Leashed Tracking Dog License

[airedale]

I have never used a dog to track a wounded Deer but I have recovered Coyotes and Foxes several times with my dogs. So to be legal for Deer I decided awhile back to take the test for a leashed tracking dog license, took the test this morning and passed it. Also wanted to take the test just to see if I could pass it having trained hunting dogs my whole life. The license is good for 5 years  and going to cost $75 and will be basically for personal use if I ever wound one and have to use a dog to recover it legally.

Al

Edited April 14, 2023 by airedale

[CharlieNY]

I'm sure you will put it to use sometime in the future.

[First-light]

Pretty cool. I used my older dog once to track a deer. He was very methodical and I was impressed. Very enjoyable experience. 

[airedale]

Got my License in the mail the other day, I now have to train my dog, the tracking part is no problem. I have an Airedale female that is a heck of a good track dog "unleashed", how she will do tracking while being somewhat restricted on a long lead remains to be seen. She handles so well with just voice commands that I have rarely ever had her on a leash so this is going to be an interesting project.

Al

[First-light]

13 minutes ago, airedale said:

Got my License in the mail the other day, I now have to train my dog, the tracking part is no problem. I have an Airedale female that is a heck of a good track dog "unleashed", how she will do tracking while being somewhat restricted on a long lead remains to be seen. She handles so well with just voice commands that I have rarely ever had her on a leash so this is going to be an interesting project.

Al

Enjoy its going to be great!

[grampy]

Congratulations Al. I've had my LTDL since 1998. So much fun as you well know, working with a dog to achieve a goal. Your dog can be certified as well. 

[airedale]

18 hours ago, grampy said:

Congratulations Al. I've had my LTDL since 1998. So much fun as you well know, working with a dog to achieve a goal. Your dog can be certified as well. 

Thanks Grampy, when it comes to any kind of activities involving Dogs especially hunting it will get my interest.

Al

[airedale]

Doing some long line leash work with Harleigh, Like I said above she was never leashed trained period and handled for me just fine with voice commands. She is a heck of a track dog and has recovered a couple of varmints for me that so the tracking part for her is like rolling off a log, she has some of the top hunting Airedales in the US in her pedigree. She seems to be coming along a lot better than I expected.

When it comes to performance, breeding is everything and a well bred dog can make one look like a good trainer. Like Coon Hound trainer extraordinaire John Wick would say.

Al

"Every pup is like a lottery ticket, except that you have to feed it for a year before you can scratch it to see what you've got. Sometimes the gamble pays. and sometimes it does not."

JW

[grampy]

For blood tracking training, at first drag a piece of liver through the woods for a couple hundred yards. Make some sharp turns too. Leave a nice piece at the end for a reward. As your dog progresses, make the line longer and harder. Then intermittently pick up the liver for a ways and set it back down. Also use deer hides and deer legs for the drag.

My mentor John Jeanneney, a founding member of Deersearch, wrote a great book that may help you train for blood tracking. It's called "Tracking Dogs" For Finding Wounded Deer. Amazon has it.

If I can help you in any way, or answer a question you may have. I'd be happy to do so.

[airedale]

What is Ironic is after having spent a lifetime training hunting dogs, one of the very first things I get done is breaking them from messing with and running Deer and here I am training for the opposite. LOL!.

Al

[airedale]

Having spent most of my life training and hunting with dogs anything having to do with hunting dogs catches my interest and attention. This thread is about game recovery using a dog and recently in the evening I have been binge watching various African safari hunts and see that the professional hunters over there regularly used dogs to recover game. The breeds they use may be somewhat surprising to some, from what I have seen so far the vast majority use small Terriers, Fox and Jack Russell types with a sprinkling of other breeds. Being a Terrier man I can see why those dogs work well for the task. I was a little surprised that Hounds seemed few and far between although there was one outfit that has a damned good Beagle that did some nice work. Personally I think a Beagle would probably be an outstanding blood tracking dog here for Deer. I have never owned a good hunting Beagle that I did not have to break off Deer, they love chasing them. Another thing is most times the dogs are unleashed which personally I think is the best way and better than following a dog on a long leash in thick cover. The problem here is some moron would shoot the dog for chasing Deer.

