Blood or Not to Blood that is the Question

Gazza

Well-Known Member
Had a conversation today with Jamross over the aspect of using blood/not using blood to lay a trail for a young dog. This is not a for or against, it is an information seeking thread from which I would hope to learn.

Here are my own thoughts and reasons for using blood.

I bought a BMH pup knowing that from his pedigree I should be buying a dog that was capable of tracking deer. My aim is to have the dog's ability developed and working for me. There is no doubt in my mind that success breeds success. Watch any young child who achieves a task. With praise from his parents etc the child will be willing to have another go and will happily attempt more difficult tasks to achieve the same success and praise. The child will build from the easy task to more complicated tasks. My first object is to have my pup follow a track which by his breeding he can do, but I want him to do it for me. To use his ability to find what I am looking for. Why not use the easiest track to follow. Blood/liver. He gets to the find at the end of the track whether under his own efforts or through a combination of his efforts and your encouragement. Praise/food/play whatever rocks his boat to get him to think the boss is happy I will do it again. In laying tracks I always have used 250 mils of 50/50 blood/water. As the tracks get longer/older the same amount of blood is distributed over a longer distance. I now introduce cleaves. The basic want to track is there and the dog quickly realises that by following the scent from cleaves he finds that old familiar scent of blood is still there. As the distance increases yet further the distribution of blood becomes less and less.I can now lay a track with no blood only cleaves. I now have a dog that will follow what may be expected from a shot beast. Heavily bleeding, spotting or spraying blood as it runs, no blood at all.

I can see substance in not going down the blood path. Shot deer do not always bleed but always leave cleave scent but to initially establish the want to track and the basics of using his nose to find a reward is the blood route a means to the same end.
 
Gazza,

That's a good thought out post, infact I couldn't have put it better myself! I agree totaly in what your saying. I can however see the argument for the no blood track. I think if you treat your dog as an individual and use whatever methods work for you and your dog you won't go far wrong.

The more tools you have in your bag mean you can deal with any situation.

No matter what you train your dog to do we normaly break it down into stages making each stage as simple as we can before adding all the stages together. You wouldn't put a young dog on a peg on a thousand bird day you would bring it on slowly. It seems to me if you teach a dog to retrieve you start with easy seen dummys then move on to marked then blind retrieves where the dog has to work hard to find them.would it not also be the same for tracking dogs? Search dogs are trained in a similar way until they are searching for minute particles of the item.
 
Hmmmm,what age was that teckel the day???
No blood as blood is too easy for a dog to track.
Get them on skin,then cleaves then blood,blood splattered over the ground I think any dog can follow this kind of track,I mean any!!
14 week old teckel tracking a 15 hour old track today kind of proves this theory,now then get that dog to enjoy following cold tracks without blood,different matter.
 
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Gazza

Really enjoyed catching up with you and the guys today. Some interesting chat and a good laugh. The dogs all did well given our varied experience and different stages of training. Thanks also to Davie for the not inconsiderable effort in arranging the day.

This is an interesting topic, and as Gazza says, why not use blood if it achieves the same goal? Just to clarify, from what I have been taught blood will be used in conjunction with cleaves but only once the young dog is proficient at tracking cleaves on their own and on a cold track.

The theory being that cleaves always present, blood not so...

Blood should be easy for the dog to follow. It can hold its head up and work the track fairly quickly as the scent of the blood rises to meet it. But at what cost? The dog may well step over a sign left by the injured deer if it is working the track too quickly. A piece of bone, hair, gut material, whatever but a sign nonetheless to perhaps tell the handler what type of injury has occurred, which in itself may dictate what type of conclusion to expect.

An experienced dog will read all the scents available to it, but not just the easy one. It has to be able to acknowledge all scent available. Now if a young dog is brought up on blood alone, what happens when that easy scent it is used to disappears? I would guess it will begin to track around trying to pick it up again ignoring perhaps the cleave scent that is still available. But a dog that has been trained on cleaves first, will be confident in what that vague smell means and involve the smell of blood when available as well, which as we have said, is not always present depending on the wound.

I hope some of the others on here that are far more learned on this matter get involved in the discussion.

Just to make a point though about the strength and lure of blood scent, when my dog was on her track today, which had been laid last night so was a good few hours old, and it had been made at my request by using cleaves and a piece of dragged skin only, no blood, she started off raising her nose into the wind coming from her right and moving off in the direction of whatever she could smell. She did it 2 or 3 times before it was pointed out to me that a track had been laid a few yards away using blood and cleaves. Now such was the strength of the blood scent it was drawing her away from the cleaves she was already on. She is only 7 months old but was instinctively looking for the strongest easiest scent available to her. Now what if she got on that track and lost the benefit of blood...
 
