Our good friends Brad and Elkie have a great start to their season.

If you've followed the blog from the beginning or read through the early posts, you will have read about our good friends Brad and Elkie.  Brad decided to get into tracking after watching some of my dogs work a couple of deer tracks for him.  We both share a love of deer hunting and habitat work, and were close friends long before he dived headlong into blood tracking.  Brad is a determined, retired marine, and I knew that when he decided to get a tracking dog that he needed an equally determined breed.  His preference was for a smaller dog, and a dachshund was an easy sell to his wife who grew up with the Americanized versions of the breed.  No couch potato was going to be sufficient for him, though, so I set about looking for a European lineage standard dachshund from working parents.  

I have many tracking friendships around the country, including some of the best dachshund breeders.  However, my initial inquiries came up empty on available pups.  After some additional searches I stumbled upon some German working dogs in Wisconsin being breed by honest to goodness German immigrants.  That looked promising!  After a few phone and email conversations, I was satisfied with what I was hearing, and I put Brad into contact with the breeders.  A few weeks later he was travelling north to pick up his pup, Elkie.  

It was a couple of weeks before I got a chance to see Elkie, but I had already coached Brad into laying some liver drags.  By the time I saw the young pup, she was showing great promise on liver tracks.  We talked and met regularly, and I was very impressed at how Elkie continued to progress.  She was one of the most naturally talented dogs that I had seen work.  

After months of training, she began her first tracking season and had a decent rookie year with several recoveries to her credit, including some very tough tracks.  The winter layoff led to some behavioral and tracking issues that we addressed this past Spring and Summer, some of which I blogged about in earlier posts.

Our calls starting coming in nearly as soon as season had begun this year, and all those tracks I was unable to take, I referred to Brad and Elkie.  Their first track was a difficult one, and did not end in success.  Still, I was more confident in my friend's tracking team than he was.  I knew it was just a matter of getting a decent track with a recoverable deer.  The next 3 tracks proved my confidence to be well founded.  Elkie turned 3 difficult tracks into meat in the freezer!  That is an outstanding start to any season. 

Here is the story from one of the tracks in Brad's own words (Elkie can't type yet)...

Elkie recovered her first deer of the season. A hunter called saying that he shot a crippled doe to end it's suffering, but his arrow deflected on a twig, resulting in a gut shot. The hunter stopped at last blood and called me. When I arrived the hunter showed me his arrow, which was covered in gut content, had only penetrated about 10 inches, and the point had snapped off.

The track was only 4 hours old and had good blood the first 100 yards, and then the blood ended. Elkie tracked another 200 yards with no blood so I restarted her, and she followed the same track, and then began casting about, searching. Thinking that Elkie might be tracking a healthy deer I restarted her a third time, and let her keep going. Elkie tracked down the line a 3rd time, covering 300 yards with no visible blood.... when she found the deer.

 

A few days later, I received another call from some hunters I had tracked for in the past.  This time I was on vacation with my wife, and directed the hunters to Brad and Elkie, and they did not disappoint!   Here's the story...

Elkie's track was so tough that many trackers wouldn't take it because it'd been grid searched! When a track is grid searched, scent is spread from the original track.... throughout the area, creating a maze of footprints for the dog to figure out. 4-5 people crawled through the woods on their hands and knees and couldn't find this buck.

The hunter is 6'5" and had a long draw length, so he drove a Thwacker mechanical point through the shoulder blade and heavily muscled chest area, opening a 2-3 inch hole through the deer, possibly hitting one lung, and doing massive damage to heavy muscle. Muscle blood starts out looking good and then stops bleeding, so there was no blood trail over most of the track.

When the buck was hit, he bedded in the open within 40 yards of being hit. The hunter watched as 2-3 other bucks began goring it, until it got up, moved 40 yards and bedded again. The hunter waited two hours and found what he thought was a dead buck, but the buck bolted and was gone. Elkie and I arrived about 36-40 hours after the buck was shot, and Elkie recovered the buck in about 15-20 minutes in cover so thick that there was no way the hunter would have found the buck without a tracking dog. Losing several deer in cover like that is why I bought Elkie!

 

Several days later, Elkie would also recover one of Brad's own deer 12 hours after the shot.  Elkie is proving that a good dog, and consistent thoughtful training can produce awesome results.  We are very proud of all that they are accomplishing, and are happy to have played a role.  If I am unable to take your track, rest assured, that I will do my best to put you into capable hands.  

Good hunting!  Brady