PostmanPat
Well-Known Member
As per title, after some recommendations
Any book recommendations for training a deer dog?
- Thread starter PostmanPat
- Start date
Nah , they cant Read ! Seriously speaking having read most and talked over with many who have a good track record ........ Just get them out and enforce guidelines.
I have one good tracking dog (You could say self taught , although he was a serious wildfowling dog ) There is indeed little that is really hard compared to bird work as deer is the natural prey for dogs anyhow , not pheasant and they leave a whole load of stink behind compared to any bird !
Actually a cold trail of 48 hours say is especially tough but look at the success rates on those , if the deer hasn't bled much . Of course they could me miles away
I think i have read them all and feel although worth reading and even more attending training days ....... take the dog out on them for real , allow them to eat off a kill and mess with heads , skins etc .
One of the best i have worked with is a mates lab , he says he didnt know what to do to train a " night culling dog" so he just got her to sit and look towards him . Put a few down in an area, let the dog out and it sits and faces you , walk up to her and say " next " it finds the next nearest etc etc .
almost everything your asking of a deer dog is 100% natural to a dog , let them at it with a few rules IMO
I have one good tracking dog (You could say self taught , although he was a serious wildfowling dog ) There is indeed little that is really hard compared to bird work as deer is the natural prey for dogs anyhow , not pheasant and they leave a whole load of stink behind compared to any bird !
Actually a cold trail of 48 hours say is especially tough but look at the success rates on those , if the deer hasn't bled much . Of course they could me miles away
I think i have read them all and feel although worth reading and even more attending training days ....... take the dog out on them for real , allow them to eat off a kill and mess with heads , skins etc .
One of the best i have worked with is a mates lab , he says he didnt know what to do to train a " night culling dog" so he just got her to sit and look towards him . Put a few down in an area, let the dog out and it sits and faces you , walk up to her and say " next " it finds the next nearest etc etc .
almost everything your asking of a deer dog is 100% natural to a dog , let them at it with a few rules IMO
I agree with much of the above but the bit..."almost everything your asking of a deer dog is 100% natural to a dog , let them at it with a few rules IMO"....I would caveat with, for most young dogs it would be more natural to want to follow a recent hot trail than a dull 6 plus hour trail - even moreso when you get to over 12 hours. Once you get into the specialty of vegetation wounding being important when there is very little or no blood on a 12 plus hour trail - most young dogs would 'naturally' far more enjoy moving over to the first hot cross-trail.
Of course 95% of stalking dogs are indeed following recent, hot, exciting trails and that does indeed come very naturally.
Rake Aboot
Well-Known Member
Jonathan Darcy
Of Dogs and Deer
Fantastic book
Of Dogs and Deer
Fantastic book
of course a dog never encouraged or practiced in the task of cold trails wont bother unless there is scent enough to run on . That's the basic basis of call out tracking dogs but the rate of success is very low even with those "practiced" dogs on cold running on deer
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