Differences in T&T of Deerdogs and BMH/HS; Number 2; Verweisen

barongcw

Well-Known Member
The tread "Differences in T&T etc" developped in a different way than I thought so rather than hang this at the end I thought I would start a new thread.

Verweisen, a German tracking term, I do not know if an english translation exists (Google does not produce anything) is about the most useful bit one should teach a scent dog.

I have never seen it from any other breed of dog but I stand corrected.

What is it?

Quite simply. The dog is taught that as soon as it smells a bit of bone, blood, guts, hair or whatever bit that comes from the deer you track it should stop so that the handler can look at it.

You can imagine the advantage. You have been following a long trail and you feel increasingly uncertain if the dog is still on the right one. All the normal signs look good but nevertheless.

And then, hey presto, the dogs stops, looks around for you and there it is. A drop of blood or whatever. You feel invigorated, your confidence transmits itself to the dog and the trail is bought to a succesful end.

How do you teach it? Simple.

Along a track in the wood you lay white stones or something easy to see, about 50 yards apart. On each of them you put some hair, or guts or whatever. You lay them out having your tracking shoes on, a bit of skin at the end. All bits of course from the same animal.

You return home and after a while you work the track with your young hound, on the lead as always!

Take care he cannot wind them. Then you start as per usual. When he arrives at the first bit. You stop him and make a great spiel of inspecting it, Of to the next, same again.

He soon learns that he is expected to show and stop when he finds something and lo you have a most useful aid to your tracking.

Now who uses this aid in the UK and does anybody know of non-scenthounds who have been trained in this? The Danes perhaps?
 
My labs most definitely don't,I haven't heard of any uk dogs doing this
The Danes translate verweiser(a dog whom does verweisen)as something slightly different
A dog trained to show the handler it has found deer after it returns by a certain behaviour such as jumping up and down
The Danes perhaps terminology is slightly different:
Verharren:the ability of the dog to communicate to the handler that it is on the trail when working on the lead
Now I'd say verweisen was verharren;)
However one remains constant,totverbeller:a dog trained to bark as a signal that it has found the deer,my youngest lab sometimes does this which is very handy
 
Baron, as said before I used to do working trilas with GSDs. In Tracking Dog trials items were left on the track by the trail layer to be found and indicated by the dog. In terms of a Police Dog tracking a suspect of a crime any item dropped by the suspect could be evidence to the case or identification of the person being tracked and the evidentual value could be lost or comtaminated if a dog were to pick the item up and cover it in dog saliva. Dogs are trained to lie down on finding an article. Training is much as you describe. Knowing where the items are on the track the second the dog begins to indicate he is commanded to lie. Repetition of this excercise will result in the dog lying without command on finding an article.
 
I think you can also say ' to point " this is your dog to teach how to point when he found a drop off blood , liver , lung , hart , therefor as i told before it is very inportant to observe your dog at his reactions during the trail he is doing . Is sometimes goes so fast you hardly notice . When your dog is " pointing " someting it is up to you to hold him and say " let me see " is there someting , hold the lean , and investigate the place in front off the dog .
 
Verharren:the ability of the dog to communicate to the handler that it is on the trail when working on the lead
Now I'd say verweisen was verharren;)

However one remains constant,totverbeller:a dog trained to bark as a signal that it has found the deer,my youngest lab sometimes does this which is very handy

Interesting. Do you know how the dog signals to its owner that it is on the trail and how is it taught?

Yes, having a totverbeller is very handy. You are lucky you got a natural one; it is not easy to teach.
 
I think you can also say ' to point " this is your dog to teach how to point when he found a drop off blood , liver , lung , hart , therefor as i told before it is very inportant to observe your dog at his reactions during the trail he is doing . Is sometimes goes so fast you hardly notice . When your dog is " pointing " someting it is up to you to hold him and say " let me see " is there someting , hold the lean , and investigate the place in front off the dog .

Very good point, I forgot to mention that the teaching goes combined with a special command.
 
the items are on the track the second the dog begins to indicate he is commanded to lie. Repetition of this excercise will result in the dog lying without command on finding an article.

Now that would be very handy if your dog was off the lead. But would it work on one drop of blood?
 
