of the track.

John Jeanneney, a UBT judge, and Sherry Ruggieri with Niya.

Niya wants to go back to the deer hide.

Good luck to this new blood tracking team!

Billy and Mae's puppies have arrived: a new generation of deer tracking dachshunds is born

On August 1 Mae (FC Mae von Munterkeit) whelped with ease 7 puppies - 5 males and 2 females. Mae is owned by Deer Search members Beth and Genti Shero from Poughkeepsie, NY, and she is out of three-time winner of Deer Search's blood tracking competition Jessie v Moosbach-Zuzelek. The sire of this litter is our FC Billy von Moosbach-Zuzelek, SchwhK Prize II, Wa.-T, BHP-1, BHP-2, BHP-3.

 

We wrote about Mae many times on this blog as she is a talented blood tracker certified by Deer Search and a very versatile hunter. She loves to swim, opens freely on rabbits and has plenty of game aggressiveness. We like Mae very much, and this is why we kept Bella, a puppy out of her and Tommy's 2011 litter.

 

More info about puppies can be accessed click here. Genti Shero can be contacted at (845) 222-3261

 

Mae with her newborn puppies

One of the newborns

Yesterday, on Saturday, Genti, Beth and their daughter Dea visited us, and they brought their very nice eight-week-old pups out of their Mariel and Achilles. We had a lot of fun with them. Sherry Ruggieri, who also is visiting this weekend helped with the evaluation of pups' conformation. Below pictures show Sheros and their puppies.

 

Beth and Genti Shro with seven pups out of Achilles and Mariel.

 

 

NYS Leashed Tracking Dog License Guide now available online

NYS Department of Environmental Conservation released a study guide, which will help future handlers prepare for the exam needed to obtain a license in our state. The guide is now posted online at http://www.dec.ny.gov/docs/wildlife_pdf/ltdguide.pdf

This is a very positive move in a right direction. Hopefully more New York hunters become interested in obtaining a license required to recover wounded big game with assistance of leashed dogs.

NY Leashed Tracking Dog License: DEC schedules exam for August 24

If you would like to use a tracking dog to recover a wounded big game in New York State, you have to get a license issued by New York Department of Environmental Conservation. To get a license  you must pass an exam. This year DEC scheduled the exam for August 24. You need to register for the exam by August 17.

From press release:

The 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 24, 2012 from 10:00 a.m. until noon at designated New York State Department of Environmental Conservation regional offices across the state, the agency announced today. The list of Regional Offices can be found on the DEC's website.

The deadline for registering to take the exam is August 17. A score of 80 percent or higher on the written exam and a valid New York State Big Game hunting license are mandatory requirements for receiving a license. There is a $50 license fee, and a $25 non-refundable processing fee associated with the license, which expires five years from the date of issuance.

More information regarding the leashed tracking dog license can be found on the DEC's website.

To apply for the leashed tracking dog exam, contact DEC's Special Licenses Unit by calling 518-402-8985 or by writing to:

NYS DEC
Special Licenses Unit
625 Broadway
Albany, NY 12233-4752
Email: fwslu@gw.dec.state.ny.us or
Visit the DEC website

Action shots with Sony SLT A57: dachshund jumping into the pond

I have a lot of material waiting for posting but first I am going to post some action shots taken with the new camera. It was overcast, with not the best lighting conditions. The camera has an object tracking ability, and for this sequence I used the setup resulting in 12 frames per second. I am posting only first seven.

Dog portraits taken with my new Sony camera

My new Sony camera has a lot of various filters that can be turned on when needed. The selection is mind blowing. The below pics show the outcome for various black and white filters. The first picture was taken with "rich tone mono", the next one with  "high contrast mono" filters. The last picture was taken with "Partial color: red".

This is a picture of Billy, who is now 8.5 years old. I really like this picture.

I remember very well when Billy was as a little pup. I used to call him "blue boy" as he had a blue puppy collar. His collar is still blue.

Paika while yawning.

A portrait of Mielikki that shows in color only her red collar. Next time we lay a blood line, I'll take a picture with this filter, and we should be able to see everything as black and white except for red blood.

Putting my new camera to use: Sony SLT Alpha 57

I love my camera, Olympus e-620, and I invested quite a bit of money into excellent lenses. However, the camera is not fast enough for action photography. It is hard to get good shots of dogs in movement, especially in poor light. There are so many new cameras being released that to choose a right model for my 2nd (and backup) camera has been difficult. So many factors to consider.  I don't like cameras that are too small, but I don't like very large DSLRs either. I love how my Olympus handles, and have been looking for something of similar size. Luckily, the camera I decided on, Sony SLT Alpha57, was available through Citibank Thank You Rewards. I have collected enough points to get it basically for free.

So this weekend I have been working with this new camera, and I am not completely sure yet whether I like it. There is so much to learn to take full advantage of all the options. Actually some features are pretty amazing, and autofocus and speed that allow up 12 frames per second are really impressive.

Even though I am planning to use the camera for action photography, I took some portraits and was quite pleased with the ones of Sky:

Sky is going to be one year old in two weeks. I LOVE this dog. The combination of his tracking/hunting talent with the depth of character and biddability does not happen too often.

This picture shows Bella (yellow collar) and Sky. Bella likes to torture some males, mainly Sky and Tommy, by pulling their ears and nipping them. She does not do it to older females, but all the young dogs are a fair game for her. She can be very rough.

Another shot of Bella and Sky while they were running at a full speed.

This is another shot of Bella being "mean" to Sky.

It will take some time to get used to the new camera but it has a good potential. More info will be presented in the future.