Working Class Canine

28/11/2025

2025 tracks # 59 & 60
11/27/25

59
Bullet
Buck
Rifle
1.67 miles

60
Zeus
Buck
Rifle
1.98 miles plus Hunter had tracked .5 miles and out out of a bed before we started

Both tracks are scenarios of deer we went into knowing likely non recoveries but gave it a solid effort
59 is likely a brisket hit, white hair at hit site
We did catch up to buck at next to last blood dot but hunter missed his opportunity and the now no longer bleeding buck was very fast and mobile

60 was a facing shot that my best guess is it’s brisket in armpit area based on the sign along the track
When buck turned up the steep hill blood picked up so we continued thinking we’d get a chance at him bedding but that did not happen and hunter called the track as the buck continued his clumb up the mountain, much to Zeus dismay

Shortly before we called the track the deer walked right over this big moose shed
It’s my first shed i’ve found tracking in 18 season!

Both tracks both dogs displayed excellent dog work and solid drive

No tailgated deer but I’m incredibly proud of both boys

Click photos for full image

26/11/2025

Sad day
The Original Muck Boot Company are discontinuing the muck tall forager boots that I use exclusively for tracking

I buy one pair a year so that each tracking season I start with a new pair, the old pair becomes my dog walking /general purpose pair

I’ve done so for many years

These boots are incredibly light weight and tough

I did manage to find one pair in my size at clearance price for 2026 season but that will be my last pair 😞 😞

26/11/2025

25/11/2025

2025 track # 58
Nightmare track 11/25/25

About 20 hours old

The reason this track was a nightmare was threefold

1- the start of this track had a ton of blood and while they gave the deer 6-7 hours , they took 4 guys in to search who ALL stepped in the blood and tracked it everywhere they walked. And they walked everywhere. Then they came back this am and did the same thing again

2- since we had to walk through the entire track to get to start I stupidly decided to the start at the end on a heavily contaminated track

3- i did not obtain all the track info before starting ,it came out as “oh yeah” moments through out the track

On the map the blue shows the extent of the scent contamination plus a short hike to do a search of a small swamp at hunters request

Red is what the hunter thought the deer did

Green is the actual bucks path (i took bullet to start twice and he made this evident) 236 yards

Buck was shot with crossbow on a veryslight qtr to deer
Carried bolt one jump then lost it (blood , meat and fat on it)

Bled a lot until first bed and second bed

Bed 3 and 4 was dramatically less blood

Bed 5 was very light watery thin blood of a deer clotting up

All the blood on trail was dead center, zero blood on saplings, trees or branches

All blood in beds was dead center of one end

My impression is buck was arrowed through bottom of brisket . Lots of blood and lots of bedding til clotting is common

I think they bumped him from bed 5 when they came in to search

The kicker “oh yeah” moment ? (Delivered as i loaded dog in suv)

“I saw a buck that looked just like this buck in the field across the street right before dark chasing a doe “

I’d be willing to bet you money it was his buck

Edit to add
I got asked why bullet had so much issue. Good question.
Bullet usually has no to little issue with grid searches. I think maybe because buck left last bed with low scent - not bleeding and rested, and the blood tracked everywhere by searchers was from beginning of track (highest fear stress scent) was part of it and that if I had started him at the start right away it would have been less issue . And once I did take him to hit site (after searching frantically), he followed track straight through to the point he gave me the not dead sign again shortly after last bed.
My fault and it was a novice error due to fatigue, but there may have been other reasons to it was just a big mess

25/11/2025

Track screening (choosing which tracking calls you take)

Every tracking dog handler has different goals for their season , so every handler will accept tracks most likely to fit their goals when at all possible

This is not a bad thing , it’s just a fact

My personal goal is to give as many hunters answers as I can as well as watching my dog that i trained myself work well
As such I screen tracks for my available time and travel distance (and certain problem individuals) only.
What this means is that we take a LOT of “peace of mind tracks”, tracks with little to no hope of a recovery, but we give the hunter the peace of knowing they did not fail to find a dead animal nearby.
And
a tiny fraction of the time a miracle happens and we actually recover those animals

Other tracking handlers might have a different goal and won’t take these tracks, it’s not wrong just a different goal.