Interesting. Do you know how the dog signals to its owner that it is on the trail and how is it taught?

Yes, having a totverbeller is very handy. You are lucky you got a natural one; it is not easy to teach.
I would presume Baron(I know presumption is the root of all evil)that they teach the dog the same way as a verweisen would be taught as yourself and Rudi have described,presume again that they signal the same way as this also,ie look back at you,stand and shout it's there;)
I have encouraged the young dog to bark to his food on command and transferred it to dead deer,you are right very hard to teach a lab to do but some will,he's been bred by myself off my 2 other dogs both trained to deer,both of these dogs bay wounded deer along the line without training,just in them I suppose
I also encourage the dog to play and rag at the carcasses neck,barking as much as he can
BMH/HS I think are naturally more vociferous/vocal
 
I had a terrier that would go to the deer even in thickest of cover and let out a bark he would then return spinning and jumping for me to follow barking excitedly. These terrier were bred for deer work and even now line continues.
 
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I tried to train for this
But in reality it was not what I wanted and TBH was not sure what I was doing
You will see my young dog at the time stopping at each blood spot to indicate she had found something then she would look at me to let me know
This was a real time track on a freshly shot fallow,

P1050673-1.mp4


Old footage when she was young 15 months old if I recall
 
this is getting pretty complicated now....baying on a line, scent shoes and all the rest. there is no better way to train a hound than getting out shooting deer and having a hound follow up as many times as possible there is nothing better than the real deal. if you have a bmh/hs and you dont shoot enough deer to do this then i dont think you should have a specialist hound. so this being said how would you guys deal with a sika stag in full rut, in dense forestry plantation which has gone 500 yards, even if your hound barks how would you dispatch it? ok artificial blood lines to get the spark to ignite in a young hounds head.. the rest comes with instinct, so its not actually training a hound its bringing out whats already there. as for training a hound to stop at the start Verweisen? i dont see the use of this method. when the hounds "ringing" you soon know when hounds on a trail usually resulting in rope burn from the long line;) just my take on this
 
this is getting pretty complicated now....baying on a line, scent shoes and all the rest. there is no better way to train a hound than getting out shooting deer and having a hound follow up as many times as possible there is nothing better than the real deal. if you have a bmh/hs and you dont shoot enough deer to do this then i dont think you should have a specialist hound. so this being said how would you guys deal with a sika stag in full rut, in dense forestry plantation which has gone 500 yards, even if your hound barks how would you dispatch it? ok artificial blood lines to get the spark to ignite in a young hounds head.. the rest comes with instinct, so its not actually training a hound its bringing out whats already there. as for training a hound to stop at the start Verweisen? i dont see the use of this method. when the hounds "ringing" you soon know when hounds on a trail usually resulting in rope burn from the long line;) just my take on this
With a rifle or handgun or if roe,dog itself,sika=rifle or handgun
Doesnt come with instict all the time,some dogs won't show interest at all in a blood trail(granted not normally hounds)
Verweisen is handy when you have a deer or boar clipped and your not sure how bad its been hit,the dog tells you there is sign,as simple as that really and not overly complicated
Baying on lines,not every dog will do this,some people wouldn't even want this,so could be seen as a fault,handy again when in a hetz though,you know where your dog is,I feel terriers are probably best at this,without training as this is instinct
PS i shoot plenty of deer
 
even in a dense block of trees? the first glimpse of a big jap stag in a thick spruce wood might be when you literally rub noses with each other(being face to face isnt nice), wouldnt be keen on being that close to him when hes wounded thats for sure!, i wouldnt advise using an inexperienced dog in this scenario with sika, start off training with roe or smaller species so the hound is fully competent on getting hold in the correct place and doesnt let go. couldnt comment on boar as ive never dealt with them but i would imagine Verweisen is a good idea for the safety of your dog
 
even in a dense block of trees? the first glimpse of a big jap stag in a thick spruce wood might be when you literally rub noses with each other(being face to face isnt nice), wouldnt be keen on being that close to him when hes wounded thats for sure!, i wouldnt advise using an inexperienced dog in this scenario with sika, start off training with roe or smaller species so the hound is fully competent on getting hold in the correct place and doesnt let go. couldnt comment on boar as ive never dealt with them but i would imagine Verweisen is a good idea for the safety of your dog
Correct,definitely an experienced dog with a lot of go about it and even better with 2
I wouldn't be keen being face to face on your knees with him either
 