Blood or no blood depends on the individual dog,most dogs have the ability bred in them through generations of selective breeding, but not every dog has that thing called drive.Drive can be the difference between an average dog and an exceptional dog. Some dogs which have a good drive will get by without the use of blood but others may need some blood to encourage /reward them. Most of the time it is down to the trainer not the dog to bring it to the desired level.
 
Blood or no blood depends on the individual dog,most dogs have the ability bred in them through generations of selective breeding, but not every dog has that thing called drive.Drive can be the difference between an average dog and an exceptional dog. Some dogs which have a good drive will get by without the use of blood but others may need some blood to encourage /reward them. Most of the time it is down to the trainer not the dog to bring it to the desired level.

You are correct, which is why it is important from an early age for the dog to be taught to track cleaves, because any dog will instinctively track blood.
 
Had a conversation today with Jamross over the aspect of using blood/not using blood to lay a trail for a young dog. This is not a for or against, it is an information seeking thread from which I would hope to learn.

Here are my own thoughts and reasons for using blood.

I bought a BMH pup knowing that from his pedigree I should be buying a dog that was capable of tracking deer. My aim is to have the dog's ability developed and working for me. There is no doubt in my mind that success breeds success. Watch any young child who achieves a task. With praise from his parents etc the child will be willing to have another go and will happily attempt more difficult tasks to achieve the same success and praise. The child will build from the easy task to more complicated tasks. My first object is to have my pup follow a track which by his breeding he can do, but I want him to do it for me. To use his ability to find what I am looking for. Why not use the easiest track to follow. Blood/liver. He gets to the find at the end of the track whether under his own efforts or through a combination of his efforts and your encouragement. Praise/food/play whatever rocks his boat to get him to think the boss is happy I will do it again. In laying tracks I always have used 250 mils of 50/50 blood/water. As the tracks get longer/older the same amount of blood is distributed over a longer distance. I now introduce cleaves. The basic want to track is there and the dog quickly realises that by following the scent from cleaves he finds that old familiar scent of blood is still there. As the distance increases yet further the distribution of blood becomes less and less.I can now lay a track with no blood only cleaves. I now have a dog that will follow what may be expected from a shot beast. Heavily bleeding, spotting or spraying blood as it runs, no blood at all.

I can see substance in not going down the blood path. Shot deer do not always bleed but always leave cleave scent but to initially establish the want to track and the basics of using his nose to find a reward is the blood route a means to the same end.

Hmm
I would very much hope that a BMH always has an urge to track and there is no need to encourage him to do that. It comes naturally.
The aim of teaching a tracking dog is to copy as closely as possible real life situations from day 1 of training.
That way when he switches over from an artificial to a real track he will hardly notices the difference. These dogs are good enough to track cleaves without any blood at a young age. And why dilute the blood?
I would agree with your method if you had a non specialist tracking breed. There encouragement might be needed but not for a BMH.
 
Just to make a point though about the strength and lure of blood scent, when my dog was on her track today, which had been laid last night so was a good few hours old, and it had been made at my request by using cleaves and a piece of dragged skin only, no blood, she started off raising her nose into the wind coming from her right and moving off in the direction of whatever she could smell. She did it 2 or 3 times before it was pointed out to me that a track had been laid a few yards away using blood and cleaves. Now such was the strength of the blood scent it was drawing her away from the cleaves she was already on. She is only 7 months old but was instinctively looking for the strongest easiest scent available to her. Now what if she got on that track and lost the benefit of blood...

It sounds like you had good fun, I would have liked to be there but doing 1000 miles for one day is a bit much. Hope to catch up in March.

And your last paragraph is the reason why on more formal tracking tests, tracks should always be a minimum of 100 yards apart.

Sounds like Whisky is coming along nicely. Rudi will be a happy man.
 
Gazza

Really enjoyed catching up with you and the guys today. Some interesting chat and a good laugh. The dogs all did well given our varied experience and different stages of training. Thanks also to Davie for the not inconsiderable effort in arranging the day.

This is an interesting topic, and as Gazza says, why not use blood if it achieves the same goal? Just to clarify, from what I have been taught blood will be used in conjunction with cleaves but only once the young dog is proficient at tracking cleaves on their own and on a cold track.

The theory being that cleaves always present, blood not so...

