Help with Dog Training

[glen]

She gotta like finding a deer before she will hunt one. My little dog attacks everything he finds. I let him have it for a while before I go in and claim it.

[huntresss]

Some dogs have to be taught not to hunt the animal, but it's blood. I would start from the beginning by laying a short blood trail and then reward her with a treat, not a deer leg or hide. When she gets to the end of the trail and finds the reward, lavish her with praise. In fact, I think I'd just put a big puddle of blood at the end of the trail instead of a treat for now. Just hand her the treat when you get to the end. The dog really has to desire your praise more than the deer leg/hide/treat, and that's going to be your challenge for now. One thing I found very helpful with a young dog, was to take it out on a long trail, and then when the dog broke off the blood, I would leave it tied up to the nearest tree, and continue tracking without it. Eventually, the light will come on and she'll realize that when she doesn't play by your rules, she won't get to play at all. She just needs to catch on to what it is you're asking of her, and for now she thinks it's
finding the deer instead of the end of the trail (if that makes any sense). You can teach her to bark later, but for now I think you just need to get her to realize what it is she's supposed to do.

Cheryl Napper

[Playa]

^^^

I think what you are experiencing is a dog who is conditioned to "search" rather than track. I had to overcome the same hurdle and teach my do when to search and when to track. I did this with a combination of verbal and hand commands and with the donning of equipment (custom made tracking collar.)

[johndeer]

good luck with your dog

[Kdog]

Good info thanks everyone!

I am going to try Cheryl's suggestions (tying my dog up when she gets off.) My dog does great on awesome blood trails, not so much when there is not a lot of blood. This kind of defeats the purpose, when a blood trail can easily be followed by eye!

Don't give up on your dog orion. This last November I was looking for a doe I made a poor shot on. My dog went down several trails and I started her over a few times. I had hardly any blood at all. I pretty much gave up on my dog. I was extremely frustrated and started to look for blood myself, because I knew my worthless dog was not going to help. I was walking down a trail and my dog picked it up and found my doe who crawled up in a bunch of thick cedars. What a great feeling! My dog saved that venison for my family. I don't think I would have found that deer without my dog.

Playa - I would love to hear more about exactly what you did.

[systemnt]

Some dogs have to be taught not to hunt the animal, but it's blood. I would start from the beginning by laying a short blood trail and then reward her with a treat, not a deer leg or hide. When she gets to the end of the trail and finds the reward, lavish her with praise. In fact, I think I'd just put a big puddle of blood at the end of the trail instead of a treat for now. Just hand her the treat when you get to the end. The dog really has to desire your praise more than the deer leg/hide/treat, and that's going to be your challenge for now. One thing I found very helpful with a young dog, was to take it out on a long trail, and then when the dog broke off the blood, I would leave it tied up to the nearest tree, and continue tracking without it. Eventually, the light will come on and she'll realize that when she doesn't play by your rules, she won't get to play at all. She just needs to catch on to what it is you're asking of her, and for now she thinks it's
finding the deer instead of the end of the trail (if that makes any sense). You can teach her to bark later, but for now I think you just need to get her to realize what it is she's supposed to do.

Cheryl Napper

Wow good info. thanks
The tieing to a tree I haven't heard of before , but certainly makes sense.
My leopard dog already gets REAL excited when she sees the harness come out..so I know she Loves to "play", so making her sit while I continue on might help with the distraction issues.
thanks again for that.

[huntresss]

That's a great feeling when it all comes together like that, isn't it Kdog?! I can't tell you how many times I was about ready to kick my dog when I could see blood, but she took off cross country 180 degrees from where the bloodtrail was...only to find that she winded the animal and cut across straight to it. Nothing like being humbled by your dog!

Just a quick story...(well, maybe not so quick). One time we were called out to track a hog that one of our hunters shot from one of our stands. We put the dog down on the trail and she took off uphill and across the road. After about a half hour track she had a little red sow bayed up, with blood trickling down it's chest. We shot it, called the hunter on the radio (he was still about 1/4 mile behind us) and described the hog to him. "That's not my hog, mine was a big black and white boar". Well, we couldn't understand why our dog tracked the wrong hog, so we just took her back to the same spot the hunter shot the hog and put her back down on the same trail. This time she follows the trail uphill, across the road, and then turns right and runs right down the road. I grabbed her, put her back on the blood (with a pretty stern shake and some grumbling) and watched her break off it again. Now, she's too far out for me to catch and I'm pretty darned mad. The next thing you know she's baying up another hog. This time, it's the big black and white boar the guy shot. We shot it, took it back to camp and then tried to figure out who shot the red sow. Well, as it turned out, the hunter's buddy had filmed the hunt and when reviewing the video, we saw a little red sow behind the boar that got hit when the arrow passed through the boar. The hunter never even saw the second hog and we never would have known he hit two hogs had it not been for our dog.