Interdigital Gland and Blood Tracking

I’m starting this thread and asking this question out of sincere curiosity and so we have a better understanding of what we’re talking about…..and not just trying to be a gotcha a-hole.

For any of you other trackers or anyone who may know……Can you post up a research article talking about this concept of deer excreting an interdigital scent specifically when they are mortally wounded? All the stuff I can find on interdigital gland talks about how it’s a normal scent they secrete on a daily basis as a means of communication with the other deer. In other words, its how the young does trail the rest of the group after they’ve gotten way ahead or something of that nature. There’s nothing that I can find that says there’s suddenly a distinguishable difference in one that’s been shot…..especially if we’re taking it a step farther and saying one that is “mortally wounded” versus not.

I know this information has been talked about a lot at the tracking conventions but where is the data/facts that its stemming from.

I don't have an answer for your question but common sense tells me that the glad's scent is just part of the picture to the dog. That being said I've heard 4 different stories of trackers saying their dog only tracks gland scent of a mortality wounded deer and their dog never leaves the area where the deer was shot.. 2 of those stories the tracker took money and kicked rock.. imo it's a scam.

I’m not saying what any one person might or might not do but for the majority of the folks talking about this its has nothing to do with a scam. It’s completely because trackers have given speeches about it at tracking conventions and the info has spread. I believe it has been well intended folks just unknowingly spreading misinformation that they heard from someone else.

Here’s kinda what I think has happened at some point in the past……There’s a lot of tracks where we aren’t able to find any blood but the dog is still able to track to the deer…..As the humans we look at what is happening and ask “How is that dog able to track this deer when there is no blood to be seen?”……So we come to the conclusion that “Oh, it must be something else he is tracking.”……and we tie it to something like interdigital gland scent that may not really be the case.....I mean potentially......potentially

What I think is actually happening in these situations is that the deer IS actually putting out blood. Its just in an amount so small that we don’t see it but the dog is still capable of detecting it. At some point though that runs out and that’s when the dog usually dog runs into a “check” that he can never work past and stops. This is why I go from one call where Otis tracks down a leg shot for over 1000 yards and the next where he pulls off of it after 75-100 because it’s a backwhack……I don’t believe that these tracks have anything to do with an interdigital gland scent. What is happening on my tracks and others just doesn’t add up to the idea being true. It points to it being blood that they track.

This is not saying that you cant take a dog and teach it to track that gland scent you extract out of the deer but I just don’t think its transferring over to tracking the way we think it should be.

Seems like the only way to train a dog to do this is to mortally wound deer until dog is trained. It makes no sense to me.

No idea if there is any research on that topic, but it seems like those tracker conventions would have the most knowledgeable folks to ask. Idaho Mike was the first person to ever explain it to me. Made sense at the time, but no idea how it could be proved.

One aspect of this I’m curious about.......

From what I see unfolding on real life tracks it would point to this interdigital gland scent being left by the deer as being a short lived scent compared to blood. I think the amount a deer is leaving naturally too is likely different than someone “milking” that gland and using it to train by. It seems like a scent that would be much more effective to track if you’re able to get on the track within say 2-4 hrs……On the tracks that are 12-24 hrs old I just don’t believe that this scent is still able to be tracked the same.

I was going to start a similar thread. Guess it fits here close enough. I have deer hunting dogs. That are not tracking dogs. Sure the hunting dogs can be used to track a deer that has been shot. I have used them for this purpose. But it will not work if there have been other deer around. Especially if the track is old and there have been other deer come through since the shot was made. They are trying to find a live deer to run. So you have the same question sorta. What makes it a tracking dog. How does it know to follow a certain deer. Even though there may be hotter tracks nearby.

Not true

If deer only puts out scent when it's mortally wounded, how would one acquire that scent to train with , without a mortally wounded deer? I know there has to be more to it because I have also witnessed dog "blood trailing" without blood. Never really thought of it till this happened but has really got me curious on what these dogs are smelling when they are tracking a deer

Here is my take Harold. And this comes from Paul and some other folks that train dogs as well as from reading John's book. I don't know if it's interdigital or some other scent or pheromone but there is definitely something a fatally wounded deer gives off or it's a combination of several scents that really gets my dog fired up. I can get a good idea in a couple hundred yards by the way the dog acts if we are gone be successful or if we're just walking around in the woods. You got a better relationship with Otis than I do with mine maybe ask him. Lol. I had 2 the other day one was shot dead square in the but first couple hundred dog didn't really get excited until we found a wound bed with a couple clots in it from there to the end he acted like a completely different dog as far as how he behaved and worked. Went to the next one which turned out to be a backwhack and he wasn't at all interested in what was goin on so we went hiking in the woods and never found anything he wanted to mess with. I don't know if that's interdigital or what or if just something the dogs know that we don't but I do know there is something