Blood should be easy for the dog to follow. It can hold its head up and work the track fairly quickly as the scent of the blood rises to meet it. But at what cost? The dog may well step over a sign left by the injured deer if it is working the track too quickly. A piece of bone, hair, gut material, whatever but a sign nonetheless to perhaps tell the handler what type of injury has occurred, which in itself may dictate what type of conclusion to expect.

An experienced dog will read all the scents available to it, but not just the easy one. It has to be able to acknowledge all scent available. Now if a young dog is brought up on blood alone, what happens when that easy scent it is used to disappears? I would guess it will begin to track around trying to pick it up again ignoring perhaps the cleave scent that is still available. But a dog that has been trained on cleaves first, will be confident in what that vague smell means and involve the smell of blood when available as well, which as we have said, is not always present depending on the wound.

I hope some of the others on here that are far more learned on this matter get involved in the discussion.

Just to make a point though about the strength and lure of blood scent, when my dog was on her track today, which had been laid last night so was a good few hours old, and it had been made at my request by using cleaves and a piece of dragged skin only, no blood, she started off raising her nose into the wind coming from her right and moving off in the direction of whatever she could smell. She did it 2 or 3 times before it was pointed out to me that a track had been laid a few yards away using blood and cleaves. Now such was the strength of the blood scent it was drawing her away from the cleaves she was already on. She is only 7 months old but was instinctively looking for the strongest easiest scent available to her. Now what if she got on that track and lost the benefit of blood...
Absolutely +1
Drive(of dog)and handler input to a 14 week old teckel on a 15hour blood track,answers please?
 
IMO The "finished dog" is one that will track whatever a wounded deer may leave after being shot/involved in RTA be this cleaves only, cleaves and blood etc. My question is on the method of reaching this point and what are the pros and cons. The breeder of my dog introduce him to deer blood at 6 weeks by feeding him by hand covered in blood. Before I took possession at 10 weeks the pup would happily follow a dragged liver. I thereafter used blood, gradually increasing the length and age of track. Along the way introduced cleaves. My dog will now track just cleaves or cleaves and blood. Are there advantages in going down the cleaves only route? What are the disadvantages going down the blood route? Does using blood have a detrimental effect on the dogs potential to track cold tracks? I have gradually increased the aging of laid tracks and so far have not encountered any disadvantage. John Jeanneney in his book Tracking Dogs for finding Wounded Deer although not specificially addressed at BMH or HS certainly uses blood yet I can see the reasoning behind not using it.
 
IMO The "finished dog" is one that will track whatever a wounded deer may leave after being shot/involved in RTA be this cleaves only, cleaves and blood etc. My question is on the method of reaching this point and what are the pros and cons. The breeder of my dog introduce him to deer blood at 6 weeks by feeding him by hand covered in blood. Before I took possession at 10 weeks the pup would happily follow a dragged liver. I thereafter used blood, gradually increasing the length and age of track. Along the way introduced cleaves. My dog will now track just cleaves or cleaves and blood. Are there advantages in going down the cleaves only route? What are the disadvantages going down the blood route? Does using blood have a detrimental effect on the dogs potential to track cold tracks? I have gradually increased the aging of laid tracks and so far have not encountered any disadvantage. John Jeanneney in his book Tracking Dogs for finding Wounded Deer although not specificially addressed at BMH or HS certainly uses blood yet I can see the reasoning behind not using it.
Gazza to answer your questions.
1.Advantages to going down the cleaves only route are that when there is no blood an inexperienced dog will find,no need to build up that experience with the dog.This type of training negates the need for the dog/handler to shoot x amount of deer over the dog
2.Disadvantages of going down the blood route.Hypes a dog up on blood and fine if dog is experienced on cold tracks but if only experience is hot tracks with blood,when asked the question ever on a cold track without blood the head scratching will start(not saying with you Gazza but generally)A dog will track much quicker with blood and fresher scent,a distinct disadvantage in some scenarios,blood as you saw today hopefully with teckel ANY dog can follow blood,potentials of dogs don't get attained by using just blood.
3.Cold track aversion.I mean aversion as well,when worked on hot blood tracks a dog will not enjoy working colder tracks even with just blood,with cleaves only it can be more pronounced.
BGS/HS need to be trained to track cold long tracks to keep them on their toes when being worked on hot scent on freshly shot deer.
Dogs will build up picture in their minds in time and with experience but why wait to gain that experience when a certain way of training them negates the need for that experience,ie why feel the need to not train for every experience that can be encountered when the dog is younger instead of relying upon luck and experience.
Best to train for every eventuality and to get the best potential out of the dog
 
Out of interest
those that mention using a bit of skin instead of blood
wot sort of size skin are we talking about?
Also is it a piece of fresh skin or a piece that has been allowed to dry out?


