Blood to train tracking dog
- Thread starter Mihangel Dan Pren
- Start date
Jagare
Well-Known Member
Finding the hoof and the praise the dog gets are the reward. Have a look at the drug, contraband dogs that police and customs use. When the dog finds it target it gets to play with it favorite ball or toy.thats it's reward. When I'm training g a dog and it finds the hoof the dog gets loads of praise and a little tug of war game with the hoof. I then give the command dead, and the dog should release the hoof and the track is over.
Mihangel Dan Pren
Active Member
Again, very interesting advice, thanks so much for all the replies, lots to think about
Folks might not all agree , however on my third I have not to "train" the "skill" of tracking a blood trail because we certainly dont with pheasant , duck , geese . Trust me geese can bug out down muddy gutters and right out onto the wet sand of an estuary (often in the dark) and the dog will generally still do its job.
How can I train an animal with more natural instinct and the god given ability they have , "facilitate" is a more accurate terminology i think
How can I train an animal with more natural instinct and the god given ability they have , "facilitate" is a more accurate terminology i think
Regarding the reward and big praise at the end......To spin all of that on its head, one of the most accomplished trainers that I know refrains from this as he believes it encourages the pup to rush the trail and get overexcited.
To simplify his method, he trains pups from a very young age by putting small amounts of their first feed of the day along the trail. He actually conceals the food pieces under earth and leaves so that the pups has to search for it. The pup has to work for his food - or he goes hungry. He uses a small amount of food every few yards (increasing the distance between food as the trail length increases). At the end of the trail is a small reward and he gives a small amount of praise - quite different to the overexuberant praise at the end that others advocate.
This guy has trained countless through to their SchwhK 20 and 40 hour tracking tests so there is certainly something in it.
To simplify his method, he trains pups from a very young age by putting small amounts of their first feed of the day along the trail. He actually conceals the food pieces under earth and leaves so that the pups has to search for it. The pup has to work for his food - or he goes hungry. He uses a small amount of food every few yards (increasing the distance between food as the trail length increases). At the end of the trail is a small reward and he gives a small amount of praise - quite different to the overexuberant praise at the end that others advocate.
This guy has trained countless through to their SchwhK 20 and 40 hour tracking tests so there is certainly something in it.
Jagare
Well-Known Member
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.
That is true, but with our UK style of shooting static deer - a deer dog will never reach its full potential as a trackers unless you are part of a busy recovery team or.........a terrible shot
sorry i think we are at either end of a different stick here . Gundogs actually are actually trained into the dummies and they then retrieve it back to the handler ! That is not really natural behaviour at all for a dog .
Fully agree with all the above though , however we are talking deer and the dog ( well all i have had or worked with ) will take interest in a trail of blood and are very keen to get a hold of a dead deer . If not it takes only a few seconds of encouragement . Now they just need practice not training in the task of tracking . Its then down to amount of practice .
I am into number 3 deer dog , none of them needed " training " in that task but every one of them needed to get a handle on retrieving birds and other small game to hand . Because deer are the natural prey of dogs I just "facilitated "
To the question " can a 2 year old lab be taught to track ?" I would say heck no it already can it just needs the owner to get out there and give it opportunity and practice . Sure there are nice to have actions that might need std Pavlovian training like recall, sitting and staying etc
You know maybe the best dog i have used successfully was my wildfowling dog , I lost a big sika stag into some really thick cover , the dog found it very, very easy ! Indeed i got that look from him the one i recognised as " you couldn't even find that one dumb ass ! "
Jagare
Well-Known Member
I do see your point. I'm seriously thinking about buying a Lab pup to train up for pheasants and ducks but I will also try and get it up to a good standard tracking. We buy dogs that we are going to have for maybe 12+ years yet many people never train their dogs to get a fraction of its potential . Train a dog well to track is the easiest training form. You may rarely need the dog to do a 24 cold track and most of the work will be finding shot deer to make our life easier. A bit like us learning to ride a bike We never forget that skill once learnt. Plus, a well trained dog, retrieving or tracking is a good door opener for more sportThat is true, but with our UK style of shooting static deer - a deer dog will never reach its full potential as a trackers unless you are part of a busy recovery team or.........a terrible shot
Jagare
Well-Known Member
Many years ago I had a long legged Jack Russel terrier , that little bastard in my avartar, who was my constant stalking companion for 15 years. He found hundred of deer over the years that had made it into cover and on a few occasions found a true runner. Now would he have tracked a 12- 24hour wounded deer? Not a chance. If I had known then what I know now he would have been a cracking tracking dog instead of just a stalking companion. Thinking your going to get a proper tracking dog by just taking them out stalking is just bollocks.
