Aldeer.com Forums Alabama Deer Talk Al Dogs Training a tracking dog

I have a lab puppy that is 11 weeks old. I would like to make a tracking dog out of him. Does anyone have any tips or suggestions on getting him started?

Get yourself plenty of blood this year during season for training. You may be able to use him some in January to get a little experience.

Contact silver banded retrievers

http://www.amazon.com/Tracking-Dogs-Finding-Wounded-Deer/dp/0972508929

I would train the dog on hide/meat....NOT blood....if there is blood, most of the time the hunter can see it...I want the dog to find it when there is no blood.

We've never spent much time training the one's we've used over the years, but have always managed to have a decent one. When they're young, we'd just make sure they were always exposed to killed deer. Once they are old enough to start, we'd try to always take him with us even when we knew where the deer was, make him feel like he found it. Let him gnaw on an ear or a leg or the hide when you're skinning it. Keep the hides from recent kills and play tug with him. Drag the hides around and let him chase it down. Then eventually put him up and drag the hide to a location where he can see it and let him out. Gradually drag the hide further and further away and more and more out of sight. Don't know if this is the right way or not, but it's worked and usually after 5-6 deer kills and hides to play with they'll have it figured out enough to give them a chance.

Thanks for the suggestions. I had already figured the best experience was going to come from getting him out there in the woods. I have mixed feelings on training him with or without blood. I understand that some wounded deer may not leave a blood trail and I see where that would be a downfall if you trained him with blood. However if you do not train with blood I can see where he could get on the wrong deer and lead you on a wild goose chase.

I think all above is good advise. Id like to add that when the dog is young you want to make it easy and get your pup interested. I use blood, hide, bone and meat. I always treat at the end of a training track with meat. I advise as you get going with it to take a couple of tennis balls and put them in a ziplock with some hide and meat. Take them with you to train and start playing with the pup with the ball. As you get more advanced throw the ball into the woods and let it bounce off the trees and simulate a deer darting randomly. As you make it harder make some drags that crossover each other. Id also recommend that when you get advance use someone your pup doesnt know to do your drags and make sure to cross different surfaces including water. I could go on and on but thats my 2 cents. I have 2 trained Bloodhounds.But my lab works out training tracks faster then them. She works off lead so she doesn't have a slow handler slowing her down.

X2

start em young. tug-o-war with a piece of hide. Drag it in his sight and let him chase and catch it. Later drag it further and drop it where he can see it, let him get it. Praise the snot out of him. As he gets older/better drag the hide and make a turn where he cannot see it. Drag up/down/across the wind..make him get his nose on the ground and not air scent it. I've always used a ten foot stick to drag the hide off to the side of where I walk...don't want him tracking you to the hide.


I've never used blood or bone to train.

When he trained....never....ever....NEVER...second guess where the dog is tracking. He's 10X better than you at this tracking.....

I'm starting my lab today. I cut the back legs off a deer I killed Saturday and I'm gonna figure out how to mash the feet into the ground and put blood there with it. I'm gradually gonna do away with blood until its just the back legs.

Go to United blood trackers.org

There is a lot of information on tracking and also a book for resources.

Blood dog is truly a bad term as the dog picks up on dander, inter digital glands, blood and other bodily fluids. Stick with blood on the training. Even when you can not visible see blood there is blood that the dog can pick up on to track.

With a young dog you can do liver drags. These liver drags are the only time I would be dragging something as never will there be a solid track in the woods. The liver drags I would do for two or three weeks until you have worked up to 150 yard long track with one 90 turn in it aged two hrs. After this I would switch over to blood trails.

I like to have something at the end of the track as a reward. For the pups a small piece of the liver works. For older dogs I let them find a deer leg. About every 4-5 time I use the leg as a reward I give it to them to have and chew up.

Blood trails will start off fairly consistent in every few feet. Gradually get to where you and dropping just tiny drops every yard or two. A 6 month old pup should be doing 1/2 mile long tracks aged 12 hrs with no problem if you stick to the training and make it fun.

Remember to mark the tracks so that you will know exactly where to bring the dog back to when they make a mistake.

Since you are starting during hunting season also get your dog on as many deer as possible that you know where they are. You want there to always be something at the end and to always finish a track as a pup. This teaches them that when you say track there is something out there to find and it is there job to do it. As they get older they will learn that not every track end in a find.


practice further than you think you will track, lay lines in places that you never think you will be tracking, age them older than you think you will ever want to track and remember to make it fun. This way when the time comes and you go three miles on a 2 day old track the dog will have practiced this and you will have confidence in your dog.

Good Luck with the training.

Thanks for all of the input guys.

excellent thread. thanks, gents ...

This is my dog Tank who was trained off of blood. He trailed this deer 150 yards jumped it and bayed it in the creek. Then he killed it before I could get there. He not only retrieves birds he retrieves deer too.

That's awesome.

You can start as simple as dragging pieces of cut up hot dogs on the floor of your garage and hiding it at the end of the scent trail. This teaches the pup to follow his nose instead of his eyes. Later, when you move to blood, you can still leave a piece of hot dog at the end of the blood trail. This helps teach the pup that there is a reward at the end of the blood trail. There's nothing like a good tracking dog.

Read the book "Tracking Dogs for Finding Wounded Deer", it will tell you everything you need to know and more.

For this season you need to keep lots of blood and hides. I would take the puppy with me and let him get fired up about finding the deer as well.

http://www.born-to-track.com/book/order-info.htm

My lab pup found his first deer today. He is almost 5 months old. Still some work to do but he did good. Almost perfect scenario for his first time being put on a blood trail. I shot a doe about 30 minutes before dark. She went about 50 or so yards into the woods out of the food plot and bled a lot. It worked out just like I had hoped it would for the first time I put him on a deer. Here are a couple of things I would like to work on and I would appreciate any advice.
#1. When I was dragging the deer out I was pretty much dragging Gunner too. He kept jumping on the deer. I hated to scold him in fear of ruining the whole deer trailing event.
#2. I had him on a leash to start with. He and I were having problems choosing the same side of bush, briars, trees, etc. and i could tell he was getting frustrated so I cut him loose. He went ahead and found the deer but he didn't bark at all. I was just thinking how great it would be if I could turn him loose and wait for him to start barking to go get the deer instead of fighting the thickets with him leashed.

Put a small cowbell on him and when you hear he is stationary and the bell is ding, ding, dinging, you will know he has found the deer and is chewing on it.