• The SH Membership has gone live. Only SH Members have access to post in the classifieds. All members can view the classifieds. Starting in 2020 only SH Members will be admitted to the annual hunting contest. Current members will need to follow these steps to upgrade: 1. Click on your username 2. Click on Account upgrades 3. Choose SH Member and purchase.
  • We've been working hard the past few weeks to come up with some big changes to our vendor policies to meet the changing needs of our community. Please see the new vendor rules here: Vendor Access Area Rules

My controversial view on tracking dogs

Status
Not open for further replies.
redsquirrel

redsquirrel

Administrator
Staff member
SH Member
Joined
Feb 19, 2014
Messages
14,958
Location
NJ
I'm going to start off by saying that I love tracking dogs and I think they are an amazing asset and should be used whenever they can help recover a deer that might be otherwise lost. I have used a tracking dog twice with one successful recovery and I spoke to another handler on the phone prior to making a successful recovery on my own. Every time I have called for a dog has been when it rained between my shot and attempted recovery.

BUT.. I think they are leading to a loss of critical blood trailing skills in hunters. Over the past 5 years or so I continue to see threads posted across the internet where people seem to put forth a lackluster tracking effort and the responses are "just call a dog".

Blood trailing is an acquired skill. The only way to get good at it is to go out and shoot deer and track. You'll make mistakes, you'll jump deer your thought were dead, but you will come out of it a better blood tracker and be able to recover more deer on your own.
 
I totally agree I see many post on my state site asking for tracking dogs and such. Before this became popular we all had to track and learn the skills in trying to recover a animal no matter how hard it is. Only way I would call a dog in is in absolute dire situation and their is no guarantee their will be a recovery or the meat is going to be good especially in the early bow season Got to stick to it and use the dog as a last resort and they are extremely busy during hunting season and most if not many have full time jobs and might not be able to get away when you need them to
 
I completely agree, although it’s a point I have never thought of. It makes complete sense to me. Isn’t that the way of the hunting industry though? Relying on other things than our own skills? Trail cameras come to mind as a huge one. Not bashing trail cameras though.
One I thought of the other day Is our hunting knives. Mainly talking about replaceable blade knives. They are sweet and so handy but I feel like they make me a sloppy bladesmen. Cutting against the hair, nicking bone and not paying attention to the small details that save the life of a good edge on a knife blade.
 
You're not wrong about people taking the easy way out when it's readily available. However I wouldn't advocate a full boycott of tracking dogs. I think they do a lot of good for people's recovery rates but people should go back and track blood after the dog finds their deer to improve their tracking skills. The same could also be said of a deer that is known to be dead and a person knows roughly or even exactly where it lays. Track it anyway, it's valuable practice for when the tracking gets tough and you didn't call a dog because you thought it would be easy.

Sent from my Pixel 3 using Tapatalk
 
I agree. Personally using a dog would be a knock to my pride, but I wouldn't be opposed if all other options were exhausted. The one time I thought of calling in a dog the game warden said I couldn't because it would be hunting with a dog. He helped me determine that it was probably a clean miss which also taught me a few things as a new hunter.

Whatever happened to those bluetooth trackers that go on the arrows? I feel like we are a few years away from just deploying the drone to find our deer.
 
I don't make the connection.

Is it a knock to your pride to use GPS, trail cameras, or a modern compound bow?

The use of dogs in hunting is historically more familiar territory than nearly any other tactic we use today.

People are going to suck at skill sets because they don't put the work in to improve themselves and that's just human nature.
 
Last edited:
I think they have a purpose, but with every modern convenience we lose a bit of our primitive instinct. It's just progression.

Before guns our ancestors chased down big game with bows and spears. Before cars we used horses etc. They have a place in hunting and arguably dogs have been a big part of the history of hunting.

One thing I really disagree with is on the MN tracking dogs group I'm a part of, the phrase "if in doubt back out" is thrown around. It's stuff like that that encourages and adds to the laziness and losing of our skills in blood tracking.

Last year one of the ones I shot got away because of the falling leaves completely covering any blood trail, there was no evidence for me to follow with that deer, I would've loved to have had a dog come out then.

I think it's up to the individual to make sure they are utilizing the tools given to them properly
 
A lot of newbies don’t have the skill to do it on their own and I wish more experienced hunters would step up and mentor a newbie I sure would and have and personally I rather see the newbie take a animal on their own and track on their own and I would step in when needed. It’s a part of the learning curve. I wish I had a mentor when I first started as I didn’t have a hunting family. I had to learn on my own and alot of times it plain sucks but the rewards outweighs it by a long shot
 
I’ve been amazed at the speed with which the commodity skyrocketed in value. You can make a good living tracking deer for folks with disposable income. I’d probably set my price based on the hunters answer to one question: are you a saddle hunter?

Gas and tip money turned into a business in a hurry. I love America.

I agree generally with ya Red. But I’m more at peace with it - 90% of hunters don’t actually like to hunt. They like to talk about huntjng and fit into a crew of hunters. They go through the motions so they can say they did. Minimal effort to maximize social reward. I fought this notion for years as I got frustrated with people for not doing simple things to improve success or enjoyment of huntjng. Finally I realized and accepted why most people actually hunt. Not only is calling a dog an easy button, it’s also one more thing to talk about now…
 
Jay_Disarray said:
....One thing I really disagree with is on the MN tracking dogs group I'm a part of, the phrase "if in doubt back out" is thrown around. It's stuff like that that encourages and adds to the laziness and losing of our skills in blood tracking....
Click to expand...

I think it’s a rather good policy on the whole.

As hunters gain in experience, they’ll have a better basis for evaluating their confidence vs doubt, and knowing when to call for assistance.

A student of the track, be it alone or aided by dog, will gain that experience.

Fact is some mortally wounded deer are unrecoverable by humans following blood and deer sign, and despite even significant efforts at blind/grid searching large areas.

Impatience is a huge factor in non-recovery. I think on the whole, backing out is oftentimes a rather good idea, conditionally.
 
Plebe said:
I think it’s a rather good policy on the whole.

As hunters gain in experience, they’ll have a better basis for evaluating their confidence vs doubt, and knowing when to call for assistance.

Fact is some mortally wounded deer are unrecoverable by humans following blood and deer sign, and despite even significant efforts at blind/grid searching large areas.

Impatience is a huge factor in non-recovery. I think on the whole, backing out is oftentimes a rather good idea, conditionally.
Click to expand...
I guess my thoughts were that ive seen that phrase used to encouraged less effort from the inexperienced. Many deer are recoverable with effort, you just gotta get out there and try.

I totally agree with one person here who said that they with they had a mentor to help them, and I wish there was more people willing to pass on the skills to newer hunters.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top