The dogs nose does not improve with age but the dog might very well improve if the owner is a terrible shot say from lots of practice ? Or yes if the owner drives all over the nation to fix the mistakes of others !
Many purely " Trackers " referring to the dogs here lack stalking smarts though on the other hand .
Now I have to say most "stalkers" and their dogs wont get really tough tracking because its very uncommon for some of us to mess up a shot .
I repeat though tracking a deer is a lot easier for a dog than say a goose at night on the foreshore with a little bit of flying ability left in it ! But that is mainly learning from doing and that is critical in dogs and stalkers
Deer that are not fully mobile and bleeding even smaller amounts are easy for most dogs.
After a lot of thought, over the years, I do think there is quite a lot of merit in having a 'stalking companion' - so long as he behaves and isn't a total pain in the rectum. As you said, finding countless 'death-run' deer that the thermal might miss or - more likely - would have just taken you longer to find without the dog. Then there is indicating deer - which is very handy. We mustn't underestimate just having a buddy with you neither.
Sure, these dogs aren't superb trackers (despite what some owners might like to think) but they can be great company and pretty handy - so there is certainly a place for them.
Jagare
Well-Known Member
Not knocking a dog as a stalking companian. I would have felt undressed if that old terrier had not been by my side on all those stalking forays.
I bought a teckle for a mate in England, this was back when they were a year old before they could travel to the UK. In that year I got that teckle bitch up to a good tracking standard. One evening my mate rung me directly after she had successfully tracked a leg shot fallow doe over a very long distance. He said he thought the dog was messing around and telling him lies. That's a track my old Jack Russel would never have cleared even with his 15 years worth of stalking forays.
Interesting - Did your old JRT just expect dead deer to be within a 200 metre vicinity - as that's what he knew?
Jagare
Well-Known Member
He mostly found deer that were under 50 mtrs but he did have a couple, one a large fallow buck I messed up on that he bought to bay in a 100 mtrs. The second one was a pricket that was a well placed shot but the bullet went of at a strange angle inside the deer. This was another deer he bought to bay. The JRT was always free running. My mate tracked his wounded deer withe the teckle bitch on a long lead and harness and the track was over a kilometer.
All true enough Tracking a deer missing a lower front leg say just 6- 24 hours plus after someone messed up is near impossible with a stalking companion dog , especially as deer are no respect for onto whom ever land it goes onto and the fact that a specialist well experienced 24 hour tracking dog and skilled owner will certainly not be able to predict a successful outcome in any way shape or form make promises on that either . Then we have the night culling dog that can lead the shooter to each downed beast in tern waiting at each in tern for the torch to pick up the dogs eye shine looking back at him waiting then go to the next . "The stalking dog" that indicates deer by nose or its hearing that us humans miss with our feeble abilities and can track or can indicate those unseen by the human eye ( about the only sense we do better than a dog with in daylight )
Is a few hundred yards ( well perhaps not as short as just 200 ? But still very much within hundreds of yards ) not the norm on Sucessful call outs ? deer fallen into a dip or ditch or in thick cover etc ?
I really dont know zip about the actual statistics on the average DTUK successful find from point of shot to dead deer .
It is a shame that we are restricted by boundaries in the UK.
Yet in some parts of the world being on the wrong side of a fence is viewed far more seriously than it is here in the UK . "pocket land " must be a PITA for those doing call out , especially so when its unfamiliar
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