this is getting pretty complicated now....baying on a line, scent shoes and all the rest. there is no better way to train a hound than getting out shooting deer and having a hound follow up as many times as possible there is nothing better than the real deal. if you have a bmh/hs and you dont shoot enough deer to do this then i dont think you should have a specialist hound. so this being said how would you guys deal with a sika stag in full rut, in dense forestry plantation which has gone 500 yards, even if your hound barks how would you dispatch it? ok artificial blood lines to get the spark to ignite in a young hounds head.. the rest comes with instinct, so its not actually training a hound its bringing out whats already there. as for training a hound to stop at the start Verweisen? i dont see the use of this method. when the hounds "ringing" you soon know when hounds on a trail usually resulting in rope burn from the long line;) just my take on this

To answer your points:

1 Obviously giving a dog practice makes it perfect, training is aimed to prepare the dog for real situations.

2 In the scenario you describe I would first investigate the shot place very carefully to find out where the deer was hit. Then I would follow the trail a few hours later, let the deer settle. If I found a woundbed (the dog would stop and show it to me) and I saw the deer rising I would let the dog go, a hetze. A well trained and bred hound would attracts the deer's attention but not drag it down, a bit too dangerous. I would then try to approach it downwind and try to shoot it.
3 As far as Verweisen goes this is used to confirm that you are on the right track and the dog has not switched to another deer. Obviously if your dog is following a hot scent that is less likely.

4 Also if I found a deer so close to an inpenetrable forest I would only shoot at it if I was almost 100% certain of a killing shot. I would take no risks with the shot at all and might well pass on the shot the same hunters in Austria do when the chamois is on a spot from where if wounded he would fall a few hundred yards and both the trophy and the deer would be heavily damaged/destroyed.

5 But all this is theory and I would need to see the place to see if there was not another solution.
 
Correct,definitely an experienced dog with a lot of go about it and even better with 2
I wouldn't be keen being face to face on your knees with him either

I saw an advertisment in a german shooting paper that you can now follow a course that teaches you how to react in dangerous situations with the help of an artificial tunnel at the end of which is a film showing a wild boar with a dog dancing around it. You are taught to shoot at the right moment.
Am a bit too old for that but 30 years ago I might well have tried it, would have made a good story over dinner.
 
I had a terrier that would go to the deer even in thickest of cover and let out a bark he would then return spinning and jumping for me to follow barking excitedly. These terrier were bred for deer work and even now line continues.

Sounds a treasure to me. In germany they quite often use a terrier and an HS together when tracking boar.
 
To answer your points:

1 Obviously giving a dog practice makes it perfect, training is aimed to prepare the dog for real situations.

2 In the scenario you describe I would first investigate the shot place very carefully to find out where the deer was hit. Then I would follow the trail a few hours later, let the deer settle. If I found a woundbed (the dog would stop and show it to me) and I saw the deer rising I would let the dog go, a hetze. A well trained and bred hound would attracts the deer's attention but not drag it down, a bit too dangerous. I would then try to approach it downwind and try to shoot it.
3 As far as Verweisen goes this is used to confirm that you are on the right track and the dog has not switched to another deer. Obviously if your dog is following a hot scent that is less likely

This is as a given Baron
However this I feel where we in the uk really really lag behind our continental neighbours,especially point 2
We don't analyse the shot site as we should,I do but hand on heart how many of us do!
 
checking place of shot goes without saying, sika will go some distance. as for thick plantations i have my hounds take the beast down, dispatch and stay (after 2 years of daily training). this is where locator comes to use or let number 2(gwp) for the hetze,and hound tracking beast to last location where gwp waits for you to arrive on scene. the dog might be 100 yards or 1000 yards. at times you arrive, client showing you shot place, and at night or the same as an RTA barley any details are given. you describe deer being close to a forest shot sika will 9 times out of 10 bolt into the forest sometimes leaving no p&p but as you say practise makes perfect.
 
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