DUK,

"Pancho" is already 6 months old and I have done the first training examination...

I drop wildboar blood along a 50 metres path and walk with him along the trail.

He didn't look very excited

Every time he find a blood drop he licked and smell viciously all the grass around but was not able to find the next drop, so I have to pull him from drop to drop.

The drops where separated a meter aprox. between them, is this too much for starting??

At the end I put some fresh wildboar skin that still have some meat and fat and I allowed him to bite it for some minutes as it seems he was more excited with that than following blood drops..

I know I must be patient but is this normal or I should expect better performance ?

How many training lessons I should do per week ?

BTW, I read an article on a Spanish hunting magazine about a training bloodhound event that took place in Spain and they mentioned a german expert whose name started with your same initials...DUK

I think they where talking about you...

Thanks again
L

After posting this topic I found a very informative webpage:

www.deersearch.org

Very very good webpage

L

You didn't ask me, but I do have a bit of experience with Schutzund tracking.

I can tell you that the puppies always track hungry and food treats are left at each scent spot for them to find, as motivation. To begin, we simply place treats on the ground and command seek. When the puppy immediately begins to search the ground at the Seek command, he is ready for a very short track. Also, the starting tracks are quite short, maybe 10 meters or so. For Schutzund, the dogs must find each footstep of the person being tracked, so to start, a treat is left in each scent "footprint". Also, to start, the footprints aren't far apart, the track is fresh, and you make it as easy as possible (no fresh dew, wind, or other challenges until later). The dogs are worked daily at this, and as they progress, the tracks get longer and treats farther spaced out. At the end of the track lies the puppy's favorite toy for a reward. Good luck. Also, most tracking handlers use a chest harness rather than a collar, and always walk behind the dog so as not to disturb the scent. After a bit of practice, Pancho will know what to do when the chest harness comes out. Good luck.

Thanks Daniel !!!!!!!!!
I really apreciate your post.

It's facinating all this blood tracking thing

L

Hola Lorenzo,

de experto ni hablar! Yes, I participated in a seminar last March organized by the AESEP, the Spanish blood trailing asociation. I am however not at all an expert on this subject, still struggling to teach my jagdterrier some manners.

Regarding your pupil, I think that you might have expected too much from a first grader. A distance of 1 meter between drops might be too large and already a challenge to be solved by an advanced student.

What we do here to initiate the young puppies, basically with the objective to teach them that at the end of each trail something interesting and rewarding can be found is to start with just pulling something over the ground. This can be some food like a piece of deer lung, stomach, a piece of pig skin or a dead hare, rabbit or duck. Important: Your young Siegfried or Bruenhilde should always find a reward or piece of game at the end of a trail. Make him or her shake, bite and enjoy it a little while after finding.

Next step when mastering this: Start making blood trails, first very short and optionally pimped with some very small pieces or rather slices of Vienna sausage at every 20 cm or so, I would start with a drop of blood at every 5 to 10 cm or so, the first trail not longer than 2 meters. The sausage trains the dog to investigate the trail thoroughly and even indicate you signs.

Otherwise, his sense of smell would allow him to just fly over your artificial trail at full speed, something you do not want to each him at all. Allways praise when he finds something and exaggerate your praise when he reaches the end of a trail and the object to be found.

Next step: Start increasing the distance slowly and put the little slices of sausage only every now and then. The teckels have a natural tendency to work slowly and with their nose on the ground, it should not be difficult top turn yours into a good trailing dog.

Do this only when your dog is hungry and only once a day. Do it every day.

Next step might already a natural track of a deer or boar which is shot well into the chamber room. Make sure that the animal is to be found not far away. Alternatively or simultanously, continue with your artificial blood trails, making the distance and the time between laying and searching longer and the blood to be used scarer.

Did I mention that it is very important to praise?

Next step would be the tracking shoe but this is an art by itself, better explained with more detail in the literature. Just to give you an idea, in the former Communist Germany, trailing dogs were trainmed ONLY with the tracking shoe, no blood to be employed at all. The dogs are taught to follow the track in the soil, rathet than the blood smell.

Like David already stated in his well written post, start with short and interesting tracks. We hunting blood trailers can learn a lot from the police man trailing and drug sniffing dog work, honestly I feel that they take the art to an even higher and much more demanding level.

We translated some German literature on this subject for our friends in Spain, feel free to PM me a mail adress if you want a copy in PDF-format.

I also recommend you to get a copy of John Jeanneney's excelent book on blood tracking with teckels: Born to track.

Keep us informed on the progress of your dog. Good luck and Weidmann's Heil!

lorenzo
a tip i learnt was to drag a hoof along the floor whilst dripping blood along the trail
infront of the hoof
by putting some blood in a washing up liquid bottle and adding 30% water to the blood thins it down so it will run better
jut put your finger over the top and pour removing your finger to add droplets of blood
as already stated
start with lots of blood at short intervals slowly reducing the blood and increasing the distance between drops as time goes on and eventually the time between laying a trail to working it
ie start with fresh blood on wet trail for a week or so, then allow it to dry for 1 hour ,onto 3 hours then 6 hours, 12 hours , 20 hours ,24 hours, 30 hours
let the teckel lick up the blood and then self hunt along the hoof scent to the next droplet
this gives the dog a bit of a head start as to why it is following the blood
keep tracks short at first,

i and always use fresh ground as the dog often remember previous tracks
i always place a skin at the end of each track with a reward lay on it for the dog to find and eat
and by using a harness and long leash the dog soon assoiciates this with going tracking and helps build up the excitement value
tracking is all about scent assoiciation
and encouraging your dog to assoiciate the particular scent with what you want it to track
i also recommend Born to track, an excellent book
look forward to hearing more on how you get on with a few pics too if poss
kind regards
Richard