Training a Tracking Dog

[huntresss]

My husband and I have been guiding and outfitting hunts for many years, and over the past fourteen or so have employed the use of a blood tracking dog to help recover wounded animals. Unfortunately when our veteran tracker Sage became terminally ill, we were forced to resort back to tracking by sight for a couple of years. This experience made us realize the value of a tracking dog to help recover wounded game.

With the passing of Sage, we have now acquired a new blood tracking prospect which started her training about two months ago. She is just now four months old and I decided to document our entire training regimen to perhaps help others who may be interested in training their own tracking dog.

Before we begin, I'd like to add that the most valuable resource you can get before attempting to train your own dog is a copy of John Jeanneney's book "Tracking Dogs for Finding Wounded Deer". This book goes into great detail in helping you not only train your dog, but in choosing a good prospect. It can be ordered at www.born-to-track.com.

I know there are a lot of different ways to train a tracking dog, but this is just how we've done it and works well for us. I know there are several folks on here that may be more qualified than I, but don't recall seeing a thread like this on here before so thought I'd just go ahead and document our progress. Hope it's helpful to someone just getting started!

[huntresss]

When looking for a blood tracking prospect, it's important to choose a dog that's sole purpose is to please you. Just about any dog can follow a scent trail, but not every dog will ignore an exciting hot track of another animal to stay on a boring blood trail. You need to hone the dog's instincts and train them to ignore all of the other distractions that they will encounter. That's the hard part of training a true tracking dog. If a dog leaves a bloodtrail to chase a live deer, it's more of a liability than an asset. That's why it's important to have a dog that's properly trained to do the job, and some are much easier to train than others.
I won't talk about what breeds make better trackers, because it would be like starting a thread here asking what brand of broadhead is best. There are too many choices that would fit the bill, but I can help you choose which puppy in the litter would make the best prospect. Incidentally, Kai is a German Jagdterrier bred from hunting/tracking lines. While the jagdterrier is an awesome hunting dog, they don't make the best family pets. There are always exceptions to that rule, but if you're looking for a dog that will be content to lie on the couch nine months of the year, this one isn't the dog for the job! When we retired Sage due to illness, she remodeled our bathroom trying to find a mouse in the ductwork. We hunt year 'round however, so this breed best suits our needs.

When looking for a blood tracking prospect, we like to evaluate the entire litter if at all possible. There may only be one or two pups in a litter that will make good trackers, so we like to have as many to choose from as possible. When looking for a breeder, it's best to buy from a litter where both parents were also tracking dogs. That just increases the likelihood that your pup will have the right "ingredients".

The first thing I like to evaluate when looking at a litter of pups, is their desire to be with you. It's best to evaluate them when they're at least eight weeks old, but preferably around ten weeks. I want a pup that's bold, but not aggressive. When you hold a pup on it's back, I don't want the fearful pup that just lays on it's back without trying to right itself- nor do I want the pup that's biting at my wrist trying to get away. A pup that allows you to hold it on it's back, but still resists a little shows that it's bold, but not overly so.

Hopefully the pups have been exposed to loud noises before you buy one. When you make a loud noise, the pup should either show no reaction, or be alert or startled, but not frightened. Avoid pups that run and hide from loud sounds.

When you roll a ball, you want a pup that chases after it. Even better yet if they fetch it and bring it back to you.

I also like a pup that runs to me when I call them to me. The puppy that jumps up and solicits affection is usually going to the top of the class in this category.

Lastly, I take a piece of hide or hoof to entice the pups with. I drag the hide across the ground and hide it. I lean strongly toward the pup that uses it's nose to try and find the hidden object. If a pup shows no desire to work the scent, they are crossed off the list.

Above all else, a pup that wants to be with me and follow me is the one that's going to get the highest scores. Unless it refuses to work a scent, it's usually the pup wins with me.

It can be quite confusing when trying to choose from a large litter, so it is nice to have a different colored ribbon to tie around each pup to know which one is which. I also print out an "test score" sheet where I record my results for each pup in each category. Heaven knows I can't rely on my memory any more, and it's nice to have a piece of paper or even a video to review.

Here's a short clip of a prospective litter at 5 1/2 weeks old.

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oZceKVkMMwE"]As x Holle female pups 2 - YouTube[/ame]

[huntresss]

Now before we start practicing on mock blood trails, we need to make sure our pup is used to walking on a leash politely. The first few times you do so, you're likely to have a little rodeo like Kai is demonstrating above. This is actually after I got her all untangled from the lead after her little temper tantrum. We went for a nice long walk over at camp with her dragging the leash most of the way. She is now used to having that rope follow her as we walk through the woods. It's still a little scary when it snags a limb and starts chasing her, but that will go away with experience.

