Motivating a pup

bowtarist

Member
I picked up a new pup a few weeks ago to start training on tracking deer. It's a male bloodhound I named Haggard. He will be 3 months old on Oct 1st. I've been working him on blood since I brought him home at 7 weeks. I've been using a little blood and a deer foot to lay my lines and he's just not very interested. I can lay a line with a piece of meat and he's all about it. Digs in and finds it no matter how hard. Looking for some suggestions on how some of you guys have maybe dealt with a situation like this.

I have a 2 year old mtn cur that's always been easy to work with. She took to tracking naturally and I'm working her on squirrels now just to have something else to do with her.
 

Hillbilly stalker

Senior Member
I have trained both. A bloodhound will probably have way too much nose for what your asking. A hot nosed dog like a Mt. cur will do fine at tracking deer. Most are very smart and it wont cause a problem with your squirrel hunting. A bloodhound tracks/works for himself, a Mt. cur hunts for you. A bloodhound is the best at what they are bred for.. old..cold man tracks.
 

Hillbilly stalker

Senior Member
It will depend from dog to dog. If she can handle a 4 hour track, I would think that would be fine. You would have to test her to see what her limit is. Always remember there are a lot of variables to tracking with a dog, ie: terrain,weather,age and cross contamination. If your training just for your personal use, I think a 4-6 hour track would suit your own needs. Remember dogs learn thru repetition, the more you do it, the better she will be. I have a buddy that has a wiener dog that's awesome. If your deer is down...he will find it. He don't hunt, he just likes to track, thus he has a great little dog
 

drahthaar

Member
3 months is really young. It is awesome that you are working with him but maybe unfair to expect an adult attention span. For a dog with such a talented nose, the act of tracking for you is as much an obedience exercise as teaching exercise. If he likes tracking a little meat, I would personally stick with that but make the track more difficult - loops, longer aging, etc.

Hopefully some of the more seasoned guys will weigh in, I'm fairly new to this. Have you read John Jeanneney's book Tracking Dogs for Finding Wounded Deer?

Do you take outside tracking calls up there?
 

bowtarist

Member
I have read the book. I just started taking outside calls thus year. My cur dog has found a few. I just wanted to get a bloodhound to be able to track a couple day old track if needed. I'm not much into smaller dogs and I figured the bloodhound had more than enough nose to do the job. Better to have it and not need it as need it and not have it I guess.
 
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