Has anybody here trained a dog to track deer or moose?

[Rob Chipman]

The regs say you can hunt deer with dogs if the dog is on a leash.

I've never seen or even heard of anyone actually doing that.

Internet searches bring up tracking wounded deer, but not tracking deer before you shoot them.

Has anyone here ever trained a dog to do that or heard of anyone doing it?

[Edzzed]

Not me but many dogs are trained to track cougars, can't see it being that hard to train for deer or moose.

[Foxton Gundogs]

Blood trailing is what people use dogs for when hunting deer/moose etc. I have never heard of anyone actually hunting deer with a leashed dog here.

[Moose63]

How would you keep a dog on a leash the whole time you hunt?.....me thinks it's not practical

[SPEYMAN]

Dogs have much sharper senses than humans. Hearing,nose and eyesight. Having a dog with you and paying attention to the dogs reaction will often alert you to an animal that you would not detect. When water fowling I seldom had to watch for birds. My dog would be aware of them long before I was. My pointing dog would point deer at a distance. He was not trained, he just did it. From what I have read, smaller hunting breeds are more suited for this type of activity. Spaniels etc.

[adriaticum]

How would you keep a dog on a leash the whole time you hunt?.....me thinks it's not practical

Many trackers use hounds on leashes to track lost people and just walk behind them.
It can work if your dog(s) are well behaved.
I had my 2 pet dogs with me last year on a leash while looking for deer.
They just get it. When I stop they stop, they don't make any sounds, they don't pull, they are alert all the time.
They just understood my body language. I think stalking is easier for them to understand than learning to roll over.
Now the question is whether having dogs is a good idea because you are introducing more scent that's not naturally there.

[mtnmanmike]

I have a friend who has successfully found bull elk that he shot using his hound dog. He uses a longer than normal leash and carefully watches his dogs movements, basically letting the dog lead him

[Rob Chipman]

I've got her following simple tracks now. Started by scuffing the ground, putting a treat down, then scuffing my feet through the bush and putting a treat in my steps every 10 feet of so for 30-40 feet.

Now she's starting at a scuffed up piece of ground and following a fresh trail that isn't really scuffed until she finds the article or a little kid hiding behind a stump. Probably only 100' tracks so far.

She learned really quick to start figuring out where the scent was leading (and it's pretty interesting to compare where the scent leads her to where the track originally was - the scent moves around and she has to figure out puzzles it throws her).

I've got some tarsal glands from last year as well as some deer legs in the freezer. Once she starts really getting it together I'll break those out and see what we can do.

To be honest, this is more for fun than efficiency. I have heard of people doing it in Europe, and I'm sure people did it here at one time (the regs deal with it, so it must have happened at one point). I haven't heard of anyone doing it here except to track wounded game. We'll see how it plays out.

[hotload]

Try to work your dog to keep a deep nose when tracking. When you advance along and you make the tracking more intricate as in adding gulleys and altitude in the mtns. the thermals of the air currents will play havoc with your dogs scenting abilities. If your dog plods along nose to the ground the thermals can pretty much do what they want and it won't affect the dog too much. Try to work your way off of the tarsals when she gets better and onto the hooves of the deer. The scent from the interdigital glands that are emitted from the bottom of the deer hooves and more so when it is stressed is what your looking to track as your dog becomes more advanced Just my 2 cents, Good Luck
ROD

[Downtown]

Its standard procedure in Norway, Sweden Finland ect. The preference seem to be with the Norwegian Elkhound (Elkhound translates into Moosehound).

Cheers