Blood to train tracking dog

[Alan_Hayes]

Yes and no.

When you train a dog to track you actually you train a dog to follow a human scent mixed with deer or other blood scent - you physically can’t remove the human component from artificial trails no matter what kit you use. This is why dogs have so much trouble when the stalker walks through the shot site - they have been trained to follow trails consisting of human and blood scent!!!

That said, the more you use the real thing as part of an artificial trail the easier the transition to “live” trails is going to be.

So in my opinion y all means start off getting a dog on any sort of trail you like, but

 

[Bowland blades]

But we do train them to bring out there natural skills. We throw dummies and they learn marking the dummy fall. We do hidden dummies So they must hunt out and use there scenting skills. We then progress to cold game then warm game. With any luck we end up with a dog that will find strong runners and be able to mark a goose or duck in the dark by the sound of it hitting the water. Plenty of gundogs out there that never reach their full potential because of the lack of training. Also plenty of deer dogs who never have their full potential unlocked and end up as nothing more than a stalking companion only able to ever follow hot scent.

You 100% confused what i actually stated i feel here .
We train gundogs to mark and retrieve , unless we count the bring-sell method there are no Dummies required in a deer dogs training ( though i do chuck dummies about for them ) Marking the fall and taking direction by hand or whistle is not part of its job of a deer dog . The fact is that many of use keep a deer dog that will work birds it will be poorer at whichever it does primarily . That is not to say that a deer dog needs to mark shot birds or retrieve .
Having had duel purpose dogs deer / wildfowl I now don't - too many contradictions in the mix . Though there are dogs that figure things out all on their own

 

[dogman56]

My nightmare Teckel without any tracking training followed the blood trail from one of 4 spaniels who had sliced their pad, I was about to start checking all their feet and he went straight to her and sniffed her cut paw. the other dogs weren't bothered with the blood

 

[Heym SR20]

The Germans take their tracking very seriously and the dogs have to pass an exam before they get their hunting license and can be used in the field. But they have all sorts of facilities including semi tame wild boar etc with which to work.

With my labxbmh I used a bit of deer blood, and also dried blood mixed up (which I bought at stalking show in Kelso).

Laying a trail with drops of blood and a few biscuits at the end was a great way of amusing children and the dog. We laid several on the rough ground around Arthur’s seat. Lots of smells of people etc.

Would send a non family member’s child off with the bottle of mixed blood and get them to lay a good trail with treat at the end.

Hound quickly worked out that following blood drops resulted in a treat.

When it came to actual deer, this was back when I still used lead ammo. I tended to take the traditional low behind shoulder shot to avoid meat damage. Such a shot usually results in a deer running, and to be honest, this was the norm and we thought nothing of it.

It didn’t take her long to realise that a good blood trail results in a good reward of yummy bits from a deer.

On birds she is pretty good at finding shot birds that have run and there is a trail to follow into cover. No interest in picking up a bird that has fallen in the open and is clearly lying dead - in her view that’s for a posh pretty peg dog.

Her one fault is her prey drive and chattiness. There are times when I just want her to switch off and lay down and be quiet. I have chosen not to shoot that doe out in the open because its out of season and we just need to sit and wait. However I ignore her at my own peril.

Yesterday morning she was on full there is a buck just around the corner mode. I ignored it and blundered on only for a big buck to jump 20 yards and run off barking. She was in grump all the rest of the day, especially as now a 10 year old she had been dragged out of her bed before dawn.

 

[carthorse]

I used fresh lungs blended in a food processor with as much blood as possible to collect, and then a little salt to stop the clotting, worked a treat to focus on the smell of what we would expect from a freshly shot deer, bits of lung and blood. Used it in an area where there are clear deer trails so lots of scent to confuse, but it worked with great success.