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Tuesday, September 3, 2013

Deer tracking dogs, Linden Michigan

My goal was to run Sypris on a 40 hour old training track. So Saturday night at 7:00 PM I laid a mock wounded deer track in Linden city park. Sypris ran the track Monday morning at 9:00 am.  I used my homemade tracking shoes that I hose clamp the training hooves to. So when I walk it stamps the hooves in the ground surface. This is my way of replicating a wounded deer running off. Saturday night we had a light rain and again on Sunday at 1:00 PM we had a quick high winds rain storm blow through. Sunday night again we had more rain and in this case it was poring out:( I had it in my mind Sypris was not going to be able to successfully complete the track so I went ahead and laid another track in a zig/zag formation to help challenge her nose and learn how to correct herself when she over shoots turns. Boy was I wrong!!! she actually was able to still smell the hoof scent after 38 hours and 1.62" off rain. Simply amazing. 
Here Sypris is in her stay position for 5 min waiting for me to giver her the command to start tracking. So while laying the track the right hoof fell off my tracking shoe so 80% of the track was laid with 1 hoof. The track was .58 of a mile long. As expected she had a couple of minor issues by over shooing the first 90% turn. It took us close to 27 min to complete the track. No blood was used because I want my hounds to learn how to lock on to the deers individual scent. 
After completing the 38 hour old mock track she then completed the zig zag mock track. She is ready to start helping Michigan whitetail hunters. 
Tracker Rob & Sypris.