[ Reply | TrackingDogs Message Board ]
Posted by Tim
on January 11, 2008, 8:59 am, in reply to "Re: beto..thoughts on beagles"
Sometimes you just luck out. I had been on the waiting list for a wirehaird dachshund pup that was a proven family of trackers. In the meantime a beagle breeder friend of my wife asked her if she would like a puppy. This is a highly bred show dog line, but we had a beagle when we first married and loved the breed. I've been a bowhunter for 35 yrs and hunt the river bottom and sloughs of S.E. Texas. Blood trailing and thick cover make sight tracking very difficult. Tired of all night tracks I decided to get a dog. First I checked the regs for my area. It is illegal to hunt deer with dogs, but a dog on a leash for tracking is acceptable. Long story short my beagle found five deer last year while 7 mos old. A leash must me used because he is silent on the trail. He will not bay even when he finds the deer. He has found 4 more deer this year, one over 24 hrs old with little blood and crossing two sloughs. Somehow a fatally wounded deer leaves a scent and this dog can tell the difference between a fatally wounded deer and a superficial wound. After tracking approximately 15 deer I can tell quickly by his behavior if the deer is fatally wounded. He has found two deer where the shots were high and no obvious blood appeared. In this case I take him downwind of the tracking area and he can wind the dead animal. When he strikes the scent you will know immediately because he will drag you through whatever cover he has to go through to get to the animal. It's amazing to behold. I'm a two hundred pound man and this little beagle weighs 30-35 pounds and can drag me through briars and brambles that I would not volunteer to go through. I learned very quickly to "gear-up" for a track. Thick clothes, leather gloves, even safety glasses. I could not have "bought" a better hound, so I was lucky. The guys at the deer camp don't care if I'm there or not, but they want the hound there every weekend. In his puppy stage I was ready to kill him myself. In his first six-moths he ate over 250 ft of garden hose and two futon mattreses on the screened in porch. Today he can completley take the hide off of a golf ball in about one minute. Extremley large teeth and even stronger jaws. But after his first year performance he sleeps in a kennel in our bedroom. Has his own recliner in the living room (would love to be in your lap even more), is super gentle with all the grandkids (all under two-years) and loves to play with the children at the deer camp. This guy was a natural born tracker and no one knew it, not even the breeder.
Message Thread:
« Back to thread
Info.link:
Deer Search Inc.
Webmaster:
André Brun