Home Forums Birds & Dogs Hunting Dogs Blood Trailing Dogs

My English lab. Smoke, does a good job of finding wounded or dead deer, but I have to watch her, as she won't bark just stands there wagging her tail, if I don't get there quick enough she will come get me and take back to the deer, we kill over 350 deer a year and end up tracking about 10 per year. Rio7

Put our lapdog Keeshond on a deer trial once when we encounter a hunter looking for his wounded quarry. Nose to the ground she took off like a shot going straight line for about 400+ yds. When we finally caught up, she had a porcupine treed.

My English Setter understands find the bird. This year, Minnesota said we can put 'em on a leash and track deer. I told her "find the deer" twice and we went to the deer without any detours both times. Both deer bled a lot and it would have been hard to lose them. If I took away his shoes, Stevie Wonder could have found the first one, it only went 30 some yards. The second one had a almost a continuous stream of blood, but went 300 yards+. Very simple trails with all the blood I could ask for. Ideal training trails.

I stared training my English Shepherd at 12 weeks on blood trails of squirrels I'd shoot for her (dragged them on a string from a pole and let her find them). She tracked her first deer at 9 months and has since tracked moose, deer, bear, caribou, coyotes and other stuff I can't even remember. I let her find anything I shoot. If I let her track off lead she'll run ahead but comes back and finds me until we get there...kind of like hunting with Lassie.

I think any dog with some level of prey drive and biddability can be trained to blood trail. But too much prey drive might even be a detriment in some ways as the dog might be harder to handle and live with when you're not hunting. My dog is always ready to hunt when I am, but isn't totally crazy about it when we're not hunting and will leave stuff alone when I tell her ("No, we're not squirrel hunting right now").

I put a deposit on a Redline Airedale pup a month ago, with the idea of training it for this purpose.
In Az, we can use dogs, on a leash "until it is determined the animal is still alive", at which point the dog must be taken off the trail.

It is quite common to see people on FB post looking for blood trailing dogs. Figure it might be a decent way to make a little side cash, and get more time in the woods.

Catahoulas don’t fit the cold weather requirement, but they are superb trackers of wounded game.

A guy here in MI uses his Border Collies to VG effect in finding wounded/dead dear. I understand there is some training involved. Also have heard that various "weiner dog" breeds are VG at this job too.

I'm in the middle of training my nine month old GWP female pup to scent track. Right now it's beef liver drug on a string once a week. Later it will be a pheasant wing.
And in my wildest dreams, Sheds.

Yes...I agree with the poster who mentioned a Blood Hound or one of the other hounds. That's the first thing I thought of, just coat them up if they are cold. I mean, you're cold right? And you are coated and mittened up. The dog will usually be on a long leash if you are trailing, so you don't have to worry about them getting stuck from briars and stuff.

But, as mentioned above...versatile dogs like the ones tested in Navdha...have a dead track requirement. They have lots of different dogs in styles and size.

The only thing wrong with versatile dogs from my experience (I'm an SM owner) is the drama of various breed clubs and some people worried more about paper than their dogs. For the most part, the owners and breeders are very nice and stable...but there are some out there that really need to add another hobby, or go outside or take some lithium

Be thankful for the fact she comes back to get you, its a good response and you didn't have to train it. Barking on site usually also takes some training ( we do it for SAR dogs on live finds) but yours sounds like a natural and an ace at the job.

I have found training a dog to track wounded game is like training a fish to swim...most have a natural propensity to do it, because they evolved that way.

Someone mentioned Border collies...they are great at it and I used my Border Collie X Aussie for a lot of years...she was great..but wouldn't bark on a find either....

Years ago I had 2 Border Collies that were from the same litter, they were the best tracking dogs i have ever seen, when they found a critter they sounded like a pack of Coyotes, raising hell, will never forget them Mike and Tyke. Rio7