That’s a good question for trackncur……I’m not 100% sure what Otis is following. I’m assuming that there’s actually a little blood on the ground that we can’t see but that he can pick up with his nose. I'm sure we miss some too that we just walk over. I'm watching Otis and the GPS most of the time unless we're working through a slow part of the track or I see Otis lick the ground, etc. The hunter is the one doing the most looking for blood as I guide us along Otis's path. Otis almost has to be tracking the individual deer scent too though because some of these deer only have small entry hole wounds and simply can’t be excreting that much blood. It’s amazing to me to think that a dog can come in behind a deer the next morning and still follow where that one deer walked the evening prior.

BTW…..These are not just guessed at distances…..I’m going off of GPS readings. You’re correct about the needle in the haystack. There’s some deer we find that could have possibly been recovered by search parties but most of the time they don’t even stand a chance from the get-go. I’ll reiterate this again though. Most deer that are hit hard and aren’t pushed don’t go that far. This deer would have very, very likely only been 300-400 had the hunter not went in after him too soon. Take the story from a few days ago about the buck Otis nearly ran over us as an example. He was still alive the next morning but only 400 yards from the hit site because he was never pushed.