Mojotex

About 2 months ago my 7 year old tracking dachshund , Ellie Mae, suffered the dreaded back issues that many long back, short legged dogs do. She was 100% down in the rear. I opted for surgery simply because of my attachment to this dog. I decided to give her a chance to recover, which she has to a great degree though her tracking days are probably over. Vet says we'll know in 6 months or so.

So .... time for my "new" tracker to take over. He is a 2 year, standard wirehair dachshund I named Boudin. He was put to the test this past week for the first time ever. I had trained him as I usually have done and he did fine on these training blood trails. These were his first field trailing jobs. Very wet conditions but not raining. First track was ragged and what should have taken him 2 minutes took more like 15, but he settled down on the blood trail after some guidance from me and found the deer dead in a pine thicket. His second was as good as it could have been ..... got right on the blood quickly, never checked up as he tracked except to smell some blood smeared on the side of a sapling. He never veered off the blood as far as I could tell and found my buddy's doe dead in a super thick over grown clear cut. I am thrilled to have another tracker and as you can tell, proud of Boo Boo ! Hoping Ellie can join him next season.

gjersy

Well Mojotex I hope the best for your 7yr old, and congrats on Boo Boo! I took my 10 month old Airedale on his 1st real blood trail this deer season, It was a difficult one, we trailed it about a half mile, I was proud of my pup Nobs also.

gjersy

I forgot to say we never found the buck, my buddy did a bad shot. We waited a few hours and while tracking the buck the blood dried up, there never was much blood to start with, in fact I thought Nobs was off the trail. Anyway I decided to keep following him and eventually after a half mile (more if you count the curvy trail), we found the bucks bed with a tiny spot of blood in it the size of my pinky nail. I let him trail a bit more but he got confused, the wound sealed up. Anyway i wish Nobs had a few easier trails for his 1st year to learn better, however i was proud of him as the guys following Nobs and I thought we were off the trail as they saw zero blood for a long ways, till we found the bed with a drip o blood. Who knows if the buck is dead or alive, i'm sure it died eventually unfortunately, guys need to let the deer go if they can't make a kill shot. As a logger i see many dead deer in the woods after deer season and some of them were perfect chest shots!?

JoeA

Boudin! Awesome name. Call name your next tracker Biscuits, and you'll have a complete "meal"

Mojotex

Well the season ended Feb. 10. Fortunately I had to use my trackers on only one of my deer ... a nice sized doe. It was a fairly long shot for a woods shot .... about 120 yards through the pines, and raining to boot. I just never could start on a blood trail. Boo-Boo found it in about 4 minutes. I had started my search at least 30 yards from where it was standing. The final tally for Boo-Boo was 5 deer tracked and 5 deer found. Only one was what I'd call a challenge. For Ellie Mae, she recovered well enough for me to use her on 2 tracks that were in rather flat, clear locations. One was simple, one was a tuffy! A fellow hunter had shot what turned out to be a button buck around 4:30 p.m. He and 3 others searched for it for about 2 hours with no success. They gave up about an hour after dark. I was yet confident enough in Ellie's condition to use her in the dark. It was around 45F and raining hard at sunset as the cold front approached. Temps were going to be well below freezing by dawn. Next morning around 9:00 a.m. I took Ellie to search. It was tough for her to get a good start, but she found and stayed on the watered out blood trail as good as one could imaging. She found him. Took her about 15 minutes. I was extremely proud of her and glad she was able to work the trail. She has continued to improve. i am still being very careful with her as she strengthens. The shot on that button was poorly placed and the little guy ended up going about 1/3 mile according to my GPS unit. He gave up the ghost in a brush pile that he had laid down in. Critters had not found it and the cold weather kept the meat OK. So .... all goes well, Lord willing, I and the pooches will be at it again come Oct. 15.

Phil from Maine

I am sorry to hear about your older dachshund and sure hopes she comes around greatly. Having 3 of them myself I know clearly what you are saying.. I am also glad to hear your younger one is filling the void for you even if he is used as a back up.. My female one also has appears to have a better nose as well. But she is a little older too. Anyhow good luck with her health..