Get a processor to save feet off that deer that run a lil bit and make a tracking stick and get the goo from the gland and smear it it on the foot and go fo a walk

Backwoods. Cowboy if really interested in al this madness get the book tracking dogs for finding wounded deer and read and study it and learn from it

I really believe it’s in the amount and “type” of blood the wound is putting out. As soon as we humans stop being able to SEE blood on the ground then we draw a line and call that “no blood”. However that is far from the case. The dog is able to continue detecting blood long after we stop seeing it. Also, there are other scents that are associated with the type of blood that the dog is smelling….. like for instance….was this blood from the liver or guts??....or is this blood from a meat wound??…..I would think the dog can distinguish those things in the blood they’re smelling and why you see them get so excited when its gut hits…..I think they also smell the blown up bone marrow and why they get so excited on leg hits. These are ways we as trackers can distinguish what we’re likely dealing with by the dog’s reaction….my very point in some of this when you tell someone that they likely don’t have a recoverable deer.

I agree on the amount of blood part especially the small amount even though we can't see it it could very small drops that the dog still detects. I still think the nose knows as far skint up vs hurt.

I do too…….I just think that its because of things about the blood that tells them this and not about an interdigital scent gland…….

Could be I have no idea just thoughts based on what I see from my dogs reaction when he gets whatever scent that he finds that flips his switch. But I can say this and my luck is gone run out eventually but I have yet to leave a track where I told the hunter the deer was not dead and had them find it. Unless they shot it a week later.
I will also add this I think alot of tackers that are new or learning and may not be quiet as seasoned hunters in some respects as some of us older guys are and not willing to put in the extra effort before they call it off. Tommy dale Strickland and I had a conversation about this awhile back.

So answer me this, if deer bled good for 100 yards. Wouldn't it be reasonable to assume deer would lay down after not being pressured? If so would I be wrong to expect at least , a half decent dog, would track it till it jumped it or at least beyond last place I found last blood. Neither of which happened with me. Neither dog really took track from the start. Which is why I think it was dog. But idk

From my experience dog hunting, no, a deer will not lay down after a short distance with a flesh wound. I have put my dogs on deer that people shot with only a few specs of blood. It will be a damn half mile before they catch up to it. I won’t the do it anymore. Unless I either have them on a leash or there are people on the other side to stop the dogs.

The deer you shot may have not bedded up for 500-1000+ yards somewhere. Unless you are there right after the shot then the dog needs a blood trail to follow to where he went. Usually on grazed tracks the dog will take it anywhere from 50-200 yards past where the hunters lost blood and then lose it as well….It just varies from track to track depending on the severity of the wound.

Cowboy I get a couple things from your last post.
1. Just cause a dog was brought in doesn't mean they is gone be a deer found.
2. Good blood is subjective to who is looking at it
3. I go back to a above post I feel like the nose knows as far as what's dead or hurt or skint up.
Like Harold said they can sometimes go aways before they lay down and as a rule the further that is from the hit the less hurt they are

Dog never took it past where I found last blood. Never really took it at all in my opinion. Also where my shot would have missed would be as follows. Too far right by a foot or more gut shot, more than that hams. Don't see me missing that bad . Too far left blow out opposite shoulder or miss completely. Don't think that happened because deer went through a creek that had about a 8 to 10 foot bank on both sides. Don't see him doing that with three legs . Too high neck to head. Too low bullet stays in deer from front to opposite shoulder. Lower in any direction grazes deer. Ruled out grazes deer because no hair and amout of blood of blood. Ruled out staying in deer because went to far. So that's where I'm at. But with any of these injuries dog should have trailed deer past where I found last blood. Correct? How much did me looking for deer and me having my dog running around out there come into play, as far as messing things up.

I can't believe you have roped me into this Harold but here's my take, and it's worth about 2 cents. Deer have interdigital glands. They secreet scents through this gland. For instance a doe that stomps is releasing interdigital gland scent. A fawn that loses its mom is releasing interdigital gland scent. A deer that is wounded hurt is releasing interdigital gland scent. The late John Jeanneney figured out that the dogs can key in on the interdigital gland and wounded deer. Heres an article about it somewhat. https://www.mossyoak.com/our-obsession/blogs/deer/history-of-deer-tracking-dogs

Please don't over analyze deer tracking like throw and mow. You've got great dogs that find dead deer and alive deer. At the end of the day who cares how they find them as long as they do. Will they find them all? No, will you lose some that are dead as shucks 50 yards away? Yep. Dogs are dogs at the end of the day and they have their days just like we do as people. But I can tell you this they smell something a whole lot better than I can in the woods.


