Hunt 'em Up! Train Your Dog To Blood Trail in 8 Weeks: Hunter's Edge, #1

By C.V.Conner, Ph.D.

What we’re trying to do with this book is help the hunter to have another option, that option is to call in someone nearby with a trained blood tracking dog, YOU. These dogs can find deer that human hunters might walk right by. They are able to scent trail deer, even when there is no blood at all to follow. A trained tracking dog can lead its handler to a deer even several days after it was shot. And that is what this book is all about, getting you started on training a dog that can cut your deer tracking time in half and increase your recovery rate by 80 or 90 percent.

Basically, training almost any dog to blood trail is simple. It’s so simple in fact that I can sum it up in just a few paragraphs. You don’t have to own a hound to train your own tracking dog. Any breed with the nose to follow a trail can be trained. I have seen everything from labs to Jack Russell terriers to dachshunds trained to trail deer. I personally have a black lab named “Tilly”, and a heeler/shepherd mix named “Diamond Cut”. In short, you would start out your training by making a game of it. You could use a strip of bacon or a piece of calf liver tied to a string as your first scent marker. To make sure the dog is following the calf liver or bacon scent and not yours tie the string to the end of a long pole to drag it well away from your own scent trail.

As your dog become more adept at following the trail, you should start to make it more difficult by hopping the calf liver or bacon strip along the ground and lifting it for several feet between touches.

Getting your dog fully trained to blood trail takes a lot of time and patience. But knowing how to get the dog motivated to track and stay with the right line from the beginning really pays off when working with hunters to recover their harvest. The best teacher is time spent with the dog and a lot of it! Time spent in the field tracking through the season and training the rest of the year. This is what it takes to form a bond. And that bond is strengthen and reinforced in life's journey with your blood trail dog! If I gave you no more information than what’s above you would have enough to get your dog started with blood trailing. But in reality, there is a lot more to be learned about tracking with a dog. So let’s get started now to build a complete training course for your new blood trailing student.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Belo / The Conner Company
• Release date: Nov 16, 2017
• ISBN: 9781387343935

C.V.Conner, Ph.D.

C.V.Conner is the #1 bestselling author or CompTIA A+ In 21 Days and MCSE In 3 Weeks. He began his writing career as a self-published author of IT Certification Study Guides and after reaching a great deal of success, decided to expand to True-Crime, with his first novel in that genre set to be released in July of 2014. C.V.Conner holds over a dozen premier IT Certifications including MCSE, MCDBA, CCNA, and MCP. He lives in Bellaire, Texas with his family, where he is at work on his next book.  

Book preview

Whitetail Deer & Shot Placement

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To become a real tracking dog handler you should first know what to expect from a hunter’s shot placement. You will learn more about this as you start to gain experience in the field, but for starters you can save your trail dog and yourself a lot of work and time by knowing what to expect according to where the hunter tells you he hit the deer, and by reading the blood left at the hit site. Always keep in mind too that regardless of what the hunter says, quick decisions are the rule when they’re shooting at big game. These mind-bending moments are tough enough with fully functional gray matter, but they are nearly impossible when that gray matter melts from a jolt of red-hot adrenaline.

Sorting through the factors influencing this crucial decision is tough at any time, but especially so if they face it for the first time standing face to face with the biggest whitetail buck of their life! Having a shot-selection plan in place, thinking their way through each possible shot, and rehearsing the tough decisions before they face them is all good and dandy. But in real life, a hunter may have only a couple of seconds to act decisively — or not at all. The goal for every hunter should be to make a clean, fast kill with every shot, and the most effective way is to put a bullet or a razor-sharp broad head through the thoracic (chest) cavity. But let’s just be honest, no matter who you are or how long you’ve been deer hunting, there is going to come a day when you will make a shot that is less than perfect. And on that day, having a blood trailing dog can make your life and the life of the buck a lot less painful. So with that in mind, let’s take a look at the most common shot challenges you or maybe your hunting buddy will face while hunting whitetail deer.

