RE: Blood trailing dog.
The four best tracking dogs I've ever had for hogs and deer were:
two Beagles
English Setter Bird Dog
Pointer Bird Dog
All I did as for training was put them on a blood trail. I've always believed that it's in a dog or it's not, just like bird hunting, some bird dogs will hunt and retrieve, some won't.
One thing I do highly recommend for a tracking dog, put a shoulder harness on the dog and a leash. I have seen dogs that are allowed to run free while tracking, fine the hog or deer and then come back to you. If they do this, they may not take you back to the down animal. If they stay with the down animal and bark you won't have a problem. The only dog of the four I have used, my first beagle, Toot, she would barkwhen she found the animal. The harness and leash keeps you in control. Most importantly trust your dog til it shows he/she has no interest.
Here's a good example: About 30 days ago a friend had shot a deer right before dark, he and his buddies followed the blood trail in the dark, marking the trail til they lost the blood. My friend told me about the loss of the deer the following morning and said his friends decided to deer hunt til 9 a.m. and would meet him at that time to try and find his deer. He asked if I thought my beagle could find the deer. We met at the site of where they had starting marking the trail. My dog, on the harness/leash took off on the blood trail, then veered off to the left. My friend told me the dog wasn't on the marked blood trail. I told him to go on to where they lost the trail that night and that I was going with my dog. Within 30 minutes, my dog Hunter and I was standing beside the deer. I yelled to my friend and gave him land marks as to where I was. When he and his buddies got to me, he stated there was no way they would have found that deer based on the direction of the trailthey had marked and lost.
My friend couldn't understand how my dog found the deer when he left the marked trail so soon. I explained, it was very simple, in this case, Hunter was, after smelling the blood, winding the deer. He actually made a small circle to the deer, he was using the wind to find that deer.
dog1
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