Tracking dog Journal - Trail 2 (update page 2)

[DanielB89]

A couple of weeks ago I put a video of my tracking dog, Sadie, who did a fantastic job on the trail.
(link to thread from a few weeks ago   http://tradgang.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=2;t=000143)    

Fujimo gave me some recommendations to try out, so I attempted to try to apply them.  This trail was the oldest one I have put her on.  It was a complete 50 mins later.  She did great!  One bad thing about this video is my phone ran out of memory towards the end and it stopped recording approximately 15 seconds before she found the deer hide, but i did get to share some tips that I have read from others and what has worked for me.  Sadie is a great dog.  She does not have a lot of prey drive(agression towards animals), but she has the greatest desire to please of any animal I have ever owned.  I know she will do great when it comes to the real thing, which I hope will be soon(crittergetter, you need to make this happen soon!!!)  

Please let me know if you have any questions on what I do, or if you know what I can do to help improve.  Overall, I am very pleased with her progress.  


  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CziBD9hOF_8&feature=youtu.be

[The Night Stalker]

Age you line to 4 hrs to start. Consider conditions, hot dry windy days are harder.
Ximo's last training session was 8 hrs old and he will turn a year old this Month. He found several deer for us last year as a puppy.

[DanielB89]

Originally posted by The Night Stalker:
Age you line to 4 hrs to start. Consider conditions, hot dry windy days are harder.
Ximo's last training session was 8 hrs old and he will turn a year old this Month. He found several deer for us last year as a puppy.

Thank you for the recommendation.  Do you use actual blood?  mind giving me some details as to how you lay out your trails?

[Crittergetter]

Daniel, good to see you making progress.
I made a couple calls today toward getting a Drahthaar pup. We'll see how things go in the next few weeks. I'm anxious!

[DanielB89]

you need to call the pigs, Randy!            

[fujimo]

hey Dan,
you can improve prey drive by trying this,.
a chunk of deer hide on about 6 feet of cord and on the end of a 4 foot stout stick, (probably made from the same wood as the riser in your trad hunting bow.)- let your pup go, and start making the hide exciting whilst really encouraging her to get it. swing it around- get her to chase it- dont let her get it too often- enough to keep her interest up- really get her to chase it make her work for it- dont give it to her to easily but she needs to get it occaisionally so she doesnt lose hope- lots of verbal encouragement. when you let her "catch it" let her chew on it a few seconds- whilst praising her then use the opportunity to  teach her to drop it on command.

just a few times in the beginning and then you can up the sessions to 5 mins as she progresses- short- intense lessons.

one other point- first command i ever put on any of my dogs( herding dogs, guard dogs, pets, trad archery hunting dogs etc etc) is a STOP command- always a command that will disengage the feet from the brain- either a "lie down" or a 'sit down" command- that is a total cease and desist command- whether they are next to me or 500 yards away from me.- use the stop command eventually as she gets the prey drive built up- to hold her still before she chases the deer hide- or when yoy are trying to get her to drop the hide- but DONT do this in the beginning- one step at a time.

before you know it you will have killer ready to take on any pit bull!     :D    

for laying out my trails- now your pup is not a beginner anymore, and fits in this scale somehwere-you decide- i just wrote it all down.
first trails, are deer hide dragged- say maybe a deer killed with your trad bow whilst out trad archery hunting,  with a nice meaty reward at the end. short relatively straightish trails- and hide the end result so that it is not visible during the track- if it is always visible you will be encouraging her to start working visually and not nasally. when she has this down then i move up to blood. use deer blood only- my first trails are un diluted blood- using a syringe- blood every  4 or 5' straightish trails bedding spots with more blood and  very small( fingernail size) chunks of meat in amoungst the blood.
start increasing the length and difficulty- convoluted trails- over small creeks- over ditches- where she will have to break in the trail- and know where to refind it- short breaks- creeks 2 - 3' wide.

