Age to start a bloodtrailing dog ?

[kennym]

Thanks for the input Steve!

How ya been?    

Sometimes I think I shoulda called her tuffhead or something.   :D

[stykbow67]

I've been well!! And it appears with all the huntin stories I've been reading on here that your enjoying your "retirement" from the bow material business as well!! Lol good luck with the rest of your season and keep the stories comin!

Steve

[7 Lakes]

Kenny, get one of the books mentioned above.  You want that pup following a blood trail, not to be confused with deer trailing/chasing. Plenty of time to combine the two later.

[kennym]

Thanks Steve, I'm off work from Dec 10 to end of year, so will be back after em!!


You're right Mike, my plan is to get a deer down and know it for sure, then let her trail the last 25 yards, and go longer from there. Hope I can do that in 20 days hunting!! LOL

We have been working on the leash, she picks up things really quick!

Ross, my youngest son, got me a book on training dogs to hunt shed antlers, we will be working on that too!  

[Possum Head]

The idea of hunting sheds with a dog is something I've never heard of, really cool! Beautiful pup, love the name. Wish I could offer advice but trainer I aint. We all need a good blood dog @ times. Best wishes.

[R. W. Mackey]

Kenny, my wife and I train and compete in
Retriever Field Trials, with our Labs. We usually take possession of a pup at 7 weeks. For the next few weeks we introduce them to as many new situations as we can. At about
12 to 14 weeks you should start to notice an attitude developing, this is when we start our serious training. Regardless of what you want your pup to eventually do, they need to learn to sit, walk on lead, come when called ect...
This is when we really start working on the retrieving skills.
I think you could follow a similar schedule with your pup, no reason you can't start working on trailing at this time. You don't need a real blood trail to start, get a rag soak it in bacon grease and make a short trail, when he finds it make a big deal out of it, give him a treat, you got a friend for life. It won't take
Long, they will do anything for a treat.
Good Luck,
RW

[sheepdogreno]

Ive never trained a dog in bloodwork but i am a Law Enforcement K9 Handler and have trained dogs in scent work/tracking. First things first with dog training is obedience. This is the key to being able to train anything furhter. If your dog doesnt have obedience then everything is a struggle.

Id get that beautiful dog listening to commands and building his/her prey and hunt drives. Playing ball/throwing a ball into a pile of junk and making him/her find it. remember, everytime your dog does what you ask it should be a big party! now this is my .02 from what ive learned handling dogs and this type of training might be different so dont just listen to me. My guess is you can have that pup with solid obedience in a few short months. My personal experience with labs is they can be very high strung,which is a good thing but can be frustrating. Youll never know if a pup has what it takes until they get older anyway. PM me if you have any specific questions.

[bobman]

I've been training bird dogs retrievers ect since the early 70s

Heres my short simple way to do it...

Basically when you gut or hang a deer try to recover blood from it and freeze it, if you have some buddies that will help get them to recover as much blood as possible everytime you or they kill a deer.

Now freeze it, film canisters or small tupperware type containers work well.

Next the training,

Put a harness on the dog this will teach the dog to associate the harness with the tracking job at hand. Use this harness for tracking and nothing else.
Now the rest is simple take the frozen containers of blood and mix them with a gallon of well water ( dont use chlorinated water) then lay a trail with a gallon milk jug with holes punched in it so the water/blood mixture drips steadily on the trail. one film canister or small cantainer of this size per gallon will work well. wear rubber boots to conceal your scent you want the dog to track the deer blood not you.

First trails should be straight and maybe 25 feet get the dog to track them, and have a reward on the end, hot dogs or any dog treat the dog likes will work. do this once each day for a few days so the dog learns that there is something real good for him at the end of the short track.

Next gradually make them a little harder first longer in a straight line the start to make right angle turns so the dog learns to backtrack and pick the trail back up.

Dogs pick this up real quick, little dogs like dachounds and small mutts work well because they are close to the ground and naturally ground trail, but labs and shorthairs learn it quick also. The nice thing about little dogs is they wont jerk your arm out of the socket trailing, a big dog in a harness can pull like you cannot believe.

DO NOT DRAG A DEER HIDE!!

