The value of deer tracking dogs is Immesurable

I recently had the opportunity to work with a dog that I trained to track wounded deer some years ago for a friend. The story was familiar..."the hit was good, about 6 inches back from the front shoulder and middle of the body". The only issue was that the arrow was still in the deer as he ran off and we suspected it had found its mark and consequently was into the opposite shoulder. Sounds great, we should be able to make short work of this track and then back to work, right? The thing was that there was very little blood and the arrow was nowhere to be found. Through experience, I wasn't too concerned with the fact that blood was sparse knowing that the shot was not a pass thru and that there would be plenty of other scent clues for our dog to follow. We took to the track fueled by the confidence from the hunter. It wasn't long into the recovery effort that my optimism began to fade in regards to a "find". It wasn't due to the lack of visual or recognizable sign, but instead was based on the look of our deer tracking dog. She was definitely "talking" to us on a non-verbal levels and her body language alone was enough for me to pre-determine the outcome of this effort.

We did continue to look in an effort to find any more visual clues, however there was nothing found beyond the first 100 yards or so beyond the point of impact. After several more seeming long minutes of searching we made the decision to back out. Now the friend that had made the shot has seen this dog in action before and understands the confidence I have in her. He also believed he had made a good shot. I could see it was difficult for him to be 100% confident that the deer was not dead. At that point, it became a mission of mine personally to get a trailcam picture of this deer to not only show the hunter and put his mind to rest, but also to reassure my confidence in our decision and in our deer tracking dogs effectiveness. Three long weeks past with no pictures. My confidence remained, and finally we got him back on! Many of our questions were instantly answered.

The value of a good deer tracking dog goes so much further than just locating otherwise unrecovered deer. They are a tool for us as a deer hunter which allows us to have a peace of mind that we did everything possible to make the recovery. When it happens to be a non-lethal wound, our deer dogs reaction to the track can tell us a lot. I have seen it multiple times where a dog shows little to no interest in the track. In those instances, 9/10 times the deer was not dead and we were able to get a picture of them some time later.

How Long does training deer tracking dogs take?

I have heard the question for years now, and lately it has come up quite often asking "where should my dog be in their deer tracking dog training at specific ages?" It's a question that has no answer...or I guess it could have infinite answers? I think a lot of the reasoning behind the question comes from unrealistic expectations that dog owners have when it comes to training a dog to track wounded deer, and training dogs in general. And in my opinion, those expectations are often times set by a few major contributors.

The first is that evil Social Media scape goat. We use social media the best we can as a source for dog training information and hopefully it serves it's purpose in that regard. There is a lot of good information and dialogue that takes place at times. The downside of these that I have found is that inevitably there are videos and posts shared that describe pups (literally as young as a few month old) and dogs as the "ultimate" shed dog or deer tracking dog. It has also served as a place for a lot of experts to showcase "how-to" do everything. My suggestion is to use all the resources available to you as far as gaining information and do not hold yourself and your dog to anyone else's standards as far as training progress and timelines. You and your pup determine how long things will take before moving forward.. Listen to as many trainers and techniques as you can and then pick and choose what works best for you and your tracking dog training. It's what I have done for years and sometimes you learn as much what not to do as you do what to do, and that's valuable as well! My warning is to be careful of those that preach there is only one right way to train a dog. An old saying goes...put 3 dog trainers in the same room and they will all agree on one thing, that is the other 2 don't know a damn thing about training. Don't be one of those trainers, there's enough of em out there already.

The second reason I think people are concerned with timelines in training a tracking dog is created by "professional" trainers or kennels that offer dog training services. If you have ever sent your dog off to have trained, how do most structure their programs? By time periods or duration most often. For example, I recently saw a kennnel's website that was specializing in shed dogs. They offered varying levels of trained dogs (pups, started, intermediate and finished). I understand the need to structure out pricing, but what concerned me was the way they broke down these levels of dogs and the training. I have trained my fair share of dogs over the years and they are all the same type of dog from the same kennel, very consistent as far as genetics and trainability. There is absolutely no way that I could tell you that I could get the same amount of work and progress  done with all of them, or 2 of them for that matter, in the same duration of time and training. It's just not realistic for me to tell someone that a "beginners" level will take 3 months, "intermediate" 6 months and "finished" 9 months of training, no matter what the dog is being trained for. Don't assume that what you see a kennel selling is the standard that you need to hold yourself to when it comes to working with you own deer tracking dog. I do train dogs for clients each year and the only way I can honestly answer the question of how long it's going to take is by keeping the dog until I'm happy, they are happy, and the dog is happy. And because we train a limited number or dogs for clients we can do this. If you are training your own dog to become a deer tracking dog, I believe you should take the same approach. If you are patient with the process and let the timeframe develop around the dog and your pace, you will get there in the end without issue. It's when handlers try to fit training into specific timeframes that holes occur.

For more information on how to train a dog to track deer, check out our DoBone Training Library for tracking dog training videos and our DogBone Online Store to shop our tracking dog training products, including the Tracking Dog Training System that will give you all the tools and information you need to begin training your dog to track and find wounded deer.