as her skill levels are imnproving whilst doing this - start diluting the blood with water- eventually i get down to about 1 part blood to about 8 parts water- then eventually one tiny drop every 6 -8' or so. eye dropper tiny!!!!

what i like to do is to always use a deer foot on a walking stick- the kind of stick you might carry say at a 3d trad archery shoot. i electrical tape the leg to the walking stick- you can also hose clamp it, and while doing any of the trails i lay a deer foot trail. what you are ultimately trying to achieve is a dog that will follow the foot trail alone, no blood etc. cos as you know some trad archery shot deer will not always bleed on the trail- she needs to follow two things
1. the cortisol that is relesed from the interdigital glands will tell her that this is an animal in trouble- and weakended- and kick the prey drive in
2.she needs to follow that specific animal- that specific deer- its personal signature- and they will once they understand that. i will set my trails up over other deer and racoon tracks on purpose- and be ready to "stall" the tracking line if she want to follow that new trail remember dont say a word- dont discourage her- just stall the line rock solid when she veers off the trail.

she is a smart dog- and will figure it out real quick.

start aging the trails- 1/2 hour- building up to say 8 hours then overnight etc etc- hot days will kill the scent quicker- cooler days will keep it closer to the ground.

a few  last tips
1. about a teaspoon of salt per plint of blood will stop the fresh blood from coagulating
2.always set your pup up to succeed- not to fail- so what i mean is only you can be the judge of this- make the trails tougher , longer and age them more and more cold wet days- hot dry days etc etc- dont dont take a quantum leap forward and suddenly she is faced with a trail way beyond the previous one- small steps- lots of small steps.
3. i always mark my trails with some toilet paper(-err unused TP of course not the camouflaged kind        )    that way it dissolves and you dont have to go back and take plastic flagging tape out of trees. i put the marks higher up in the trees, so that she doesnt start following the flags- never underestimate their intelligence!!
4. when laying the trails- i try to walk to the side as much as i can , as far as i can reach- so that she is not following my trail- but rather the deer trail, they will learn to follow your trail- and thats where the clear marking comes in so you know which trail she is on, and can stall or loosen the tracking line accordingly. i dont like the tracking shoes neither do i believe in "descenting" some rubber boots to use on the trail- all that stuff leaves a scent trail- and will teach her to follow your trail to make her job easier- get the end result and the reaward and make you happy- especially your pup- with her incredibly high drive to please you.
my dog doesnt give a hoot about me, he is only focused on the trail and the result- his nose is so glued to the ground, i swear he would run right up the bears butt without stopping!


happy trad archery bow hunting, shooting, trad archery aroow making season  my trad archery brother!

[fujimo]

i like the stop you have on her- its a good disconnect,

watch that loop tied in the end of your lead- it might get snagged on brush on a real trail- that could tranmit a false stop command.
like how she re- picked up the trail- like how she works slowly.

i like how you are locking the line when she veers off- and you are not overtalking to her. i know you are chatting to the viewers but the talk to her is minimized. thats good- cos it can distract them from the job. praise is good- but its only more effective if its used sparingly and appropriatly.

as a handler you will learn to read the dog- watching its body language- to know if shes on the trail, or if shes ranging- if the deer is dead or if its still alive- how close it is etc etc

really looking good- well done!!

[fujimo]

here is a video- you can see w e are not pro movie makers- my daughter was running the camera.
Nexus was 14 weeks old at this point- didnt even have a harness for him yet
2 part video
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x3u25YO89xI  
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iLwhIpui1-8

he was working too fast- he is so confident and so aggressive that he is inclined to work too fast- gotta always slow him down.
see how he overshot it near the end- but he automatically starts to circle and re find the trail!

[DanielB89]

thats a good habbit.  I am sure my dog does the same. I need to get me a deer leg.  I bet that would help the situation.  I do have a little deer hide that she is crazy excited about, so that could be a good thing!  I wish i had some fresh blood right now.  I think that would probably help too, but i don't know.  


