Caribou Gear Tarp

blood tracking dog

Over the years I've had quite a few good blood trailing dogs. Everything from Walkers and Blue Tics to Beagles and Brittanies. Right now I have a Jack Russell that is a cracker jack!
 
I've always trained my trail dogs by feeding them scraps of venison, then dragging pieces around the yard so that they will trail it to their treat. After that, it's just a matter of letting them see and smell a deer I've killed and allowing them to lick some of the blood off of the dead deer. The final step I've used is after killing a deer, drag it away from the spot and take the dog to the spot where the deer was shot and putting it on the trail and with a leash attached, let it find the deer. Usually it only takes one time. Jed will actually sit on top of the deer when he finds it. I just can't get him to bay a dead deer like my hounds have always done, that's why I still have to put a lead on him when searching for the animal.
 
I just started training my two dogs for blood tracking. My weimaraner is taking to it like a duck to water, but my DK is a little slower. She wants to point the spots of blood. Here's a good article on blood tracking training from JVG USA. This is the technique I used. It should be a pretty good start, all of the dogs tested under the JVG have to be evaluated on blood tracks.

http://jgv-usa.org/Training/TrainingArticles/TrainingArticle10.htm
 
Training your puppy

Dragging a deer leaves to much scent on the ground and is a bad way to train a dog. For your first blood trail (for a puppy) you want to use deer liver blood and age it around 30 minutes downwind so the dog has to use his nose, not wind the scent and on short grass, or bare ground (50-75 yards). This teaches a dog to use its nose more, because short cut grass and bare ground doesnt hold scent as well as folliage in the woods. I only use liver blood for the first track and switch over to deer blood, which isn't as strong as the blood from the liver. Liver blood should only be used the first couple times to stimulate the puppy and quickly make the switch to deer blood. I double the age of the track from here on out, until it gets to difficult for the dog (up to 40 hours). You will also want to make the artificial blood track a lot longer with 90 degree turns in it up to a mile by the time the dog is 6-9 months old. I also use a deer hide at the end of the trail for my dogs reward, which helps with prey drive. You can train a dog to track by dragging a deer, but in my mind it doesn't teach a dog to use deep nose and it is way to easy for a dog. I also use a lab bottle with small drops of blood every other step and deer hooves attached to waidwerk shoes, so my dog learns to smell interdigital hoof scent also instead of just blood, so when the blood runs out, or is plugged up by intestine, or no exit from your arrow or slug, the dog can still track the deer. Also never train your dog more than once a week. Every ten days is fine for a puppy, because they have short attention spans. Some dogs like Malinois, or other breeds of shepherds may be trained more frequent. I train with a wire haired dachshund from a bloodline that is bred to do this line of work. Not all hounds can and will do it, so do your research before you aquire a pup to do this. Any questions I will be glad to help you out. 513-526-3806 My name is Dave and my website is http://trackingwoundeddeer.blogspot.com/
so you can look at the tracking shoes and get a good idea on how they hold the deer leg and see what I use. Thanks Dave
 
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