Starting that young I would begin with a frozen liver. Put a hole through it and attach a string. Let the pup mouth it a little then pull it away from him and let him chase it around and "catch" it. Doing this you're building his "prey drive". Once he's got the idea, put some fresh blood on the liver and do the same. He WILL slow down and investigate the blood. Eventually you'l be able to drag the liver, leaving a blood trail, then let him out and he will follow to the liver. now you've got a pup that wants to be a tracking dog.

Transition to blood trails with liver treats along the way. Make the tracks a little longer and a little more sparing each time. When he gets this down switch to a hide. Same concept as above with the liver, but you don't necessarily need to make it as simple as it was when you began with the liver.

Once you're confident he gets it start making the tracks more difficult by lengthening the time between the track being laid down and him getting put on it. It's not going to happen overnight, but with a few minutes work at a time you'll get to where you can put him on a track that's 24 hrs old and he'll find it. Try and have a fresh hide at the end of the track and let him dig into to. You build his prey drive early so reward him for it! It's perfectly acceptable for him to hate a damn deer, lol. If he doesn't seem to hate them, but he still finds them that's perfectly acceptable as well.

My lab HATES a deer with a passion and when he finds them I let him pretty much have his way with it. now, I'm not letting him dig into it and tear flesh, etc. but as long as he's just biting and tugging without doing damage I do not stop him. And it's pretty much a guarantee that you will be dragging him and the deer out, lol.

I got a call a few weeks ago about an hour after sunset, "Uh, I shot a big buck and can't find it can you help me out???". I took him over there (This was only his 5th recovery as I've just started working him as a tracking dog) and he found the deer in under 2 minutes. This was his first rifle shot recovery and he was jumping all over the deer looking for the holes he's used to seeing, lol. I get there and it's a damn spike.... The dude that shot it seems to also be taking exception to my dog "man handling" his "big buck". I asked him if he was going to get him mounted, lol. Then I made him drag the deer out himself.

I let him get aggressive with the deer at this point because, although I'm MORE than confident in this dog's prey drive, I certainly do not want to do anything to lessen it.

It's a very rewarding thing so enjoy the process because I KNOW you will enjoy the results :thumbs_up

 

Thank you for this. I have a beagle that is now 20 weeks old. I have a frozen liver and 2 rear legs from the same deer. Was planning to use the liver and get her to play with it then go to a drag with little pieces and then a leg at the end... But this info is great. I know it's not an exact science and can be done a bunch of different ways but thank you again with somewhere to start.

 

I would buy John Jeanneney's book "Tracking Dogs for Finding Wounded Deer". It covers all aspects of blood trailing dog training and work. The author has 40+ years of tracking experience and he is credited with introducing blood trailing dogs to the U.S. Make sure that you order from their website because there are some expensive, older editions on Amazon.

http://www.born-to-track.com/book/order-info.htm

A retrieving dog is axiomatic to a duck blind and some day a blood trailing dog will be considered fundamental to responsible bow hunting (IMO). Training and working with a blood trailing dog will change the way that you think about shooting at deer. Johns book is the product of over 1000 blood trails. The chapters on wounded deer behavior are worth the price for any bow hunter.

 

Thank you, sir, for the link!

And I agree wholeheartedly with the last part as well. My current blood trailer is a duck dog first and foremost.

 

With the lineage and the nose on the Bloodhound, I bet it wouldn't take much. I would try and get him on real trails at a young age. Even if the deer are recovered have him give it a go.

Oh and THIS THREAD IS WORTHLESS WITHOUT PICS!!!

 

John Jeanneney's book "Tracking Dogs for Finding Wounded Deer"
best info on the subject.

 

thanks for all the responses
i will look look into the book as well
if anybody has any recovery pics of their own feel free to post them
i will bring back this thread after i get my dog trained well enough to recover

 

Can't leave without a pic!

 

Recovery photos from this year:

In trouble for something (can't remember what...):

 

There's a dog sport called "nosework", you can swap the essential oils used for deer blood. There are some really great resources on training scent dogs in nosework communities. Good luck

 

 

^^^
What a good buddy, I love dogs!

 

Yep, he's a damn good one. Just turned 2.

 

my PH is south africa has a really simple process for his dogs.

have a buddy hold your pup to stay, and you walk away, let him see you, and call him. give him a treat when he gets to you. repeat, farther and farther away.

now, go around a corner. the dog has no choice but to instinctively use its nose to "look" for you. he said just a little bit of this type of training, and his dogs will trail any scent he puts them on. i saw it firsthand, pretty neat to watch.

 

I would run and hide while someone held my dog(bloodhound Black and Tan ). He would come and find by my scent. I even tried climbing a tree and that didn't fool him. Neither did water or back tracking. We did two blood trail training sessions is all. He found them so quick and easy it was pointless to keep wasting meat to train him. He has found every deer but one we put him on. We messed that up tromping around all night. It was also a briar thicket that dozens of deer walked through every day. He got within 50 yds of the deer before losing the trail. He is a good friend, dog, and tracker.

 

I got a Black & Tan **** hound as a track dog, she has been a good blood tacker, she will some
time bail on blood and run a fresh deer tracks.
She going on 13 years old now so I just started my 1-1/2 old German Shepherd dog on deer blood.

