Tracking a healthy deer

[barongcw]

Rudi has asked me to translate his latest email.

It explains why a young scenthound should be trained on healthy deer tracks more than 4 hours old.

He gives as an example a situation where the Rifle it not quite certain if he has hit the deer or not. The tracker follows the deer with the dog on a lead. The dog has been taught to stop and show bits of lung, blood, guts etc on the track (Verweisen, no word in english). As soon as this has been found and it might take a few hundres yards for the first bit to appear, the tracker knows for certain that the deer has been wounded and continues as per normal.

If after a fair distance no trace of anything is found the dog is lifted of the track and both return.

It is therefor important that a young dog is trained on tracks older than 4 hours, ideally Kirchgang tracks, but a scentshoe without any blood will do.

Therefor in his training he starts with unwounded deer or scentshoes without blood and only later adds blood to the training.

An excercise at a later stage would be to lay a scentshoe track without blood for the first few hundred yards and then later add some blood.

Once the dog is more experienced the Hetze(chase) can be introduced. This is a continuation of the training on an unwounded deer where the dogs follows, loudly barking, the live scent of a deer with the aim to stop it so that it can be shot.

Rudi is of the opinion that you should never let a dog loose at night as you cannot judge the state the deer (or for him wildboar) is in so that it could be very dangerous for the dog.

Members of his team use the Garmin Astro and give positive reports.

He is looking forward to questions.

 

[Wolverine]

Ahh so use scent shoes or live deer first then use blood,interesting
Instead of an experienced dog working to scent shoes later
Makes sense
I've always used blood first and the went to unwounded stuff after
Kirschgang is red deer tracking(live)correct?
With myself,sometimes you have to work the dog at night,although you could always wait to the following morning I suppose,no boar here,although the carcass would be wasted with foxes and badgers,better than a dead dog

 

[barongcw]

Ahh so use scent shoes or live deer first then use blood,interesting
Instead of an experienced dog working to scent shoes later
Makes sense
I've always used blood first and the went to unwounded stuff after
Kirschgang is red deer tracking(live)correct?
With myself,sometimes you have to work the dog at night,although you could always wait to the following morning I suppose,no boar here,although the carcass would be wasted with foxes and badgers,better than a dead dog

Yes, it does make sense doing the without blood first but I bet very few people do it.

Yes, it is called Kirchgang. Literally a walk to the church. You have to go to church but walk as slowly as you can. Just like a red deer when it leaves its lush pastures to go into cover at the beginning of the day.

Always a pity to leave a carcass especially for a scot or a dutchman but better than loosing a dog.
That is why the investigation of the shotplace is so important. You can then make up your mind what to do.

 

[Wolverine]

Everyone I know and speak to trains to blood first,I know what I'll try next time
With my dogs I can tell by body language(after inspecting shot site)whether there has been a hit or not
I basically inspect shot site,if find nothing I will still track with dog basically as an insurance that I've missed nothing,I've seen me missing things and the dog finding dead deer 100m away,especially when I first started seriously looking at the shot site,as experience builds this happens less hopefully
Now Baron a Dutchman is no where near as tight as an Aberdonian(worst type of Scotsman for being tight,even worse than a Yorkshireman)

 

[cookingfat]

Not quiet sure how that works George, training without the use of blood first ? So when training our pup at what stage do you introduced blood ? I start mine at 6weeks old with blood and food association.But we are all never to old to learn something new and if it work then its all good news.Look forward to seeing you at the weekend.Tony

 

[barongcw]

Not quiet sure how that works George, training without the use of blood first ? So when training our pup at what stage do you introduced blood ? I start mine at 6weeks old with blood and food association.But we are all never to old to learn something new and if it work then its all good news.Look forward to seeing you at the weekend.Tony

I'll be there.

After a few tracks with a lung to establish keenness and nose on the ground I switch over to bloodless tracking either with a tracking shoe or live.
That way the dog learns straight away that blood etc is a bonus but that the real tracking is done on the disturbance from the hoof on the soil.
Sondergaard says same, page 84 & 85.
Guess this will come as a chock to quite a few people in the UK but if you think it through it is logical.
I would be curious to know if Kim agrees.

