teaching dogs to track injured deer?

scent training- an injured deer will smell like blood. the dog should be tracking for the scent of blood, rather than just the smell of the deer.

a lot of places that do ScH training also offer classes on just tracking, you might want to see if there is one nearby you.

Blood trailing allows hunters to find and kill deer that they have injured but not killed (much more humane than allowing the deer to die slowly in case the issue comes up) . It is called blood trailing because that is exactly what is done. The dog is tracking the combined scent of deer and blood. The method is taught just like any other tracking method by teaching the dog the scent it is suppose to be tracking (most likely by the use of a bloody hide as another poster suggested) The dog knows the difference between injured and not because of the lack of blood. A dog taught only to blood trail would ignore the trail of an uninjured deer because the scent was not correct.

Do check laws in your area if you are planing on doing this. Most states permit blood trailing but some do not and some have restrictions (dogs must be leashed) You must also be careful of how well the dog is trained on the scent because running deer with dogs (tracking uninjured deer) is illegal in a lot of states where you can legally use dog to blood trail so if you are in those states you must be particularly careful that the dog is trained to ignore the scent of an injured deer

They track it by blood trail, and the reason for having dogs do it in that case I believe would be if the blood trail is not heavy enough to be seen well by humans. So you're teaching the dog to scent out blood. If the deer is not injured there would not be a blood trail.

It's just basic tracking. You'd probably lay tracks with bloody deer hide, and have him go for the blood only. Blood tracking dogs aren't uncommon at all, and most hunting breeds are great at it.

Be sure you are living in a state where trailing deer with dogs is legal. In some states it isn't.

Darn! I was right on this one with my husband as the resource but Dee beat me to it.

She is absolutely correct. (Darn her anyway.....)

Good question but I don't have a clue, I will star