 

I have a dog that will blood trail on a made trail but when put on a real trail he acts like he doesn't know what to do.

Some dogs have so much instinct that they don't need any training. They just know what to do.

The book on blood trailing should be a big help.

 

Kwilson16, please check your PM. That we know of, in 19 yrs, this one never left a blood trail for an uninjured deer. She didn't find them all, but found a BUNCH for family and friends.

 

how do labs do tracking deer? Ill be getting a lab pup next fall mostly for bird hunting duck/pheasant, would like to train him for deer too

 

My Lab does a great job. I got Jeanneney's book as well and it is good. I will admit that I have not worked nearly as much with my lab as it says to do, but one thing I remembered was that it was important to let your dog use their nose as much as possible....it's just like any other tool/skill that we have- if it's not used, it will get rusty. So, like others mentioned on this thread, my girls and I play "hide & seek" almost daily with her, especially when we get home since she's excited to see us. So, hiding in closets, etc, she can usually sniff us out. Then every time we've downed a deer, even if it was an easy find, we bring her out and let her find it and praise the heck out of her. My daughter's last doe, we actually hid it in the barn and she sniffed it out.

Also a long story, but to keep it short, I downed a buck this year (thank the hunting gods) with a steep shot where the exit got plugged by my arrow & organs, leading next to no blood for tracking. After grid searching for 3 hours, I drove 60 miles got her and brought her down...well, she found it in 15 mins. And after finding it and backtracking, there was little to no blood. How she did it was beyond me to be honest, but she has a great nose. Best of luck and I am thankful that I have her!

 

I also read that it's important to make sure any hide etc at the end of a trail is from the same animal the blood or liver is from? Anybody speak on this?

 

Thanks. I read that it was important so that the blood and the deer match, and it prevents the dog from thinking a crossing track from another deer is the one to follow and thus never finding the deer. I guess I have some more to read up on. But I think Saturday (since I won't be in the woods) I'll get her on a mock track and see how she does.

 

Dogs noses don't work like ours. They can separate out the individual odors. The hide is sure to have blood on it so it's plausible that the dog can differentiate the two deer based on that, but if you lay only a blood track with no hide drag and lay the hide at the end I'm certain he won't mind. You could, I guess, rub some of the blood on the hide.

As for crossing the track of another deer; the dog can tell. Now I'm not saying that he won't lose focus and switch tracks if the new one is fresher, but if he does it's most likely due to youth or inexperience. You could train for this by laying a track with one hide and crossing it somewhere with another. By keeping him on a check cord you can correct him if he does switch, but that's just not a problem I've seen.

I also have beagles that I run rabbits with and the area I run them has an abundance of both deer and rabbits. I've never had a problem with them switching tracks. It's also amazing and very educational to watch them. Rabbits are notorious for making a track as complicated as possible, especially when they get run repeatedly. I've seen them turn around and backtrack quite a ways and then seen the dogs come along on the track and pick up that the rabbit has backtracked before they ever reach his turnaround point. The only way this is possible is by strength of the scent and it's amazing that they can pick up on this. Same with direction of travel. If I jump a rabbit instead of the dogs jumping him and I call them over midtrack they will ALWAYS take off in the direction the rabbit ran. To be able to figure this out within minutes at most of the track being laid down tells me the scent is telling them.

I've gone off on a tangent here, lol, but think of a dogs nose like this; if you walk into the kitchen with a pot of deer stew on you will say, "deer stew!". When the dog walks in the kitchen he will think, "deer, barley, peas, carrots, taters, celery, salt, pepper, garlic".....he smells in layers.

 

I imagine that there aren't many Bloodhounds still being bred to track.

Being a breed, doesn't mean that the breed hasn't lost its purpose so to speak.

 

Hi guys i live in scotland intresting subject blood trails.i have just raised a litter of plummer terriers.apparently they are getting rave reviews in the states for blood trailing.and have been used as drug sniffer dogs ,make great ratters and will go to ground on fox and badger.they are tireless and really smart and as feisty as they come.has anyone ever seen them in the states

 

I haven't heard of them, but I did have a Jack Russell that took up residence at my house and became a member of the family for 8 years before she passed. She too was a phenomenal ratter. Any dog that can smell a field mouse that is buried as deep in a brush pile as the ones this dog would find has got one hell of a nose!

Post a picture of them, I would love to see them :thumbs_up

 

I started mine on hide first bc they will play w it. I then wore rubber boots and would vary time, length of and strength of track. Some just blood , some blood w hair , some blood and meat etc. She was good until I did not make time to work with her in the offseason. She still will track and found one for me this year but she is not as jam up as she was for a few years.

 

She's a good looking hound!

 

When i started to train my plummer terrier scrub my hands get a half dozen sheets of toilet paper .lay them out spred apart and place a morcel of food about twice the size o f a match head under one of the sheets.keep the pup unsighted and dont use the hand that you touched the food with to handle the paper. Try this and change the placement of food every time.after a few times doing this i had 40 sheets down and my pup scored 10 from 10

 

Not sure how to add pictures

 

View attachment 3164778 View attachment 3164786 View attachment 3164794

 

good looking dog