 

[cookingfat]

I agree with you and as we all.know tracking is combination of many different things, blood, scent ,broke vegetation soil disturbance and the handler working out what has happened, i thought you where saying scent work before blood work as a pup.

 

[Rudi]

What woud you do when there is no blood ? Blood only is un natural , still there is the scent from the hooves .And those will indicate iff the animal is healty our sick .

 

[Kit]

Tracking a heathy deer

Just seen this thread pity otherwise last Sunday would have been a good time to talk about this.
Training at the weekend so may try this.
Will also mention this at Sundays BMH tracking training day.

can defrosted feet be used or do they have to be very fresh?
I assume scent shoes need to be clean
Introduce blood 20-30 meters?

Kit

 

[cookingfat]

De-frosted feet are just s good as fresh as long as they are fresh then they go in the freezer.

 

[Wolverine]

Way I would train a pup(now,after having been enlightened and this makes sense IMO)
Firstly start dragging a skin,short trails first and lengthen time,up to 1200m and leaving overnight
After pup got this;start with scent shoes(cleaves only) and do same as above with time and length of track,building up to it again
Once mastered then I'd move to bits of blood,lungs etc along the track after the pup has mastered the aforementioned,if no scent shoes use live deer
Don't be afraid to backtrack if pup isn't getting it right away,take your time,training should be fun not a chore
As Rudi says,what happens if there is no blood,there will always be hoof scent,whereas as he says deer don't fly and drop blood along the track
Makes perfect sense to me,people on the continent do things for a reason,normally very well founded as well because they have had years more experience than ourselves at this tracking caper

 

[barongcw]

Just seen this thread pity otherwise last Sunday would have been a good time to talk about this.
Training at the weekend so may try this.
Will also mention this at Sundays BMH tracking training day.

can defrosted feet be used or do they have to be very fresh?
I assume scent shoes need to be clean
Introduce blood 20-30 meters?

Kit

No problem using defrosted feet.

You can use a pair of hooves for 2-3 tracks but be very careful not to contaminate the soil in between the tracks going from one to the next.

What my teachers and Rudi have said that the feet, blood and the bit of skin should come from the same animal. That is not as difficult as it sounds, just a bit of organisation. One deer with 4 hooves can serve 6 tracks. You can cut the skin in 6 bits and there is plenty blood in a deer, filtered, undiluted and no salt, for 6 tracks as well.

Yes, you need to scrub the scentshoes clean if you "switch deer".

As for blood you can try without or when you start depends on the lengh of the track. 50 meters for a 500 yard track sounds right to me.

If I were you I would practise at home with all this and use the training day to get the judge to comment on your strong and weak points.

 

[barongcw]

De-frosted feet are just s good as fresh as long as they are fresh then they go in the freezer.

Very good point, totally agree. Put them in fresh. I have used some 3 months old from the freezer without any problem.

 

[barongcw]

Way I would train a pup(now,after having been enlightened and this makes sense IMO)
Firstly start dragging a skin,short trails first and lengthen time,up to 1200m and leaving overnight
After pup got this;start with scent shoes(cleaves only) and do same as above with time and length of track,building up to it again
Once mastered then I'd move to bits of blood,lungs etc along the track after the pup has mastered the aforementioned,if no scent shoes use live deer
Don't be afraid to backtrack if pup isn't getting it right away,take your time,training should be fun not a chore
As Rudi says,what happens if there is no blood,there will always be hoof scent,whereas as he says deer don't fly and drop blood along the track
Makes perfect sense to me,people on the continent do things for a reason,normally very well founded as well because they have had years more experience than ourselves at this tracking caper

That is it, all there is to it.

 

[jamross65]

all there is to it......

Oh Baron, you have a wicked sense of humour...

