Whew!
OK part two,so the pressure is on and Lucy hasn't left the last blood spot area for half an hour,she starts out at the last blood and if she can't get another wiff she makes a tight little circle then a little bigger one then a bigger one until sometimes she is 60 yrds from the last scent she had,at that point she will go back to the last spot and start all over I've seen her do this for an hour expanding the circle,during this time she will take a track out for a ways determine it isn't wounded and come to searching her grid,all me and the hunters have been doing is standing around talking and some times watching her,now I'm really getting nervous,two problems 23 hrs and a tremendous amount of deer tracks,you cant take two steps without stepping on a fresh or old deer track,looks like a feed yard,finally she works her magic and starts very slowly and methodically following a track out,me and the father say come on Lucy!!!come on Lucy?!!!when she hits the 150yrds mark we slowly start after her,planning to give her lots of space for check ups,at about 200 yrds I look down and say,yes!,there is some sweet,sweet blood,we've been following her step by step and this is our first spot of blood,I've also got one of my pups in training on leash,he has definitely been tracking the buck also,just on leash,he is 16 months old and will be on leash for a couple more seasons to solidify his training to ignore non wounded deer and off game,squirrels,rabbits,racoons,etc..it is so tempting to take a short cut in training,but I've seen the results in following a strict regime of training over my "50" years of dog handling,I also work them a lot in the off season,
Well at about 800 yrds from the last blood Lucy starts baying and we take off,when I get close I let my pup loose to get some baying experience.just as we are closing the distance the buck breaks bay but gets bayed up again at around 150 yrds away,this means he is most probably mortally wounded if he wasn't he would have left the country,and I would have called the dogs in.this goes on for awhile and they cross the property line so I call them off while the Hunr calls the land owner,takes a while and a few calls but eventually we get the OK,I leash my pup up and give Lucy the nod in about another 600 yrds she has him bayed up tight so again when I get close I let the pup back in,when we sneak into the bayed buck on our hands and knees he is already down for the count amazing how he could live 28 hours wounded so bad,his front leg was a total mess,either the coyotes would have got him or gangerine, or he would have slowly over the next 24 hrs
bled to death,