To be honest I hav always trained my dog on blood but in the early stages I used to work her on deer that have been seen but no shot, to see how well she would take to following them
now several years on I hav noticed the difference in the way she works when she is on a wounded beast to a beast that has not been shot at or missed
she soon realizes after just a few hundred yards if the deer we are trying to follow is worth pursuing as you can see a change in her working reactions

as Wolverine mentions " 1.Advantages to going down the cleaves only route are that when there is no blood an inexperienced dog will find,no need to build up that experience with the dog.This type of training negates the need for the dog/handler to shoot x amount of deer over the dog"

as that could take years for the dog to gain that sort of experience
 
Thank you Rudi. When I bought my pup the info I had was from experience with GSDs tracking human scent, from people who suggested/instructed that I use blood and from books again refering to the use of blood. Using this info I believe I now have a fairly capable dog on any track whether blood is present or not. The reason I have the dog is for practical deer control work and therefore in the main his work is fresh scent in both daylight and darkness. I like to keep him alert by laying cold tracks. The first I heard of training only using cleaves was from Jamross. This info obvioulsy comes from you. I am very interested on your input.
 
Most dogs will follow very limited sent and i have watched and laughed at my small puppy the same age as the wee teckel following blood scents with ease and lavishing the praise on her (A SENT I WANTED HER TO FOLLOW) after she has been successful. Also she would be very stubborn on other scents foxes cats anything really. The times she would wonder off and find i had disappeared my way of waking her up to me being the boss. She would panic as a puppy and start to look for me with small whippers.But realising her strength was in here nose she would methodically follow my foot sent to were i was hiding. I would be out stalking of a morning on ground she had never been before and on my return 4 -5 later i would send here ahead to the car with out missing a beat she would follow our foot tracks back to the car. We have special powers built into our dogs and they will do what we ask with ease. What i am trying to say is we the weak links have at this point in Britain conflicting information not only from our fellow deer tracking chaps but also the written and dvd information. It is in my opinion important that we do not let the tracking day(fun day) be a one off as i am sure thi is the way forward. Baron asked was there a desire yes there is i feel but that will fade if information and direction is not given clearly.
Blood or no blood was the question for me it has now to be blood as i started that way on recomendation from the breeder and Ria WILL FOLLOW NOT ONLY IT BUT ANYTHING ELSE SHE HAS A MIND TO.

Deans Lab doing what comes naturally
is there a disire i think so




Only some of the people that were there



DSCN0380.jpg
 
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Gazza to answer your questions.
1.Advantages to going down the cleaves only route are that when there is no blood an inexperienced dog will find,no need to build up that experience with the dog.This type of training negates the need for the dog/handler to shoot x amount of deer over the dog
2.Disadvantages of going down the blood route.Hypes a dog up on blood and fine if dog is experienced on cold tracks but if only experience is hot tracks with blood,when asked the question ever on a cold track without blood the head scratching will start(not saying with you Gazza but generally)A dog will track much quicker with blood and fresher scent,a distinct disadvantage in some scenarios,blood as you saw today hopefully with teckel ANY dog can follow blood,potentials of dogs don't get attained by using just blood.
3.Cold track aversion.I mean aversion as well,when worked on hot blood tracks a dog will not enjoy working colder tracks even with just blood,with cleaves only it can be more pronounced.
BGS/HS need to be trained to track cold long tracks to keep them on their toes when being worked on hot scent on freshly shot deer.
Dogs will build up picture in their minds in time and with experience but why wait to gain that experience when a certain way of training them negates the need for that experience,ie why feel the need to not train for every experience that can be encountered when the dog is younger instead of relying upon luck and experience.
Best to train for every eventuality and to get the best potential out of the dog

+3

And let me tell you a little story. A few years ago I was in Belgium on a tracking test. One of the competitors worked out his track slowly but methodically. The tracker did not have a lot of experience.
Suddenly the dog took off going at least double the speed, on the tracking lead ofcourse.
Yes, you guessed it. He had crossed the hot tracks of a live deer. After this excitement the dog did not want to go back to the cold trail and was eliminated.
 
Out of interest
those that mention using a bit of skin instead of blood
wot sort of size skin are we talking about?
Also is it a piece of fresh skin or a piece that has been allowed to dry out?