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Spine

The initial reaction from this hit will be obvious. A whitetail that is spine shot will drop in its tracks. But it usually requires a follow-up shot, and almost never the need for a blood trail dog. However, this can be one of the hardest shots to get, depending on many circumstances.

Heart Shot

The initial reaction from a heart shot will likely be the infamous mule kick, and with a clear line of sight, you’ll more than likely see the deer crash. But even if you don’t, a deer hit through the heart will be running low to the ground at a frantic pace. And if you’re training a puppy to blood trail, a heart shot may give you a perfect opportunity to do a short trail for excellent experience. Even if the deer only runs 15 yards or more from the hit site it offers your dog an easy opportunity to gain both praise and the experience he’s going to need.

Lung Shot

In contrast to a heart shot, the initial reaction for a double-lung hit is more subtle. If the arrow or bullet goes between ribs, a lung-shot deer might simply walk away. But more often, the deer dashes a short distance before stopping and tipping over. A lung shot can also then allow you a great opportunity to give your dog a hard to miss tracking experience.

Liver Shot

The initial reaction to a liver shot will be similar to that of a lung-shot deer, but the deer will likely slow to a walk after running a short distance. This deer may travel a quarter mile before bedding down, although 200 yards is more common. In the field of deer hunting this shot is one you and your dog is going to see a lot of and it is the common yardage of blood tracking. The liver shot is one that will give your dog it’s best starter workout for finding whitetail deer.

Gut Shot

Make no mistake, a gut shot deer is simply a bad shot. And if you get into blood trailing you’re going to find that a very large percentage of your calls are going to be gut shots. And for that reason I want to spend just a few more minutes talking about this shot. The initial reaction of a gut shot is obvious. The deer will typically run a few yards, arch its back, tightly tuck its tail and walk or slowly trot away. A hunter might even see the deer bed down. But finding a gut shot deer starts the second you realize it is a gut shot. The problem we encounter most here as blood dog handlers is that most hunters are too excited to go get their deer. They ignore the fact that it is not a good shot, they go looking for the deer immediately, and that is the worst thing you can do to find a gut shot deer. What a hunter should do on a gut shot is immediately call for a trail dog if he didn’t see the deer bed down.

First and foremost, let’s get this straight - a gut shot deer will die 100% of the time. It is not a fast death and will take time, but it will die. When the intestines are cut or busted open it releases poison into the deer's body, which is then carried in the blood stream to the whole body. It is no different than when a human's appendix burst. It would kill us 100% of the time if we didn't have doctors.

Basically the best way for a gut shot deer to get relief is to lie down. And that is exactly what a gut shot deer wants to do. They find the first place they feel safe, lay down to relieve the pain, and die right there, IF LEFT ALONE.

The Biggest Mistake in Finding Gut Shot Deer

As I stated, I believe that the #1 reason so many hunters don't find their gut shot deer is they almost always start tracking the deer immediately after the shot and jump the deer up. They forget or they don’t know that a gut shot deer; most of the time won’t bleed much if any. So when that deer is jumped up it will run somewhere else and there will be very little sign to track unless you have a blood trail dog.

Now it doesn’t matter the weather, the second a hunter realize it is a gut shot, not 20 more yards or after you find the first drop of blood, the second he suspect it is a gut shot he should turn around and get out of the area and don't go back for a minimum of 10 hours, or until a blood trailing dog arrives. But far too many hunters don’t know to do this and they try to track the gut shot quickly. But all that does is cause the deer to take off running thru the woods with no blood trail being left behind to follow. At that point it’s either call in a dog or say goodbye to that deer forever.

Ham

The initial reaction from a ham shot will be similar to that of a gut-shot. If the shot is forward, the arrow or bullet will slice through the ham and paunch. If the hit is back, you’ll hit heavy muscle and maybe bone. Possibly the only help for the hunter who makes this shot is to call in a blood trailing dog. And those are what you will mostly be dealing with