Anyone every thought about blood tracking dogs?

Would anyone here like to see a segment on blood tracking dogs and how great they are as a tool in the field? I myself have trained a Texas Blue Lacy and I'm now on my second pup now...

 

I just got me a pup. You have any books or tips you'd like to share man? Feel free to Pm me on some stuff.

 

What kind of pup did you get? There is one book that is like a bible in this field.. the name of it is Tracking Dogs for Finding Wounded Deer... My first lacy found 54 deer in 3 years and my new pup is now 6 months old and on her way to being better than the first dog! If you have any questions feel free to ask, I LOVE LOVE tracking!

 

I'm a big fan of dogs in general. I've used a few to track deer with and had good results. Heck yeah I'd watch an episode on tracking dogs.

 

That's what I'm talking about! I think it would be a great idea as well! We put alot of hard work into the training of our dogs and 99% of the time we will leave at all hours of the day or night to help someone in need when they can't find that one deer that got away whether it's a huge buck or a child's first doe everyone of them gives us an amazing feeling to track and watch their face when our dogs find the deer they couldn't!

 

The last deer my last lacy found while I owned him... it was for a little girl who had shot her first deer... took us on a 1500 yrd track with only a few drops of blood at the beginning... was a young deer but and even younger hunter that was feeling so down she was crying when I arrived saying she didn't want to hunt anymore because she hurt the deer... well I have to say I couldn't have been more happy to see her smile again after feeling that bad! So this picture although isn't a giant in so many eyes was one of my top 3 tracks to every go on and means alot to me!

 

Bought Me a black lab man. Plan on using her for sheds and blood. How often do you work with her. A few times a wk?

 

My pup runs 2 tracks under 500 yrds a day right now... in 3 more weeks we are going to go to 1 long 1500+ yrd track a day... we will do that till hunting season...

Labs work pretty good for tracking if they come from a high prey drive bloodline... but they can get burnt out pretty fast just keep it fun for the pup and they will do great...



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I've thought about getting a tracking dog in the past. I'd get a little wire haired weiner dog. I heard they are great at tracking deer. Wouldn't really know where to begin on training them though. Do you just save parts of the hide and drag it through the woods then have them follow it? or save blood?

 

Those make great tracking and family dogs, They were my second choice when looking for a breed to start with but their size is what stopped me from going with them... They are great for someone who doesn't have a lot of room but in my part of the country we have to many hogs around and it would be to dangerous for a dog that size to come up on a hog in the wild... As far as training I start with liver drags as 12 week old puppies small little drags in the yard, then I go with a little bloody hide drag and transition from those drags to just hooves with interdigital scent and blood... when a blood dog is tracking a deer they aren't going off of the blood hardly at all in face if there was enough blood there would be no need for a dog but a deer gives off a certain scent when its stressed from being hurt from taken a shot and that is actually what the dog is following... which is why a dog can find the deer you shot when put in a field that had 50 deer in it before you took your shot! As long as you get a good dog from a blood tracking back ground once the pup understands what you are wanting from them they will really impress you every time with their ability to perform in the field!

 

Very interesting, I never knew tracking dogs were actually keying on the wounded deer's stress scent more than the blood. I always just assumed they could smell the little specks of blood that we can't readily see.

I had three dumped out lab mixes (still have two of them). One of the three was black with grey and white splotches, guessing they were crossed with a pointer or a coon dog of some sort. Two of the dogs are good pets but worthless for hunters but that splotched one was hella good at tracking wounded deer. Wouldn't ya know it, the best of the three came up missing and I never did find that dog. That sucked rocks.

 

So many times we see that... the good dogs either die young or go missing, but as far as the scent yes sir your dog will use all of its ability to find the deer you want it to find... My older lacy has found deer, hogs, coyote and even found 1 turkey for us... on top of the tracking he also loved to fight coons... my new pup doesn't care for coons much but after we run a track and she still doesn't wanna stop for the day meaning has to much energy still I started letting her run around the woods and she caught a SQUIRREL now low and behold she started treeing squirrels she is 6 months old and I promise I can shoot squirrels over her right now...

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Lol, my old Weim would track and retrieve anything she could carry. When I used to raise game birds, several times birds got out of the pens and she'd catch quail alive and bring them to the house and hand them to me and I'd put them back in the pen. I don't know how she managed to not kill them, let alone catch them.
One time my weim tracked down a wounded turkey and tackled it and they rolled off into a creek. She was pretty proud of herself when she came dragging that big ol bird out on the other side, lol. Only problem was that after that she thought she was supposed to chase every turkey she saw and one day a big old gobbler spurred her and gashed open an ear. That stopped her chasing turkeys though, lol.

 

That would be awesome to see a show on tracking dogs. It would definitely break up the monotony of the general outdoors tv. It blows my mind how good they can be.

The only time anyone I know hired a track dog I didn't get to be there. I had to go home cause I had to work the next day. Guy I was hunting with one lunged a giant buck. What happened was it bedded down a few hundred yds away which was right in my path on the walk out back to the boat. Needless to say I bumped him on the walk out. We gave him about 16hrs then tracked for 500 yds the next afternoon and it came down to a pin drop every 50 yds or so. I had to head home and he called in the dog. He picked up where we left off and went for another 800 yds and there was another bed. 200 yds after that and the dog was at the river bank. That tough ass deer swam across the Mississippi from the island we were on to the mainland on private property (or died trying). The search ended there but the dog I'm told did amazing. I'm sure if we could have gained permission and if that deer made it to the other side , that dog would have found it. It was a valiant effort though. He was a bloodhound of some sort btw.


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Hope I don't sound too dumb but do you actually save blood and parts of the hide and the hoof and just drag it around a little bit at a time ?

 

I do save hides, legs and also blood from the deer I harvest each year for training pups but it's not a must... to start a pup you can use any old liver from the store and then once it gets the hang of finding that you can move up to cows blood from your local butcher... it really isn't hard at all to get a dog with the right breeding started... once I get my dogs tracking decent I then only use 3 ounces of blood and interdigital scent from deer *I order this* to make trails in all kinds of terrains...

My first lacy dog found deer from the swamps of Louisiana to corn fields of Illinois and actually one time he found a deer in a subdivision in the middle of St Louis for a man that was urban bow hunting on a small 10 acre track in the middle of town that ran off the property

 

I am also going to get a lab and train for deer and sheds one day. Would watch a show on it for sure.


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If that's all you want your pup for I would suggest another breed other than a lab....

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do you charge people for finding there deer ?