Deer retrieving

I have shot a few deer and my sons have shot a few we have lost a few due to bad shots or just not being able to find them. 99 percent of the time we find or game but there is always that one that just cant be found. A few years ago a boy came to a local hangout for hunters and was asking for help to find his deer said it was a monster and really wanted to find it and would pay for any help he could get. One of the guys there told him he be happy to help and would go get his dogs to look for the deer.
Later I saw the fellow with the dogs and asked if he had any luck sadly the answer was no and I asked about his dogs. Told me they were his bird dogs and they would run a grid and if they came across the deer they would bark like crazy. Well not much for tracking but if it work it was better then nothing but it got me to thinking. At the time I had the family pet/hunting dog that was eager to please and loved it when a truck showed up at the house with a deer licking the blood and claiming it for her own lol.
She was just a cattle dog some call them red or blue healers which tracking and go getting doves and ducks are not in her breed but she would do it swimming was not her strong suit lol.
So I told my sons if they shot a deer near the house even if they knew where the deer was to get the dog and see what she would do. Long story short he would hit the blood trail track the blood to the deer if it was not dead she hold it until you got to her. So my friends and family that needed help finding that deer they shot would call and we load her up and put her to work. Out of about 30 deer she found all but around 4 that I believe did not die from the poorly placed shot.
I found out late in her life that he tracking skills were so good and age was creeping up on her that we were missing out on a lot of fun helping others and the dog loved the job of tracking.
Since then we have been working on the new family members (dogs) to see if they were any good at tracking. Training well there is none we let them lick the blood off the deer and give them a leg bone or chunk of meat when we are cleaning the deer. I have a black mouth cur well looks like one my wife saved from the pound that looks like he is going to be a tracking just have not tested him yet. And my son got himself a beagle and he has been doing the same thing with her.
OK to the point son shot two deer today dropped on the other he shot running and as the wife to bring him the dog. She shows up with the two little girls 5 and 8 and the dog which is wearing a flash gordan outfit lol. Shows the dog the blood trail and the little girl pulled the lease hard until she got to the deer. So were were very please since it looks like we have a tracker in the making.

The point of the way to long post is if you have a dog that is showing interest in you kills licking blood and pulling hair you may have your very on tracker. Could be a poodle a beagle or a mutt from the pound they all have noses and want to please their owners so do not overlook what you have right in front of you that old flea bag may find your wall hanger for you.

I can't get mine to slow down and track. She is a lab and trained for waterfowl, but they breed them so darn hyper now. I have one of her training dummies with sewn rawhide over it and hide it and have her search for the "deer". She can trail all the time and will trail me and my daughter to find us, but as soon as its hunting she go crazy.

I have a lot of work on this one for deer training. Waterfowl was easy and i know how to do it, but she goes into tracking like a stupid kid that can't listen. My last one back trailed a deer I drug home and it was easy to train him. This one has a better nose and drives me nuts with training for deer.

I've used my english pointers and also my beagles to blood trail with for many years. I start them by dragging a fresh hide or a head and then letting them trail it and worry it.
I've have friends who use Jack Russels for the same purpose.

Best blood trailers we ever used was the house Dog. Here in Florida deer dogs ar legal but most will quit a bloodied deer. Finding a blood tracker or a baying dog is worth everything.

I use my long haired Dachshund to track. He loves to sniff out deer and doesn't need blood as much as just getting on the trail the deer left. In Illinois you have to keep them on a leash, which is a pain, but Snoops doesn't mind. He has tracked (and found) two deer for me that I would have lost due to poor blood trail. You can hire people that have trained dogs for tracking. One fellow uses wire hair Dachshunds, which is why I started to train Snoop Dog. When I return home from a successful deer hunt he always knows as soon as I hit the door that I have something in my truck and wants to investigate. He's 13 now and I haven't had to use him for several years. I hope we can travel the woods at least one more time before he departs this earth.

Well I got the phone call to help find a deer and try the pound puppy out. He has been licking blood of the kills that come to the house and pulling on the hide I toss him a leg bone while I am cleaning the deer to help feed the need to find them. That is his training to track yea I know that is not much and its not in his breed to track but he is a dog.
So when I got to the woods I was told when he shot the deer did about two circles and off to the thicket she went. I found blood and bone there and showed the dog. Well off he went finding more blood fairly quick then started to look at all the other kool stuff in the bush. I kept putting him back on the blood trail praising him each time he showed me a new spot of blood which was not much. We kept going and going and going threw some very thick brush. This is a tree farm that was not man plant just grew back after logging and they just thinned last year cutting and leaving it lay stumps are about a foot tall. This made walking tricky for me and the dog was having a hard time moving also. So a hour later we found the doe bedded down with three legs shoot off below the knee. I dispatched the deer with my pistol and praised the dog for doing a good job finding the deer. We would have not found the doe without the dog but his tracking skills well need work.
How the guy guy shot three legs with one shot is kind of weird but this guy has not sighted his rifle and I think this is the first time it was fired this year. I keep telling him and his brother to buy some better scopes and practice along with their kids but its been a waste of time so far. He bought his two boys rifles last year and gave them to my son to sight in since I think they been shot maybe 10 times. So these guys know nothing about hunting or shooting but maybe our 3 hour adventure finding the deer and getting it out has help them think being a better shot is not a bad thing.
Yes I could just say the heck with them but the thought of wounded deer dying a slow painful death and teaching his kids a better way is why I keep helping.

In NY we have an group called Deer Search
DEER SEARCH INC. is an organization of volunteers who seek to reduce the number of deer wounded and left in the woods to die during hunting season. We use specially trained tracking dogs to find wounded big game that are impossible to track by eye.

http://deersearch.org/

I think it take to long for them to get to NC lol Thats a great thing they are doing. Myself I only not found a few deer but gave up only after exhausting all resources. To many around here shoot walk over and look and if they do not have a blood trail a blind man could follow they give up. I even had people tell me I shot a nice one right there and it ran in there and could not find it I walk in the woods follow the deer trails and find a deer 30 yards in the woods. If I spend the time and effort to go hunting and shoot a animal I am going to make sure it dies quick and as painless as I can and take it home and make good use of it.

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Originally Posted by Powder Burn

I use my long haired Dachshund to track. He loves to sniff out deer and doesn't need blood as much as just getting on the trail the deer left. In Illinois you have to keep them on a leash, which is a pain, but Snoops doesn't mind. He has tracked (and found) two deer for me that I would have lost due to poor blood trail. You can hire people that have trained dogs for tracking. One fellow uses wire hair Dachshunds, which is why I started to train Snoop Dog. When I return home from a successful deer hunt he always knows as soon as I hit the door that I have something in my truck and wants to investigate. He's 13 now and I haven't had to use him for several years. I hope we can travel the woods at least one more time before he departs this earth.

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When i was looking for a replacment Dachshund i found a guy who raised dachshunds that just did that, Track, big time. I was going to get one, but, i'd have to fly a long distance to get one. So, i settelded for on closer to my location. Long story short, Sherman, is one to put his nose to the ground, i've tried him on squirrles , and i let him get a little smell/taste of the buck i shot this year. He went crazy, wish i'd taken him out to where i shot this buck and see what he would do. He's a ''standard'' dachshund, could reach 28-29 lbs as an adult. Right now he's around 18 lbs and nothing but solid muscle. He's longer, a little taller, and over all bigger than most dachshunds. Lots of people think he's a mini coon dog, he is in the hound family. There is a youtube vid that shows some people finding a moose that they thought they'd lost until some one tried a dachshund, pretty neat video.