I've got two Lacy dogs that are both pups still, that I'm training mostly for blood trailing. I also work them on hogs as well as various varmints such as treeing coons or squirrels. Thought I'd share with you folks. Anyways tracked their first deer down last month and wanted to share my story of our first live track.
It's unfortunate I've got no pictures because I had planned on taking a break from working with the dogs and instead decided on getting some hunting in with my dad since in Delta County during Thanksgiving break you can legally shoot does instead of the Turkey! Anyways I got there and as soon as I pulled up and unloaded the dogs my dad hollers at me guess we'll see just how good those dogs are. He had a friend that brought his nine year old daughter up and she swears up and down she had shot this doe and it took off. Only leads the dogs had was a few fresh tracks from the large amount of rain the night before and a fingertips worth of hair..... No blood at all.
Well at this point I'm thinking well, heck. I've taught these dogs to scent blood but we'll see how they do. In the back of my mind I'm thinking I'm probably setting the dogs up to fail but I wasn't about to turn down the opportunity obviously to put these dogs to work. So we geared up and rode the Ranger to the spot where the girl had shot the doe. I turned Roush & Shelby loose together and showed them the fresh tracks then let them scent the piece of hair/skin and told them to get to tracking! For what it's worth I track off lead and just followed the direction the dogs went and about a couple hundred yards away in some tall grass there laid a doe. Roush got to the doe first and when Shelby showed and tried to get near Roush wouldn't even allow it, lol. He was one proud pup and I was one very excited/proud handler.
That was their first real track and all of the hard work and training exercise paid off very well. Here are a few pictures of my dogs Shelby & Roush.
