Our deer season in the part o MS I live in ended yesterday. It was the first full season that I let both of my dogs work blood trails. There is a Facebook group I am a part of that takes requests from people that have shot deer and cannot find them. The group is comprised of volunteers that will bring their dogs to the site of the shot and try to trail the deer up. I was able to work a few tracks off of there this year with both of my dogs, Aubrey my GSD and Maggie my GSP. Here they are just relaxing tonight:



Aubrey is an 18 month old GSD. I worked her some last year but she never would really put it together. I worked with her and someone local that trains for blood trailing worked with her some. She has progressed a ton from where she started. She found one for me last week. Last night we were called out to a track. They had a lot of dark red blood, a little meat, and bone. This typically indicates a leg shot, but we decided to give it a shot.  She went in on a good trail for 150yd into a pine thicket then the blood petered out. After several hundred yards with no blood she took us to the deer bedded up. We were unable to finish it and it jumped. A while later Aubrey brought us to it bedded again. This time it jumped and we were unable to locate the deer again. The last place the deer bedded didn't have any blood. That deer will live to see another day. I was very proud of Aubrey on that one. The total distance she tracked was 1.2 miles. Here she is last week with a find:



Maggie is a German Shorthaired Pointer that is just over 2 years old. I actually got her from here. TXOutdoorsman was fostering her and she seemed like a great fit for our family. She has proven to be an awesome all around dog. She found a few on her own this year. Her best track this year was also a deer we didn't recover. We went on a track for a buck that was gut shot. The exit nicked the back leg and the deer's track had an obvious limp. Maggie trails like she bird hunts. She ranges out 150 or so yards then circles back to check on me. On that track she made just over 3 miles. The actual track was 1.5 miles long. Over that entire distance we found 5 drops of blood. We came up on the deer bedded. he jumped and went across a road onto property we couldn't access.




A lot of folks around here trail with bloodhounds or labs. People look at me funny when I open the box and bring out a GSD or a bird dog. Once they perform though they make a believer out of the shooter. Anyway, I just thought I would share this with yall.

that is really cool.

Nice dogs.

Very cool.
Great activity for the dogs too.  I bet they're loving life.

They are indeed loving life. I have to work with the GSD some. She does better on leash than she does off. It really isn't a big deal until you get into thicker stuff, then it is much easier to go off leash. Otherwise they are both a breeze to handle and love to track.