Hey! How exactly is a rainbow made? How exactly does a sun set? How exactly does a posi-trac rear-end on a Plymouth work? It just does.

This was a deer I tracked four or five years ago. You probably wont ever see this too many times but the hunter backwhacked him twice with back to back shots from a 7 mag. He didn’t kill it and we didn’t find it though….His cousin killed it two weeks later in the same plot and this was the pic they sent me. We tracked it the morning after it had been backwhacked twice about the farthest I’ve ever tracked a backwhack….over 700 yards….I think the reason we were able to track this one farther than most is fairly evident by the two big wounds across the deer’s back….This was also a track where there was virtually no blood to be seen the whole way …….Was it because the deer wasn’t bleeding or because we just weren’t able to see the small amount it put out. If Otis was following an interdigital gland scent then why did it peter out at 700 yards…..Did the deer just stop secreting it?.....or did the deer just stop putting out enough blood to track?

My opinion to the above? It slowly quit putting out scent as it calmed down and realized it was not mortally wounded. I have no idea though, just a theory I'm not sure if deer even feel pain. It hurts me seeing some deer and they act like nothing is wrong.

These types of explanations is part of why I feel like there’s good potential that we’re spreading misinformation. It’s no offense to anyone….It’s kinda akin to how ideas get spread around a fire at deer camp about the rut and the moon and corn causing deer to be nocturnal…..and bigfoot, etc. Sometimes there’s truth in what we think to be happening and sometimes we get it wrong.

I kinda think the same thing

This would be about the only thing that makes sense. Ole boy got the digitalis gland secretion scared out of him. Brisket shot. Time to practice shooting. Maybe he will come back next year

When you look at the interdigital scent, it is white and waxy. Doesn't seem like it's scent could instantly change or could be produced rapidly (upon a wound). The only thing that would make sense to me is the amount of scent being dropped. When a deer stomps, it is depositing the scent for other deer to smell and be alarmed. The scent in small amounts is natural, but when there is too much, other deer are warned. Often deer that are shot have trouble running and will run heavy footed so to speak. Maybe an increase in the scent deposited along with microscopic blood droplets gives the dog an instinctive clue that the deer is wounded, following a scent trail undetectable to humans.

Just my theory...

I used to use a stalking stick to sound like a 4 legged animal walking and not a human and would put interdigital scent in a slot at the bottom end of the stick. I've had deer, dogs, and coyotes come up trying to find me. The key was to deposit a trace amount and not too much.

Here's a thought for the simple minded like myself. If a deer could smell this "mortally wounded scent itself, wouldn't it just save itself some trouble and just die in peace without all this trailing and tracking nonsense?

It's a whole lot easier on everybody if they just lay down and give up the ghost right there ...

I don't think the scent changes just that the gland closes up and the scent quits getting released to the ground. But then again I have no idea what I am talking about so I should not even be posting.

I have no idea what you are talking about??? The waxy substance is between the split in their hoofs and there would be no way to "close" it or stop it from being deposited as the deer runs. You can dig it out with a small stick on dead deer if you want to see what I'm talking about. My point was that it has already been produced and changing the "smell" of it would be impossible for the deer to do.

I agree. I just don’t think it happens the way folks are saying……We’re talking about a gland and scent that the deer uses everyday to communicate scent to the ground. I don’t think they are just shutting it off and on…..To me it would seem more like this stuff is akin to ear wax…..Its like ear wax between a deer’s toes……and every time they take a step that little waxy substance leaves a faint scent trail behind it for the other deer to follow that is likely short lived in natural amounts. From an evolutionary standpoint it would be irrational for a prey species to be going around the woods everyday leaving a long lasting scent trail leading right to them. I would bet that in a natural application it probably doesn’t last more than 2-3 hrs……

I think yall are just making it up as you go. Tell me this, if theres 10 deer in a field and you shoot one of them. All ten deer run away. The deer you shot dint bleed a drop. Here comes the tracking dog. He gets right on the deers trail and finds it laying 400 yds from the field. I figure this is a situation that happens every day during deer season in America. What was that dog trailing? There was no blood. There were ten fresh deer trails going into the woods. How exactly do you think that dog could tell the scent of the shot deer?

