re: Deer Blood Tracking Dog

Started obedience training them as soon as I got them home around 7 weeks old. Started liver drags around 12 weeks, and swapped to hooves and interdigital when they were ready, no set age.

My puppy is 5 months old, and I haven't done any mock tracks with her. I just let her go first on easier sounding tracks and have my main dogs in the truck for backup if needed. So basically training her the old school way. She's found 6 in the last couple of weeks ranging from 40 yards to over a mile.

For obedience, I bought practically every DVD and book on the market. I've settled on a combo of duck dog training methods. I start with Bill Hillmann's two puppy DVDs and then move over to a combo of Fowl Dogs and Smartworks.

Honestly though, the only commands I really use are go find it, recall (voice, collar tone, and whistle), kennel, and leave it.

Like I said before, the dog either has it or it doesn't. The main thing is showing it what you want it to do and just making it fun for the dog.