[huntresss]

We're ready for our first mock bloodtrail now that we're used to walking on a leash. When laying out your pups first trail, make sure to keep it simple. It's like taking a kid fishing for the first time. You're not going to hand them a fly rod and take them out on a trout stream- you give them a worm on a small hook with a bobber and take them to the farm pond that's overpopulated with little bluegills. The whole idea is to let them have fun, and have some success so they'll want to do it again.

I prefer to lay out a thin, but continuous trail for the first few times. I use a syringe with a large needle and just dribble the blood in an area where there are no other distractions. I also make sure that we are tracking downwind so she is forced to keep her nose down to the ground instead of air scenting the trail. I personally like to mark the trail so I can tell if she's staying on it or not. I stuck a couple of arrows in the ground indicating the beginning, the end and any turns along the track. In this first trail I laid the blood in a straight line extending about four feet from the arrow on the right to the arrow on the left. At the second arrow, the trail makes a right turn and goes another three feet to the third arrow. Along the trail are a few snacks of raw venison and then at the end is a hog foot. She likes the snacks alright, but just loves that hog hoof! It's important to encourage them and make sure to keep them on the trail that first time until they figure out what they're supposed to be following. I also repeat the same phrase over and over again that I will use when we turn out on a real track later. In this case it's "find it". I also got in the habit of calling whatever we're tracking a "piggy", which is a little embarrassing at times, but if you hire my dog to track you're stuck with me and my quirks!

Whatever you do, keep the exercise fun and don't ever do anything to frighten or discourage the pup on these first few tracks. I only work each track one time, and then lay a new one in a different location. You don't want to confuse the pup by having two different bloodtrails, or by making any negative corrections at this point. Just keep it fun and upbeat. They'll make a few mistakes, but at this early age that's okay. As long as she's having fun and getting a feel for what she's supposed to be doing.

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8drh_e0LUYw"]Kai 1st track - YouTube[/ame]

[huntresss]

On day two we laid another bloodtrail using pig blood again. This time the track is a little more sparse since she was so interested in stopping to lick the blood the first time. I made sure the blood was down on the ground instead of up on the blades of grass. The trail extends from the first arrow to the second arrow, where it makes a 90 degree left turn. From there it continues to the third arrow where it makes a 90 degree right turn. The pig foot is hidden in the grass behind the hay bale. She did a better job of keeping her nose down and following the blood this time. I'm happy to see a little more though process on this track. We continued doing the same thing with more tracks every few days making them longer, and the blood sparser.
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Zar-7ycHXw"]Kai's second mock bloodtrail. - YouTube[/ame]

[huntresss]

Something I failed to mention earlier is that I prefer to use blood from different species while training as well. I want her to learn that she's tracking a certain animal and not always a "piggy". Here she is with a grey squirrel we shot and let her track. Eventually when she progresses, she will need to track animals that are no longer bleeding, so she will have to be able to discern between the wounded animal and other healthy animals that she will encounter along the track.

Our next hurdle was trying to get her used to wearing a harness. Our first attempt looked like we were trying to break a horse! She bucked all over the room trying to get that thing off. Finally she settled down and realized it's not going to kill her. One day she'll feel differently about it.

[huntresss]

Over time we've put her on every blood trail we could. She's doing better at keeping her nose down and only wind-scenting when she gets close to the animal. She sure does get fired up when she finds the "piggys"! I have to admit, I get just as excited about it as she does!

[huntresss]

Kai is progressing nicely with following blood on aged trails. We have also finally graduated to a harness, now that she is big enough to fit into the smallest one we could find. Now that she is used to wearing the harness, we only put it on her when we're getting ready to track. We want her to know what she's supposed to be doing when we put her "work clothes" on. We are also taking her out for walks in the woods every day so she can get used to seeing and smelling healthy animals. A good tracking dog needs to be able to discern between which animal you want them to track and which animals you don't want them to track. There's nothing more frustrating than to have a tracking dog break off a bloodtrail to chase a healthy animal.
We had a good opportunity for a quick lesson yesterday when a fallow buck let us get too close while she was running off-lead. Before we knew it, the chase was on. The buck took off with Kai right on his heels. Fortunately, we had been working on her recall since a very young age, and for the first time in her life it paid off. We shouted "no" and then "Kai come" and she stopped chasing and returned to us. I hope we can get her to do that as an adult, but I'm not banking on it. If there's one thing that jagdterriers don't do well, it's breaking off of game. That's why we have to work so hard at channeling that instinct toward only wounded animals.