When you hit a deer with a high powered rifle you usually knock something out of him whether you see it or not. The dog is usually able to detect a hit at least at the hit site and for a short distance…..That doesn’t mean that you’ll be able to track the deer for sure though. You could hit a deer in the guts and I couldn’t guarantee you that we could track all the way to him. I’ve had a number of gut hits over the years that had scent trails that just came to a dead end after the deer bedded up or after coyotes jumped them. It isn’t a situation where you can just track to every deer no matter what and everything points to it being a matter of the amount of blood and other fluids the deer is putting down on the ground and vegetation from the wound as to why or why not. The vegetation plays a big part of it too. Just imagine one of those leg shots I posted a picture of moving through a sage brush field. He may quit putting out blood that you can see but for a dog’s nose he’s wiping that wounded leg on everything he passes.

I think the only way that would be possible would for there to be trace amounts of blood, undetectable by humans. The only other way is if there were excess interdigital scent deposited, but that seems highly unlikely to me that a dog would know what is too much.

A guy I used to hunt with back in the 80’s made a Interdigital gland scent
Used a bobby-pin to get the wax out of the gland and would melt it in with a small jar of petroleum jelly
I saw deer dogs follow him all the way to his stand…..we were stalk hunting and another group of men were using dogs
Was with him at the deer expo and he was talking to Ben Lee about this scent he made and the following season old Ben came out with…yep you guessed it….a interdigital gland scent

A big part of this equation is “time”……As you go from 1 hr after the shot…. to 4 hrs ….to 12 hrs….. to 24 hrs these scents that the deer leaves behind start to dissipate and they don’t do it at the same rate. What the dog is able to detect an hour after the shot is different than what they can detect at 24 hrs…... Yes, a dog likely does track the deer itself through a combination of scents….one of which being interdigital gland scent…. IF you get on the track soon enough…..However, I think that after a certain amount of time has gone by then the dog is tracking on blood alone.

So, now account for how the dog picks up the shot deers scent over the 47 fresher deer tracks that moved around in that area over that 24hr period.

Its the one that was bleeding......

I’m not saying that to be smart jwalker…….That’s how I see it happening. The dog is following the deer that is putting out blood and other fluids on the ground. On a normal track where I ‘m there 12-24 hrs after the shot there are just about always gaps in the scent line that the dog has to link together to progress it....we call it working a "check"…..Its not like a solid scent line through the woods….its more like dots and dashes from morse code. Being there on a track within an hour or two allows the dog to smell other scents that make it easier to link those dots and dashes together. However that also increases the chances of dealing with live deer. That's my opinion anyways.

Theres not always blood CNC. But i understand why you keep saying that. Its the only way you can be right.

If you took to the time to hear what I’m telling you instead of just jumping to being a peckerhead you would see that is exactly what I’m saying. Being that you have virtually zero experience tracking deer with dogs you define blood as being something that is black and white…..blood/no blood…….When the reality is that this is rarely the case to the dog and its more like what I’m describing with the dots and dashes…..These dots and dashes may be spread out by a yard…….ten yards…..or a hundred yards or more ……The dog may or may not be able to link them together every time because of a number of factors. That’s what you’re not taking the time to hear…..I’m telling you we cant track every deer 12-24 hrs after the shot just because you hit them and lack of blood is why. Sometimes the scent trail just ends..... Most of the time the dog CAN detect a hit at the hit site regardless of what you don’t see but past that it’s a just a matter of being able to link the dots and dashes together. Being there within just an hour or two after the hit gives the dog other scents to help link those dots together.

They need to write someone a ticket for animal cruelty.

You would know much more than i do about tracking deer.

If more people had this thought, there would be no ALDeer.

That's right.

How does the dog track the "correct" deer, even when
there is no visible blood?:
When a deer is shot, the stress level causes the
interdigital gland to secrete large doses of
hormone/scent. This scent is unique to each deer,
similar to our fingerprints. The higher the level of
stress (mortally wounded) the stronger the scent. Our
dogs have been trained to track SCENT- Not just
blood. HOWEVER, if the deer is Not mortally wounded,
as it calms down, the hormone excreted wii be
reduced. After a lot of exposure to tracking, an
experienced dog will usually be able to tell the
difference between tracking a
"dead" deer and one
you'll never catch up to. Hence CALL us so that we can
gain more experience! Lol Please!
Whitetail have numerous scent glands but we only
concern ourselves with one.
Interdigital gland: Forty-six volatile compounds are
secreted by this gland, and the varying evaporation
rates mean the smell changes over time.
Location: Between the toes.

That sounds pretty darn reasonable to me. Moreso than theres always blood, no matter what