Deer Blood Tracking Dog

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Don't worry about finding work. Word will get out quick and there's lots of people crippling lots of deer out there.

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Hell just area 4 in Louisiana could keep you busy

I appreciate the feedback so quickly. I was with a guy one night who tracked one. He used the tracking collar as mentioned and also had a bell around the dogs neck.

His dog tracked off leash and I believe he shocked it to come back. Any pros or cons to tracking off or on leash ?

Watching these dogs work is truly impressive.

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Any suggestions for someone about to start the adventure? If you do this, what type of dog do you use?

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I currently have a chocolate lab but if or when I get another I will probably get a catahoula cur for strictly tracking. My lab was supposed to be a duck dog and I trained him for that but due to lack of birds quit duck hunting.
As DSF said any dog will have a good enough nose for tracking and some of the best are the short dogs (wire haird dachshunds) the problem with them is being able to catch a deer if needed. Beagles can track but don’t handle very well and can be very difficult to obedience train.
Then you have to decided what do you want out of the dog for the other 8mt your not tracking, potlicker, family pet, subdivision walking companion? Not all breeds are suited and people get pissed cus their “hound” barks all the time or terrier digs all the time or lab stays in a ditch or pond.
Once you get lined out on a breed then start running tracks and always remember trust your dog not the guy who swears where the deer was or went, if they were that good they wouldn’t be calling you. It’s fun and addictive but it gets in the way of your personal hunting and can be very tiring and demanding. Be prepared for calls at 7pm 40miles away and track through cutover for 2-3hrs get home at midnight and have a call that someone wants you to go on the next morning and then try to decide to track or go hunt and track after.
Good luck

You hit the nail on the head. I will still track for the public if someone can’t fill it. But there’s enough people who live to track and prefer to do that than hunt. I’m the opposite.

I started off on a leash first , i think it really helped me learn the dog. And also taught her to work at the pace in which i can follow her. We spent the last 2 years using the tracker, and i much prefer that as it allows me to walk around briars, obstacles, etc.

Always trust the dog, the dog is right. I’ve only had one time where she was wrong and that was due to it being 100 degrees and in a drought her 2nd year.

You will learn a lot with your first blood tracking dog, and what you would do differently the next time. My dog is a beagle and a house pet, and because of it , she doesn’t have drive. She has the drive to track and has found deer since she was 6 months old, but she isn’t about to go bay or get into it with a live deer. Pack of coyotes get on the deer, she’s outta there. Her sole purpose is to find a dead deer, collect her foot to chew on and call it a night.

Already have a Heeler that I’m working on to work with her, he has the drive but doesn’t seem to have the nose at the moment. It’s all a work in progress but takes patience sometimes.

More important , have fun with it, it’s definitely rewarding to see the smile on everyone’s face when you have found their deer.

Not many dogs will bay a dead deer. Plenty of them will bay a cripple and that's what's really important IMO. If the deers dead and they know you're looking for dead deer they'll bring you to it.

When I started out with no collar, I had to run through the woods trying to keep up with the dog. As he got better, I could hang back and he'd come get me after he found it. When I got the collar, I just kinda screwed off till he stopped, and walked to wherever that was.

It's so nice when you get to that point. When you have 100% confidence in the dog and the gear to make it easy.

I can see how a tracking collar would be beneficial.

I have female Redbone coonhound.I started working with her when she was 3 months old.
I had saved a deer liver cut up in chunks with a string run through it,put some extra deer,blood in the ziplock bags,and freeze it.
I used a cane pole about 10 feet log with a string,I would tie that to the chunk of deer liver and drag it for the trail.At the end I put some pieces of cut up wiener for her reward.

Start out short and simple at first.Then make the drag progressively longer making R and L turns,lay the trail and wait increasingly longer amounts of time before starting.

She trailed her first deer at 8 months ,about 125 yards but there was a pretty good blood trail.
3 seasons she has trailed 10,some were artificial where I drug the deer around with my golf cart so a good bit of blood.
She has only tracked one that didn’t bleed and she did a good job,just a little slower.
I have a harness and use a 20 foot rope for a leash.She goes bananas when I get the harness and leash to put on her.

Tara Wildlife,a high dollar bow hunting place uses labs,I’ve been told they put their dog on every deer that doesn’t drop within sight of the hunter and they’ll catch a deer that tries to run.

A friend of mine had a dachshund that was really good,he found quite a few deer before he died.
Funny thing he would guard the deer and bite anybody that tried to touch the deer,including his owner.

Yea, that’s really how it works. None of the dogs are really tracking blood per se. The dogs are using the interdigital scent combined with the many other scents a deer put off, blood, guts, hair, etc.

Interdigital scent is given off in panic/fear as well. Sometimes in a miss situation my dog will trail the deer for about 30-50 yards and call it off herself. Because then she understands the deer is not dead.