Blood dog training

[Greenhorn]

I vacuum seal all my deer meat and it draws lots of blood out of the meat to use for tracking. Instant killed deer produce the most blood. My three dogs were natural and the older dog taught the younger one. I always gave them some raw meat when skinning the deer.

[vom Dufenshmirtz]

Apologies to all the Large MUNsterlander and Small MUNsterlanders. I misspelled Munsterlander in a previous post, and I should know better.

In On? I didn't see any Large M here.
It's spelled Münsterländer

[domination]

Thanks for the info guys.
I will go ahead and start training this week with cow blood.

[Waftrudnir]

...he appears to be able to cheat as he "air scents" as he trails and will take a short cut right to the source. ...

not good (for training purposes), but not the dog's fault - you should be disappointed if he wouldn't
for tracking training you have to play the wind just as much as for any other exercise; only difference you want to make sure he cannot air scent much at all, hence he has to track

[jweese]

Just my two cents where, for what it's worth - air scenting is not a cheat; in my opinion. Unless you're into this for some sort of competition - the ultimate goal of blood tracking is finding wounded or lost game. Regardless of how your dog goes about finding it; if the end result is the same; then it's a positive result.

When I was doing my UBT testing with Misty we were walking down a roadway to the test starting point, probably a good 500 yard walk at least, while we were walking I noticed she aired something; knowing my dog I know it had to be blood; I remarked this to one of the spectators as well; we continued walking however. When we started the test she took off like a rocket, and sure-as- a portion of that track was close enough to the road we walked on that she could have winded it, and because she winded it we were better able to work as a team to find the end result.

Learn to read your dog, scents aren't just on the ground - blood isn't just on the ground, it is airborne as well. I didn't trust my dog at first, but she hasn't let me down yet and has some pretty amazing tracks under her belt. She knows what she's doing, am I'm just along for the ride most times.

On the topic of blood - as previously mentioned, blood is blood is blood as far as I'm concerned. I've trained with cow blood, puried liver, deer blood, and sheep blood - and always had the same result. The only thing I did differently was trained with a watered down portion of blood (sometimes as high as 50:1 ratio) to better train the nose. I'm not sure if it really works but as a former competitive weightlifter my thoughts are this: The nose should be trained on increasingly difficult scents, the same as a muscle needs to be trained increasingly heavier weights. Then, when it comes to the "lighter weights" or "heavier scents" they are easier to track.

This proved successful to me; what proves successful to you might be completely different.

[Marker]

not good (for training purposes), but not the dog's fault - you should be disappointed if he wouldn't
for tracking training you have to play the wind just as much as for any other exercise; only difference you want to make sure he cannot air scent much at all, hence he has to track

There is nothing wrong with air scenting, some dogs do it and some don't. I started 2 yrs ago training my dog with two SAR groups, one group strictly uses the 'tracking' method of foot step to footstep with their dogs which are mostly patrol dogs, and another group uses primarily Bloodhounds which have a tendency to 'trial' or air scent. My dog got her TD this year and we are now training for the TDX and UTD (the urban she does very well and has done 12hr old trails in town) - and she is an air scent dog. So both methods will work.

[dutchhunter]

when using blood to train can the dog get sick from licking to much blood say a heart worm or other blood born illness ,say you are using sheep blood or cow blood you would never know if the blood had some sort of contaminant ,.my deer hounds love to lick up the blood.I have always wondered about this as there are a lot of blood born ailments .Dutch

[Waftrudnir]

air scenting is natural for a dog (nothing wrong with that).
however, a track does not necessarily run with a favourable wind. therefore, for training purposes you should teach your dog IMHO an alternative way to get to downed game; i.e. step by step tracking (first with, later without any blood if you so desire)

[domination]

I wouldn't mind how my dog smells as long as he finds the game. I guess ill see what works best for us when i start training. Picking up fresh cow blood from the butcher and will start training tonight.

[dave.swift6270]

I am thinking of training one of my smaller mastiffs (180 lbs). Anyone in the Ottawa region doing training? I had one mastiff who would blood tract but she died 8 years ago Being deer sized could go any where's a deer could fo