To be honest I hav always trained my dog on blood but in the early stages I used to work her on deer that have been seen but no shot, to see how well she would take to following them
now several years on I hav noticed the difference in the way she works when she is on a wounded beast to a beast that has not been shot at or missed
she soon realizes after just a few hundred yards if the deer we are trying to follow is worth pursuing as you can see a change in her working reactions

as Wolverine mentions " 1.Advantages to going down the cleaves only route are that when there is no blood an inexperienced dog will find,no need to build up that experience with the dog.This type of training negates the need for the dog/handler to shoot x amount of deer over the dog"

as that could take years for the dog to gain that sort of experience

Fresh or deepfroozen skin. I freeze packers of half a roedeer skin together with 2 cleaves from the same animal.
 
Most dogs will follow very limited sent and i have watched and laughed at my small puppy the same age as the wee teckel following blood scents with ease and lavishing the praise on her (A SENT I WANTED HER TO FOLLOW) after she has been successful. Also she would be very stubborn on other scents foxes cats anything really. The times she would wonder off and find i had disappeared my way of waking her up to me being the boss. She would panic as a puppy and start to look for me with small whippers.But realising her strength was in here nose she would methodically follow my foot sent to were i was hiding. I would be out stalking of a morning on ground she had never been before and on my return 4 -5 later i would send here ahead to the car with out missing a beat she would follow our foot tracks back to the car. We have special powers built into our dogs and they will do what we ask with ease. What i am trying to say is we the weak links have at this point in Britain conflicting information not only from our fellow deer tracking chaps but also the written and dvd information. It is in my opinion important that we do not let the tracking day(fun day) be a one off as i am sure thi is the way forward. Baron asked was there a desire yes there is i feel but that will fade if information and direction is not given clearly.
Blood or no blood was the question for me it has now to be blood as i started that way on recomendation from the breeder and Ria WILL FOLLOW NOT ONLY IT BUT ANYTHING ELSE SHE HAS A MIND TO.

Well done 6pointer, heart it was a fun day just like you wanted.

Now as for advice and the future. Most people recommend blood for training. That is right because most people do not have a specialised scent hound.
Having a scenthound gives you the advantage of 20+ generations of careful breeding.
And as this breeding was done mainly by the Germans it seems to me right to follow their methods for training. That is exactly what George, Jamross, Rudi and I are doing. Nothing more, nothing less.

If people do not have a scenthound and the dog does need encouragement I guess I would use blood but then I know nothing about training these types of dogs.
 
Baron this is a new technique is it not ? and in many cases in europe they still use blood and drags for early training the old do g you had was taught initially on blood was it not. There was to DVD place on while George done his very informative talk but what did keep cropping up was the use of blood every single section of these GERMAN DVD ,s used blood.
Now if there is a comprehensive writing or DVD on using only cleves and its benefit then i am sure there are many that would follow that program not every one has your self or rudi at the end of a phone for guidance.

Like I HAVE SAID MANY TIMES TRAIN THE MAN AND THE DOG WILL LEARN THE CORRECT METHOD.

This old girl had never done a track untill the day and never missed a beat pulling on a cold sent the full way.

Terrier
Rudy65andTerrier.jpg
 
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As Baron says there is a marked difference in ability of dogs to follow a track(genetics)
20+ generations carefully bred produces intstincts in a dog,much akin to a labs natural ability to retrieve,so the same goes for scenthounds.
This is not rocket science,blood for scenthounds can spoil the hound,not always but it can,why risk this?
With other breeds,labs can vary widely in their ability to track,why?They haven't been bred to track here,in Denmark they have,different dogs!This is why I will continue with my line of labs as they love to track,I was lucky with them.
Wires are the same as above as are spaniels etc.
If a dog is to be used for a certain job,use it correctly and to its full potential,once again why buy a Ferrari and it gets used like a Lada???
Blood for certain breeds and circumstances is the route to go down but not with BGS/HS/Kopov/Brandelbracke these are bred to instinctively track,certain lines of labs will do this as well as GWP's but beware when there is a harder track to follow and your dog has been trained on blood,you and your dog will struggle if the experience is not there already.
The way the Germans do things are the correct way,they've been at this a lot longer than us and know infinitely more about the tracking breeds than us,who are we to know better than the home country of the scenthounds??Listening to experience will get the UK everywhere!
Our continental cousins have had generations of dogs that can track,in the UK how many generations have we had???Labs from Denmark are a case in point as well,compared to our retrievers,as I say different dogs.
Perhaps we should follow the Polish route instead?Then perhaps the dogs would understand better than the handlers the points that are being made:stir:;)
 
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