Al

Edited October 26, 2023 by airedale

[airedale]

Some of the Pro Hunter's Africa Blood Tracking dogs, they do a nice job from what I have seen.

Al

[airedale]

This dog appears to be a Pointer type but does a good job blood tracking regardless. I think many hunting breeds with drive and that handle well can make good blood trackers.

Edited November 10, 2023 by airedale

[suburbanfarmer]

On 11/10/2023 at 8:09 AM, airedale said:

This dog appears to be a Pointer type but does a good job blood tracking regardless. I think many hunting breeds with drive and that handle well can make good blood trackers.

Thats a GSP

[Dinsdale]

On 11/7/2023 at 4:33 PM, airedale said:

Some of the Pro Hunter's Africa Blood Tracking dogs, they do a nice job from what I have seen.

Al

Here’s some dogs from Africa and elsewhere that I have hunted around…..

Been fortunate to make more then a few clean kills and could have used a dog only once in many trips but the outfitter was kind of a jerk and didnt  get one for one animal and I’m still pissed 20 years later as its one of the very few lost in all the hunting I have ever done that was not recovered. Most of the time follow ups are pretty short and dont require much extra effort.

One thing in South Africa and Namibia is many outfits run a dog on every kill to constantly train for when it really matters, A couple hundred animals a year over a 10 month season. So dogs get very proficient for finding game, wounded and lost happen, but more often then not things get sorted out.

Hounds are used but are more common for Leopard hunts where legal, Mozambique and Zimbabwe currently. Some hounds also get run for Caracal (a smaller cat) in South Africa.

Plenty of bird hunts over crops in agricultural areas and pointers are common. I’ve never noticed a lab working, but I,ve only done some day hunts for bird with pointers.

Anyway…..

This was Tara, wire hair Jack Russell. Super high energy, smart as a whip. Learned to kill cobras in the rainy season by having her litter mate to distract the snake and pounce on it from behind; but it was her downfall and she made a mistake about 4 mos. after these pics. Brian the PH and her owner is a former rugby player of note in SA.

 

These two are wire hair Griffon crosses. They were yard protection dogs used to keep baboon troops at bay around dwellings and in local crop fields. For hunting we drove the edges of harvested fields and set them off to tree a couple of troops to thin down the numbers. Could be one of the best hunts ever, break neck speeds in a truck across a huge field to bail out, chase and shoot. Really good PH too, really let his hunter set the day and hunt not just tag along. His partner I also was with was same way. Namibia is a really good destination for that tone.

 

[Dinsdale]

These are super specialist Beagles. They only hunt one animal, blue duiker; blue duiker is smallest antelope in southern africa size of an house cat; only the Royale antelope in western Africa is smaller. This is a boutique animal to hunt, quota is low and hunt is specialized. I was fortunate my PH hooked us up with one of the most sought after set of dogs from a family of some note in hunting dog circles. Shotgun hunt by posting a station and the dogs pushing vegetation clumps towards the hunter to snap shoot. I went to sporting clays course and had them throw only rabbit station to prepare for this trip. 12ga O/U,  #5’s. This a pretty good one, its typical 1 1/2” horns worn right to the nubs. Behind the vegetation the Indian ocean is close enough to hear the breakers and smell the salt, truly a unique place to visit.

The older dog is blind in one eye, tangled with a bushbuck at one point.

 

Rigby and Flex, Rigby the younger dog was here to learn the ropes on a management hunt where several each of Black Wildebeest and Blesbok were selected and they ran every track for a week. Very well mannered, better than any Jack Russell I have been around. The lodge dog didnt go with us and was killed a few months after my hunt, run through by a wounded bushbuck; hard life for working dogs there.

Best set of shooting sticks I have used in this pic, swivel top so orientation never mattered, get em’ up and get shooting.

 

Edited November 15, 2023 by Dinsdale

[Dinsdale]

This is a Boerboel (bore-bull); protection dog from Namibia, what a ham and goofball. Just a puppy in these pics that will eventually tip the scales at close to 200lbs. Used to keep Leopard and the occasional transient male Lion away from livestock around the farmhouse where I stayed, its very remote there. It’s in the Mastiff family of dogs. Bred to be socialized around humans and very protective about intruders both animal and human. Theres a security video on line taken in SA where several home invaders met a grim fate from one dog. When the police come he sits down and wags his tail; look what I did…..