 

[Wolverine]

Simples JR,you can't fail,all laid out for ye
PS Jamross,Baron is not as wicked as your wife is going to be when she learns what you're thinking of doing again!!
As Baron says all there is to it,with a wee bit of work involved too

 

[Rudi]

Well done , that is the correct way to put an trail with hooves , think clear . Once the dog knows what to do you can go one , the difficult make it easy .
We say here , first walk , than run .
You are going to be proffesionals .

 

[Jimbo 30 06]

Just seen this thread pity otherwise last Sunday would have been a good time to talk about this.
Training at the weekend so may try this.
Will also mention this at Sundays BMH tracking training day.

can defrosted feet be used or do they have to be very fresh?
I assume scent shoes need to be clean
Introduce blood 20-30 meters?

Kit

I have never trained a Deer dog could someone explain what scent shoes are and how to use them. ( I assume they are hooves from freshly shot Deer.) Also would a Springer Spaniel be up to the job.

Kind regards Jim

 

[barongcw]

I have never trained a Deer dog could someone explain what scent shoes are and how to use them. ( I assume they are hooves from freshly shot Deer.) Also would a Springer Spaniel be up to the job.

Kind regards Jim

If you know what you are doing you can train any dog to track. But I would argue that the temperament of a springer is, to put it mildly, not ideal for a tracking dog.
Krewer in his book "Rund um die Nachsuche", worth getting if you can read German, recommend a tracking dog should have the following caracteristics.
1 good Nose 2 keenness to follow a track 3 strong enough not only for a track but for a potential chase afterwards 4 determined enough to be able to put down a small deer 5 Bark when he follows the track loose 6 a stable caracter, not nervous 7 must search with nose on the ground 8 he should control his own drive ie not go too fast.

You will agree not like a spaniel.

As for scentshoes the are shoes behind which a deer hoof is clamped. The deerhoof disturbs the soil and this disturbance is tracked by the scenthound.
http://www.superjagd.com/shop/produkt/waidwerk-fahrtenschuh will show you a picture

If you want to know more buy Sondergaard's "Working with dogs for deer".

 

[cappi]

Rudi has asked me to translate his latest email.

It explains why a young scenthound should be trained on healthy deer tracks more than 4 hours old.

He gives as an example a situation where the Rifle it not quite certain if he has hit the deer or not. The tracker follows the deer with the dog on a lead. The dog has been taught to stop and show bits of lung, blood, guts etc on the track (Verweisen, no word in english). As soon as this has been found and it might take a few hundres yards for the first bit to appear, the tracker knows for certain that the deer has been wounded and continues as per normal.

If after a fair distance no trace of anything is found the dog is lifted of the track and both return.

It is therefor important that a young dog is trained on tracks older than 4 hours, ideally Kirchgang tracks, but a scentshoe without any blood will do.

Therefor in his training he starts with unwounded deer or scentshoes without blood and only later adds blood to the training.

An excercise at a later stage would be to lay a scentshoe track without blood for the first few hundred yards and then later add some blood.

Once the dog is more experienced the Hetze(chase) can be introduced. This is a continuation of the training on an unwounded deer where the dogs follows, loudly barking, the live scent of a deer with the aim to stop it so that it can be shot.

Rudi is of the opinion that you should never let a dog loose at night as you cannot judge the state the deer (or for him wildboar) is in so that it could be very dangerous for the dog.

Members of his team use the Garmin Astro and give positive reports.

He is looking forward to questions.

sorry totally disagree as from a young age a puppy is and should be trained on [liver ] which is blood blood scent after it progresses it will eventually move on to scent if desired or good enough, i would never train my dog to move alone through a forest or ground barking to stop or turn a deer /boar unless it is working in a group controlled be trackers . lastley a dog working at night tracking blood should be on a lead never off unless it works to heel in the day. I hunt tracking with my dog and with a bow and he will work with me with no sound untill i get a kill somtimes 15 meters away, the use of a dogin tracking [not blood ] is to indicate a fresh track to you if you decide to follow it the dog will aid you in closing down on the prey, but it is a two way effort all skills needed to be used by both ......