re: Teaching a dog to track deer. Edit: added a video

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This is my Catahoula, Amos. He is 8 months old

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So defrosted my deer and pork meat to bring to the butcher and got some containers of blood.

This a picture of my pup.

If we’re posting pics. Here are my tracking dogs. One I’ve had since a puppy. The other is a former deer hound.

Long post incoming.

I can only tell you what I’ve done, and I’m by no means an expert, but I have a 7 month old Lacy that I will put up against anyone’s tracking dog 7 days a week and twice on Sunday.

I started with short liver drags. Like 10 paces short. Let the line age for a couple of hours so that the scent isn’t overwhelming, or else the pup will be all over the place.

This is just to get it excited about tracking. Once it shows enthusiasm, switch to a piece of deer hide.

Continue with the straight line drags. Drop some blood in the hide and then on the ground every step

Once your puppy is consistently finding the prize at the end of the line (I use a high value treat like a hotdog wiener or something and TONS of praise), make it longer or the line older. Once you know your pup can handle a straight line, regardless of length and age of scent line, switch to deer hooves and add a turn. I zip-tie mine to the end of a broom handle.

Your focus is now on the turn. You don’t need to walk a mile and then turn. You can go 20-30 strides, dropping blood along the way, then make a soft turn left or right, walk a few more paces and then drop the treat.

Make the turns sharper as the pup gets better.

Once it has that down, you can add a second turn.

Eventually you’ll want to cross back over the main track, like an “X” shape, add water, and train on some lines where the deer would literally just turn around and walk the same way it came, but that’s way later in training.

This is called “Modular Training”, where you focus on a single goal (straight line, turn, crossing water, etc) until you’re confident the dog can work through that module in the field.

I only change one variable each track (length of time the track is aged, distance, amount of blood, number of turns, after a rain, etc.)

I ran a mock track yesterday that was 120 paces, then a hard right turn across a muddy and slightly flooded patch of field for another 50 paces, then a soft left turn down a fence row for another 100 paces. Dropped literally a couple drops of blood every 5 paces. Used 4oz total. My pup found it in about 10 minutes.

I only do mock tracks maybe once a week, and sometimes every other week depending on my schedule and the weather.

I never ever ever correct my dog if it goes in the wrong direction. I just let her work it out, and she always finds the treat in the end. Always put the same collar on her, always use the same permatack lead, and always use the same tracking vest. When those come out, she goes from hyper as hell to straight business.

My goal is to get her to work through a complete mock track with all modules and no blood, because if there was a good blood trail after the shot, a tracking dog would not be necessary unless the deer just needed to be bayed and finished off.

For comparison, I also have a 4 month old male that is still on straight hide drags, because he works too fast and gets distracted by everything in sight. I have no doubt that he will be the better tracker though, because of his breeding and eagerness to do it.

As a result, my main focus with him right now is recall training and general obedience.

Oh and use some flagging tape on tree branches or ground stakes so that you remember where the scent line is.

nm