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Question for the Deer Dog Trackers on TBH

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    Question for the Deer Dog Trackers on TBH

    Question: Can your Tracking dogs differentiate a wounded deer not leaving much blood from a healthy Deer in a herd? I have heard that the Interdigital Gland between the hooves leaves a scent that the dog can pick up on that individual deer that has been hit and find said deer even though there are a number of non wounded deer running the same general area. I have seen several Youtube Trackers confirm that they could do this and a buddy says that is not true. What say you??

    #2
    100 percent a good dog can. I had one that was totally deer broke. Would ONLY trail a wounded deer. I could put him on a track and know in seconds if the deer was hit even with no visible blood.

    This hours after the shot and a dozen healthy deer walking over the trail afterwards.

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      #3
      Yep. Absolutely they can differentiate!

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        #4
        Tracking dogs are trained to track blood, any blood... It doesn't have to be visible. "not much" as referenced in your post OP is volumes to a tracking dog... Just microscopic droplets drifting on the air that is exhaled by a wounded deer is all that is needed, but they do need blood to track. If a deer is hit and a single drop gets on their foot/leg, everything they touch with it, will leave molecules... That's all a good dog needs.

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          #5
          My year old (at the time) JRT picked up last season’s buck where he jumped out of my feed pen and trailed him across my food plot (which was dirt because I planted very late) with no blood until about thirty yards before he died. First track ever, total track about eighty yards, and very little blood. There had been several deer in that food plot all day, at least eight, but some of them were the same deer. Nevertheless, I was really proud of Molly for her first tracking job. She has had no training at all except finding me, my wife, or our two Tom cats.

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            #6
            To answer your question....absolutely.

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              #7
              Wounded deer emit odor from their interdigital glands enabling a good dog to track them when other animals are present. I witnessed this several times on my high fence place in Brownwood where there were 200 other non-wounded deer present.

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                #8
                Yes!

                My dog Zeke tracked a blackbuck a couple weekends ago. The bb went about 100yds, there was not a visible drop of blood anywhere on the ground, and we could see the dead critter from the feeder. Idk if they have interdigital glands or not? Zeke bumbled around looking, and I could tell he was not on a hot trail of the critter. He ended up circling around the bb and as soon as he got directly downwind, stopped, threw his head up, and bolted right to the dead blackbuck.

                Bisch
                Last edited by Bisch; 02-04-2025, 07:43 PM.

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                  #9
                  Troup Bishop was the one telling me about the interdigital glands

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                    #10
                    Thanks for all the responses. The Green Screen always comes through!!!

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                      #11
                      They aren't trailing blood all the time, just when they start. They need the blood to determine which deer to trail. After they figure that out then they are trailing an individual whether bleeding or not.

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                        #12
                        Originally posted by Draco View Post
                        They aren't trailing blood all the time, just when they start. They need the blood to determine which deer to trail. After they figure that out then they are trailing an individual whether bleeding or not.
                        That is kind of what I thought!! Thanks for confirming that!!

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                          #13
                          Oh they can easily trail a non wounded deer hours later. A well trained dog will quickly realize that you are looking for that one that smells hurt. They can definitely tell the difference. Best tracking dog I ever owned was a coon dog and absolutely deer broke. We put him on blood trails every year. Super fun to sic him on a shot deer. He would look at me like I was crazy if the deer wasn't hurt .

                          If the deer was hurt, it was immediately obvious even with no visible evidence.

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                            #14
                            Ya your buddy is flat wrong on this one.

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                              #15
                              After and experience with a good dog this year the gland is probably more important than the blood. My dogs are blood trained since I didnt know about the whole gland thing when training. One does really good for a first time trainer. We ran a dog this year on a deer my wife shot roughly 5 hours after the shot. Im 99% the dog was on the dead deer within 10 minutes (700 yards away). We could see on the tracking collar where he was going and stopping. We followed his line through the woods and went to the same spot we lost blood with my dogs.

                              The dog would check up and the tracker began to think the door was gone. So we started to follow the GPS trail and would find blood the in the trail no bigger than a marble. They may have been 60-70 yards between drops. The deer broke out on the road and actually went right in the direction I had heard a splash in a pond hours earlier. The last time the dog came to check up he saw us in the road and busted a 180 so hard he threw leaves and dust in his trail. Again following the GPS track we ended up on the pond bank with a giant 8 and the rest is history

                              Shot was made before 8am and we put hands on the deer at 145pm

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