We are also doing a little bit more off-lead work with her now since that's how she will be doing most of her tracking jobs later. We get her on the known bloodtrail and then once we are convinced she is staying on the track of that animal, we turn her loose to find the animal with no influence from us. Eventually she will be baying up live wounded hogs, so this is good practice for the day she has to do that.
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vx1TMPljEsE"]Kai tracking hog - YouTube[/ame]

[huntresss]

We had somebody ask us a good question that I thought I would go ahead and address here while it's still on my mind. We were asked why we didn't buy a pup and let it learn from tracking with Sage, and there are a couple of reasons for that.

Blood tracking dogs are different than other hunting dogs. When you train a blood tracking dog, you learn to work as a team. As I mentioned earlier, one of the most important traits of a tracking dog is its desire to please its handler. The only way to forge that bond is to go through the training process together, and not have any other dogs with which to bond. We always want our blood tracker to be an "only child". In my opinion, a dog that is part of the family works harder to please us. Also, when you only have one dog, that dog can become another "once in a lifetime" dog. In the past when I've owned other breeds, my first dog of that breed was always the best. I could never understand why that was. Over time I've realized it's because I put so much more of me into training that first dog and had a much stronger bond with that dog. Whenever I brought another dog into the family, it always played second fiddle and never got the attention or training that the first one got. It also tended to bond more with the first dog than it did with me. That's fine when you have a team of bird dogs, hog dogs, sled dogs, or whatever...but in my opinion a blood tracking dog needs to be bonded to the handler and the handler alone.

Whenever I was out tracking with Sage, we could read each other's body language. I could tell when she was just looking for blood versus when she was on the blood. She could read whatever slight movements I made that let her know which side of the tree to go around while on a lead. With a new dog, you're constantly going one way while the dog goes the other, but with Sage it was instinctive for us both to go around the same side of every obstacle. It was uncanny how we could read each other, and that's something I miss dearly right now. Hopefully it will come with Kai as we both learn the ropes together. It's been difficult trying not to compare her to Sage. It think I'm expecting too much from her at such a young age, but at the same time she sure seems to be up for the challenge!

[huntresss]

Now here's where we depart from typical blood tracking training for a little bit. Kai is going to be used primarily on our hunting ranch to track wounded hogs. Unfortunately a vast majority of wounded hogs are not dead when we find them, so a big part of her job is going to be to bay the wounded hog and hold it for us to finish it off. This is something that the breed must instinctively have in it. You need a dog that has enough grit to be willing to do what it takes to keep an injured hog from running off, and that's a tall order for such a small dog!

Part of what makes the jagdterrier so appealing to us is the fact that it's less likely to be mortally wounded by a big boar hog. When a boar connects with a larger dog, it's more likely to be cut or gored, whereas a smaller dog tends to get pitched through the air. As frightening as this sounds, Sage tangled with many hogs ten times her size and in over a decade only sustained one serious injury with a proptosed eye (but that was rectified before we even got her back to the four wheeler- thank God for miracles!). Another time, we were tracking on-lead and didn't know the wounded boar was in a brush pile ahead of us. As we approached the brush pile, Sage cut around in front of the pile as I was walking up to it. The big boar rushed out of the pile and I instinctively pulled on the lead and ended up pulling Sage right into the boar's open mouth! The boar grabbed her by her back and shook her one time before dropping her and taking off. Fortunately she wasn't injured and that only made her hate hogs that much more! That's one of the few hogs we called off on tracking. I was just too traumatized to turn Sage loose on it.

This week, for her sixteen-week birthday we got Kai a big surprise. We trapped these two hogs and turned her loose to see how she'd react to them. This was her first experience being so close to a live hog. As you can tell from the video, she's not going to have any problem learning how to bay a wounded hog for us. It will be a while before we turn her loose on a wounded hog, but for now we're letting her build her confidence. One of the hogs had a large cut on it's nose, so we made sure that there was some blood associated with this lesson. We don't want her chasing healthy hogs so we always make sure that there is blood for her to be able to discern that this hog is "fair game" for her to chase, when the time comes for her to do so.

After she bayed them for a little while, we shot one of the hogs and then opened the trap and let them both run out. It was a good opportunity to expose her to more gunfire while she was amped up on piggies! We took her home and then came back about six hours later and let her sniff around the trap. Before long she picked up on the bloodtrail and tracked the hog that had been shot. It ran about 80 yards and piled up, and she tracked blood right to the hog. It sure has been an exciting week for Kai and us both!
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_TFvfSyFGk"]Kai's first trapped hog - YouTube[/ame]

[Bisch]

This is very well done!

Awesome pup, and great thread!

Bisch

[cwbow]

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[BowFed2014]

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[gmj]

Thank you. Looks like this will be a great learning experience

[Tex]

Nice looking pup.