 

These guys are a crew from northern Spain. And that little dog in the barrel is the one that I truly needed. I bungered up a shot on a fallow deer and plain screwed up. Missed on 2 different chances to follow up……just a real low point in any hunting I have ever done, and frankly dont know what happened. But ran that girl for a full day and finally found the deer stone dead, hit low and too far back. Did fine rest of hunt on sheep and pig. The bigger hound was what he looks like, not very personable, and he came along for a driven boar hunt to join the beaters.  

Gotta love a good working dog.

 

Edited November 15, 2023 by Dinsdale

[airedale]

8 hours ago, Dinsdale said:

Gotta love a good working dog.

You got that right, nothing more enjoyable from my perspective making for wonderful hunts and memories, my Dogs have saved the day many times down through the years.

Great photos, I enjoyed seeing them.

One of the videos I watched  had a big Cape Buffalo Bull wounded and holed up in a big clump of very thick thorn bushes, all you could see were the bushes moving with no shot available. The PH turned loose his Fox Terrier who went in there like an angry Hornet taking the Bull's attention away from the hunters and driving the Bull into exposing  himself for a killing shot.

Al

Edited November 15, 2023 by airedale

[airedale]

One of my favorite books "Hunting Big Game With Dogs In Africa" by EM Shelly accounts Paul Rainey's expedition to Africa with his pack of highly trained Hounds and Fighting dogs to hunt Lions and Leopards among other game. The book is rare and costs a fortune these days, thankfully Google has digitized it and it can be read for free. I paid the shot for the book about 20 years ago. It is a good read from where I sit.

Al

https://books.google.com/books/about/Hunting_Big_Game_with_Dogs_in_Africa.html?id=CcBYGQAACAAJ

[Dinsdale]

Thanks for posting that book. I browse a couple forums where African hunting and books are posted and I have never seen that before. I hardly read any newer hunting books but like the older ones.

So not a couple pages in and the company Newland. & Tarlton was the outfitter mentioned. They were synonymous with places like Holland&Holland are to guns, as thee go to in Nairobi to get supplied.

Theres a cool old flyer here;

https://ouramazinghistory.newlandtarltonsafaris.com/

I have a book about the same period for collecting taxidermy specimens for the Natural History Museum and Carl Akely who was a pioneer in modern taxidermy and he used Newland &Tarlton  also.

If you want that book PM me an address and I’ll send it along.

 

Here’s a pic of the Dunvegan Castle used for the trip from Marseille to East Africa with the dogs.

[airedale]

So I now have a young Airedale pup named "Ruff" that I have been working with for blood tracking. Hopefully Ruff will be taking over for old Harleigh in a year or so. Been going through a bunch of little training drills for handling and obedience, also getting him used to having a long lead on him. So far he has been doing great at just about everything, he loves to retrieve, he is a good tracker and seems to have a very good nose. Fired off a few blanks yesterday during training and believe there will be a zero gun shyness problem as the noise did not faze him. He got his rabies shot last week so I am now comfortable introducing him to game animals. I think he is going to be a good one.

Al

[grampy]

Ruff looks like a great pup! He will do fine for you. If I can help in any way, with tips training for blood tracking, just shoot me a PM or ask here. I will always be happy to help. 

[dbHunterNY]

Good luck! Hope he does great!

[airedale]

On 11/14/2023 at 9:57 PM, Dinsdale said:

One thing in South Africa and Namibia is many outfits run a dog on every kill to constantly train for when it really matters, A couple hundred animals a year over a 10 month season. So dogs get very proficient for finding game, wounded and lost happen, but more often then not things get sorted out.

I totally agree with this philosophy, the more exposure to the game the better. I feel one of the best techniques for starting a hunting pup in to have a place where they can safely run loose. When I bought this property one of the things I made sure of is I would have a place that pups can run loose, they learn nothing cooped up in a kennel. My pups always have the opportunity to learn how to get around in the woods and are exposed to all it's sights, smells and sounds. That way when the real training starts they will be way ahead of the game.

Ruff has already been exposed to Squirrels, a Coon and a Deer along with a broke wing crow which he tracked for a couple of hundred yards and recovered, I was impressed.

Al

Edited November 1 by airedale