We all do what we do for different reasons
As long as we all follow the state rules and laws, different isnt bad/better/worse, it’s just different

24/11/2025

2025 track # 57
Bullet
Buck
Rifle
23 hours old
1.65 deer travel miles we tracked + .5 mile hunters tracked -total deer travel 2.15 miles

Went to track for brother of a man we know
Drove in a class 6 woods road, parked my suv then drove more
Finally park and then walk 35 minutes almost straight up a mountain

We start the track a very short distsnce before last blood to orient Bullet to buck

At last blood which was a bed plus a bit out of the bed, hunters had looked a good bit. After a couple minutes of interpretation, Bullet was off in a direction they had not looked

In short order we had bed number 2 then no blood
Then bed number 3 which looked like buck got up in a hurry but it was not us that was the cause as everything had snow in it from last nights flurry

Deer ran a bit from this bed and we worried about coyotes

Bed four also looked like he got upon a hurry

In either bed 3 or 4 i forget which we found a chunk of what looks like the forward 1/3 of upper arm bone with some meat

The track continued with nothing fresh everything has some snow in it so not close yet

Finally got to a dense mature forest area with no snow, small tiny spots of blood which looked slightly fresher but not new and finally even that stopped

We started coming into a house area and track started to meander a bit
103 yards from a house we finally saw him, about 70-75 yards ahead no clear shot
Not jumped from a bed he just looked to be traveling, he heard us and bolted getting along well at speed though limping heavily
25 hours post shot

He then crossed a road still not bleeding and abit further along we called the track

Nh tracking teams are not allowed to hunt deer with the dogs and to continue on would have been that, he wasn’t bleeding and he was fast and mobile with a leg injury not body injury

Will the buck die? Its a flip of the coin, a buck with similar injury we tracked last year made it and was last seen alive and doing well at Christmas

Frustrating end but damn Bullet worked his heart out

23/11/2025

2025 track # 56
Bullet
Buck
Rifle .308
Aprox 3 hours old
1397 yards

Went on a track this am with a small amount of cut off white hair a few spots of decent blood and lots of dime size or less spots

Hunters had done fine job of tracking the sparse blood a ways and even calculated where the deer would cut diagonally across a narrow posted piece finding blood on opposite side so we could avoid that drama, but that proved to be the last few spots they would find

Bullet took the track after a very quick “not dead” indication and tracked it very well

Quickly reached the posted corner walk around and last blood, then Bullet hauled butt right across an open field towards roadside brush, after some working out the field edge he found the path deer took with a spot of confirmation blood and across a busy road we went

Up into the woods on a heavy used trail and a ways up we had some blood. This trail led up and up and up. The blood was small and very sparse. The buck made a J hook and I hoped he’d bed but no such luck. Buck just continued his uphill climb with ever decreasing blood

At the top of a flat bench we called track off as the deer just kept going uphill again

1397 deer travel yards from hit site (.79 mile)

Really great job Bullet

23/11/2025

23/11/2025

If only dog food companies would pay attention and cease using legumes in their foods to boost protein and as a cheap ingredient

22/11/2025

2025 track # 55
Zeus
Buck
Rifle- .308
2 hours old
997 yards deer travel

Got a call early this am
Hunter had made a 39 yard uphill shot on a nice buck in an open field with a follow up shot when deer stopped to look around
He had body coat but no blood

We walked up to the hit site and it’s a small cloud of upper body coat fur. Grey brown medium length all cut off
No skin
No blood

Zeus was not very impressed (never a good sign) but we convinced him to take the track

Around thr location where second shot occurred Zeus got way more interested (zero blood or hair) as the buck had raced off scared