The reason you are going to the trouble of collecting the blood is to teach the dog to track blood trails not deer, anywhere you kill a deer there will be lots more of them, you want the dog to track blood trails only.

When you actaully do this in the field wear orange and have some assistants that hang back if possible wearing orange also. have one of them bring a 22 pistol if legal, in case you need to dispatch one( check regs).

You can place deer road kills at the end of trails when you get to the advanced part of the training, then really praise the dog when he finds it and give him his treat.

thats about it.

Key points
1)no deer hide drags, just blood
2)dog always on lead while wearing tracking harness , otherwise the dog will leave you behind and is in danger of being shot during gun season, never use this harness for anything else but tracking.

3) you take the few weeks it takes to train this and you will never lose another deer
4) let other deer hunters in your area know you can do this to give the dog ample practice each season
5) love your dog

[kennym]

Thanks guys! Great info right there!!

We are working on sit, leash and come. She seems to be very smart and is doing real well on all so far. I'm sure just like a kid she will have some rebellion at some point but so far so good!!

Thanks for all advice.

I took the little shed she had been playing with away . Didn't know if I wanted her chewing on it before we train to retrieve. She seems like a pretty calm dog for 9 weeks old.

[bobman]

One more point I should mention when you have tiny pups say 8 -10 weeks old you can teach "nose awareness" by having them track pieces of hot dogs.


You do this by giving the small chunks of hot dogs as treats so they know what that hot dog scent means.

Next take a fishing rod and about 6 feet of string with a hook on it and drag the hot dog chunk across your yard for about 8-10 feet in a straight line then take the chunk of the hook and toss is at the end of the trail.

Now take pup out and let him find it, start with the wind in his favor and gradually let him get better.

Once a day is enough and once he masters this moving to blood trailing is easier because he's already learned to use his nose to track.

Hound trainers have been using this method for decades

PS: you use the fishing rod held off to the side so the dog is trailing the hot dog not you

[mlsthmpsn]

First, make sure you work on obedience twice a day, every day. 10-15 minutes morning and night. And do many pack-walks. Get them healing, sitting, staying and paying attention to you....make sure that your wife and anyone else in the house follows the same "rules" you have for the dog. And, get them all to work on obedience as well.

Remember, this pup will be a family/house dog 99% of the time. It is utterly important to get them obeying all family members inside and out of the house. (I have three dogs, that only halfheartedly listen to my wife....on good days...though it is no fault of the dogs)

I can assure you that, a well-behaved dog is much easier and more pleasant to train. The worst thing that you can do is skimp on obedience, and this can make any and all future training a frustrating experience. Dogs can sense our frustration in our tone of voice and even in just the way our posture is (even when we don't realize it). They will then be turned-off to the training, and often act out even more. They get frustrated and screw-up, you get more frustrated...the spiral devolves.

It is important to always remember, that if the dog starts to lapse a little on the stuff they had previously mastered (and they will)...take a few steps back and reinforce the behavior. I routinely have my dogs doing simple tasks outside and in the house. This gives them a chance to succeed and get praised; bolstering confidence and strengthening our bonds. This a a good trick for ending training sessions too...something sorta simple or that you know they will succeed in.

Probably most important is HAVE FUN! Dogs sense this and then they have fun....the spiral goes both down and up, so try to set things up so the spiral is positive. Dogs will respond surprisingly well to positive reinforcement; doing things we want them to do because it makes us happy and pleased with them.

[BWallace10327]

That's a great looking pup.  I think just about any dog could be trained to follow blood trails, but not everyone knows how to train them. I would love to try it with my dog but Colorado Parks and Wildlife would happily see an animal rot than let someone use  a LEASHED, UNDER CONTROL dog to help them find it.

[Ryan Rothhaar]

Kenny - you can't start too early.  I have video of our breeder dragging a straight line of deer blood across a bath towel for a couple feet, then putting a puppy with its eyes barely open on that line...the puppy wobbles around, but sniffs along that short straight blood line and to a small bowl of ground deer meat that it smells and licks.  It is instinctual.  Of course some dogs are more "precocious" than others.  Early acclimatization to deer smell/blood/meat is a very good thing...just like socializing a young puppy to yourself...the pup will remember it.