I think she is doing very good right now for as little of work as she has had.  I have probably not put her on 10 trails yet.  Her desire to please is always rewarding though.  


Nexus looks great!  I would love to have a dog like that, but I don't think they would do very well down here.  Rattle snakes and water moccasins would likely end its career.

[kennym]

Cool dog Daniel, I love labs!!

Good luck on the tracking mission!

[fujimo]

go to a local butcher and get some beef blood.
your dog is going to be a huge asset to your hunting!

i guess any leg could do- no dairies in your area- a leg from a dead calf, some calf hide and some calf blood- its just important that they follow the trail that YOU put them on- so the calf should work well.

[T Sunstone]

Drive around early evening and early morning and find a road kill.  Plenty of blood in the chest cavity and chop a leg off.  Love to watch dogs work, whether running rabbits, pointing and retrieving birds or blood trailing.

[fujimo]

good point!  

[Crittergetter]

Originally posted by DanielB89:
you need to call the pigs, Randy!                                    

The pigs are there at my feeders every day. I had 2029 pics at 1 stand last month. Just to dang hot!!!!! Waiting for some rain to cool things off a little before we go get em!! I have a couple big boar heads in the freezer waiting to be turned into euro mounts. I could probably thaw one out and get you some fresh blood if you want. And an ear or 2!

[Possum Head]

Daniel, just go shoot you a deer tonight and presto your blood and fresh deer leg! Just take Hillary with you so it will go unpunished    Good thread, every bow hunter at one time or another could use a fine blood dawg.

[The Night Stalker]

Terry is right, you can call your local 911 center and they will call you when a deer is hit. Plenty of blood in the chest cavity to get you started but a good dog does not need that much blood.
When a deer is hit by a call, it dies quickly. Deer give off different scent when they are stressed. The dog needs to track that scent and it is not necessarily blood. Using a part of a hide just gives off to much scent for a scent hound.
I started Ximo when I got him from John Jeanneney at 10 weeks old. I wore rubber boots and dropped good blood every three feet then expanded the  space between drops of blood.
I did this until I got some tracking shoes. Now, I just use tracking shoes. I save bow killed deer blood and matching feet. Everything is labeled. I think dogs know which blood goes with what leg interdigital scent. Again as the deer is fleeing and the adrenaline is flowing so it the blood smells different to the dog. Now, a drop of blood every 15- 20 ft is plenty. I use a syringe so a drop is a drop. Ximo will air scent down wind of the track if you use to much scent..

[T Sunstone]

The problem with putting down scent is a dog will learn to track your scent even with rubber boots.  I think most scent comes off your body and some people have more.  I have used a long stick with a rag on the end dipped in blood.  To test how well my scent free routine was I would shower then dress outside.  I would walk 125 yards with the wind to my left then 50 yards into the wind then back a few yards.  Then I'd call the wife to let my 2 beagles out.  They would trail my like a rabbit even barking until they hit my cross wind the lift their heads and come right to me.  I was dressed just like I hunt and with rubber boots of course.
Once I rode my bike into the wind 75 yards then rode cross wind another 100.  The dogs ran straight on the track with the wind but were tracking 10-12 feet down wind of where I rode on the cross wind.  That time I wasn't super clean because I wasn't going hunting.  Their noses are unbelievable.

[Bladepeek]

Dogs will definitely trail body scent if it's there. That is why, if you read more about tracking dogs, it is recommended to let the trail age. Let the body scent dissipate so they are forced to trail the ground scent. A 4 - 6 hour old track is not too old for starting a young pup, and it won't be long before a day-old track can be worked.

[fujimo]

any more news?hows it coming on with Sadie

[DanielB89]

I have not had the chance to work her anymore just yet. I will try to work her some next week. I am trying to get my hands on some fresh blood to try as real of a trail as possible.

Will keep you guys updated.