He found where buck crossed road and after a quick downhill check we were off

I’ll note that we had to obtain permission for each property we crossed- four total which is unusual for where I usually track

Zeus tracked really well and straight
After we crossed a big field and got into a thick thick bedding area we went around a bit then off well again until he started showing the adrenaline/fear scent was weakening

We decided to go allll the way back and rerun the track just to make sure there were not two deer as we’d found zero blood and hunters were convinced we had a body hit

We did so and as we were going to leave the field a cop pulled up.one lady the hunter had physically spoken to at her door (and obtained permission) had called police fearing we’d shoot her house or something. Once hunter , police and woman got that straightened out (like WTF) we were off again

Zeus followed the same path but with more circles as the adrenaline scent was fading (and evidently no wound scent) and we ended up in the same place

As a last ditch thought we went above the road crossing area and searched top of field and puckerbrush areas “just because” we wanted to exclude it

Zeus thought us dumb and tried to convince me to take the original track again

By all appearances the buck just got a haircut and a fright, not remotely what any of us wanted but I could not make magic today

Good job Zeus

Deer foot travel 997 yards

22/11/2025

FF is an acceptable methodology but not the only one, nor should it be the only one

“Train the dog in front of you with the methodology and tools that individual dog needs”

Ideology such as described made into rule or law interferes with that ability

IT’S TIME TO WAKE UP❗️
The Force-Free Lobby Is Moving Fast.

Dog training is under attack, not by science, not by welfare concerns, but by ideology disguised as ethics!

A new “Joint Standards of Practice” was just released by APDT, IAABC, KPA and others.
If this becomes the accepted “standard of care,” here’s what follows:
Tool bans
Licensing controlled only by force-free organizations
Elimination of R- and P+ from professional training
Criminalization or disqualification of balanced trainers
Courts and legislators using THEIR paperwork as the only definition of “humane”

This is not accidental.
It is a coordinated move to take over the entire profession and silence everyone who isn’t “science based”!
And once this framework is adopted, reversing it will be impossible.

We need to step up now.
Not next year.
Not when a ban hits your city. Now❗️

If you haven’t joined IACP you need to do it.

I also believe there has to be a Balanced Training Coalition!!!
A unified front of trainers, working-dog professionals, behaviorists, and organizations who refuse to let ideology rewrite the laws of learning or erase the methods that keep people and dogs safe.

21/11/2025

2025 track # 54
Bullet
Buck
Rifle
3 hours old
1250 yards

Went on a track for some friends
They had tracked buck about 100 yards and lost blood
They looked around a good bit then backed out

Bullet and I arrived about 3 hours post shot

We started just before last blood since we walked in at that point
Bullet had a hard time locking in
In retrospect it was likely because deer was not terminal and hunters had walked around on already light scent

Once Bullet locked in though he was strong , accurate and determined

Not terribly far from where Bullet locked in we found blood where buck went up a small hill. Buck circled the top of this small 4-8’ pine trees hilltop and we bumped buck out of bed

Just a couple drops and couple smears of blood at front of bed. Bullet was like a fire was lit and off we went attempting to lay eyes on the deer. We had occasional dine size or smaller drops of blood to confirm as we forced our way through the pine saplings

A couple spots where the deer stood still with a handful drops but otherwise sign was sparse except for his running walking running tracks

Through the never ending pines where we could barely see each other never mind the deer but Bullet acted like he was 100 yards or less ahead of us, we just could not see him

Finally we broke out into a mature Hemlock area with less pine saplings and ground covered with hemlock needles

We approached a steep downhill and it was clear the buck was using all four legs unimpaired and this was completely proven when at the steepest downslope he leapt over a 5’ tall blowdown like Santa’s reindeer in training. All four feet deeply gouging the pine duff on landing and a spot of blood
I had hoped he’d fall but nope he sprinted downhill crossed a road and was gone

This is where we called the track

1250 yards plus about 100yards the hunters tracked

Good boy psycho squirrel Bullet!!