We started Oskar on short lines in the yard (deer liver drag) at 8 weeks when we brought him home.  By 10-11 weeks he was doing tracks up to 100 yards long with a couple of 90 degree turns.  He found his first deer at around 12 weeks old - a well hit doe that went about 60 yards....the switch REALLY turned on then!  We had a blast with him on a doe culling operation that winter and he found 12 deer by the time he was 5 months old, some of which were very challenging trails in nasty weather.  I tracked one doe that I shot that winter for close to 1/2 a mile, minimal blood, in 6 inches of snow and 4F temp.  We jumped her twice, left her overnight and finished the track in the morning.  It was something to see that little dog - he was probably 7-8 lbs then as a pup - working for several hours in those conditions.  I carried him home in my coat pocket when we left the doe in a bed that night.

Ryan

R

[kennym]

Thanks everyone!! I'm listening!

I have 21 days off starting next Wednesday, so will be doing some training drills and hopefully can make a real trail!

[mlsthmpsn]

I'd also start playing short games of fetch in a house hallway with an antler with the tines cut down and smoothed over. When they pick it up, give lots of high-pitched excited praise...and a reward of your choice; bit of hot dog, tennis ball, etc. (this is if you want to also hunt sheds...I'd suggest doing blood trailing work outside if you intend to stay married     )

The hallway will confine them somewhat and keep their focus. And it allows you to control them so they can't just run off. This forces the action/reward that you want to instill. The cut-off tines will not poke the pup's mouth and hurt or scare them

Everything at this point must be short in distance and time, simple in set-up to insure success and VERY VERY fun for the pup.

It is much better to do three 5min sessions than one 15min session. And as long as you end on a success and excited note, the pup will replay that over and over in their head. You definitely want to stop well before they lose interest in the game.

It's crazy how much they actually do remember things.


Here's my two hunters from last fall.
   

[Skipmaster1]

Any dog "can" blood trail but you need a dog with drive to stay focused on the long tough jobs. Not all breeds or dogs are cut out for it. You've picked s good breed. I know it was mentioned but get the book by John Jeanneney. Great book. I didn't trsin my GSP until he was 5 and he took to it like a dog to water. He has found quite a few for people. I'm now a certified handler here in NY. it's really amazing what he can do. He'll follow 6 ounces of blood over a difficult 1000 yards, 90 degree turns and zig zags.... He'll do it as quickly as you'll let him? Even on a trail added 12+ hours

[kennym]

Already doing the antler in the hallway bit, she is pretty good at that.

Going to do the hot dog pc across yard tomorrow. Rain today...

[mlsthmpsn]

The little pup in my pic will be a bird dog/ antler dog....and now I'm thinking blood trailer, and I'm glad I read this because I wouldn't have thought about using actual blood for training instead of the silly piece of tanned hide they sell in the stores. Makes sense to train blood tracking, and not deer tracking.

She's 16months now. The old golden is 9 this year, and has been a great companion hunting dog for over 8 years of that time.

The pup is my first multi-discipline dog and really likes antlers...brings them right to me and drops them at my feet, looking for her tennis ball. Hopefully we get lucky and find some real sheds this winter (there's only so many places I can hide them around the yard and she knows the "hide-n-seek game" out in the field all too well)

She currently winds placed antlers from 20-30 feet and spins around and follows the scent right to them. On our walks afield, I toss antlers pretty far into deep cover when she's not looking. Then sorta walk away and around in another direction for a while. Then, sorta walk back toward the area with the antler(s); Slowly walking closer and closer until she winds one.


It takes some practice for the dog to get their nose under them and start following scents...once they do, it'll never stop.

[Slimpikins]

My dad started training Ellie, a full-blooded bloodhound, around 6 months of age. He used frozen deer blood that he would thaw and put in a plastic water bottle. He would poke a hole in the lid and make a trail. He would zig zag back over it leaving more of his scent so he could be sure she was staying on blood and not his scent. He rewarded her with her favorite toy. We have trained a beagle and two blood hounds successfully using this technique. Ellie has found five this year and the pictures below are when she was 7 and 8 months old.  

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