Gun Dog Forum

How do you guys teach your dog to track scent and blood?

That question would take a bit of answering if the answer did not mean writing a book.

I look forward to reading the replies !

Bill T.

I teach my dog to track blood not scent, if you shoot a deer that is in a group how will the dog know which deer to track if he is following scent? Way to much to go into here.

How do you guys start your pup off with tracking for the first time?

Most of my dog's picked it up themselves going after cripples. I did try to teach one of my springers years ago. Seems I would take a wing and drag it off somewhere then have skip go get it for me. I doubt that it worked as well as all the cripples I put down in the field he saw land!

http://www.amazon.com/Tracking-Dogs-Fin ... 0972508929


This book is a very good read well worth the money.

northern cajun wrote:http://www.amazon.com/Tracking-Dogs-Fin ... 0972508929


This book is a very good read well worth the money.

I personally have never seen this book but have heard it recommended before, probably a good place to start.

You are probably talking about crippled birds but, my dad was a night-hunter and ran hounds for 70+ years. Tracking in hounds is like pointing in certain breeds of bird dogs. It's more or less bred in and all a trainer really does is help the dog to polish that trait. What Dad always did was teach the dog to recall (not even all that reliably) and then run the pup with a small pack of good dogs (2-3). It usually did not take long for a decent pup to pick up what the game was. Of course this program would be a bit of a training conundrum for a birddog trainer.

If it is crippled birds we are talking about and not wounded deer then all I do is leave the dog alone to figure it out. I don't make any effort to teach dogs to track wounded birds.

On the few occasions I have come across wounded deer I found that my lab would track them with no training and so would my GSP's. Those dogs were all used to tracking crippled birds. The deer blood scents were fresh however, not days or even hours old ones.

Bill T.