She has eaten raw meat in my yard, all her life, and run numerous training exercises as a puppy, so she is very familiar with the smell of fresh blood and knows what the drill is: at the end of the blood trail is raw meat, then a bar-b-que, ending with her being the most honored guest, and getting to sleep on the couch in the camp, as a reward for saving the day.
She is mostly a very quiet and reserved dog, and can be a watch dog, although not nearly as aggressive as a full blooded Catahoula.
She is not fat in this picture, as she is at the moment in my yard, because this photo was taken in November, 09 when she was hungry and ready for business to commence at the deer camp. Unfortunately, I got sick with the flu in December, and most of my dogs did not see the woods this last deer season as I had planned. Nonetheless, she has been on blood trails since she was a puppy and was always focused and hunting when meat was on the ground, whether, it was a deer, or a hog, or a wounded rabbit, she was working that nose, and eager to please.I suggest you restrict her diet as with any blood trail dog leading up to the time you need them to trail. In nature, a hungry dog hunts, a dog with a full belly is not motivated to hunt, and so, what makes you think it is any different for a domesticated dog?
I will not be surprised when deer season rolls around, and so many deer hunters start calling me because they just bloodied a deer and couldn't find it. And I will ask them; "Why didn't you plan on having a blood dog there already, accustomed to you, your camp, the woods where you hunt, and be ready to find your lost deer the day you hunted?"
Don't you shoot deer every year and can't find them because, it rained, the deer crossed water, the bleeding stopped, etc, etc, etc.?
No, thats not why you couldn't find your deer, you couldn't find your deer, because you failed to have a blood trail dog available to help you when you needed it!
No problem for a well bred, well raised, well trained blood dog who NEVER found a deer in its life. Just because you "think" it has no experience and won't work, doesn't mean it won't work! They do it with all the time, just like a walk in the park.
I have done it time after time. Brought a young dog out to a kill site and turned it loose, the day after the deer was shot, gutted, and moved. Guess what the novice, inexperienced young dog did? It found the blood trail, now 24-36 hours old and went to where the deer had went down and started to eat on the gut pile.
Now I know you are here looking to buy an "experienced", or fully trained and finished blood trail dog because you think it might not work, if it has not already found deer before.
Yet here you are "thinking" you are going to find someone, who has an experienced blood dog for sale, during the deer season, at a price you can afford, and then you are going to take this dog straight out and it will work for you, without any warm up period allowing the dog to bond and trust you.
Like so many people I talk to: you want to invest money in a dog and not time.
Here is my advise to you: Don't call me later and waste yours and my time! Get a dog now before you need it, and invest some time into it.
No wonder you are in a bind on opening day, and need to find a blood dog, you invested thousands of dollars on lease fees, permits, licenses, weapons, ammo, scopes, slings, camo, scents, corn, cameras, automatic feeders, climbing tree stands, box stands, ATV, trailer, gloves, hats, knives, bug repellent, hunting videos, boats, camps, food, beverage, fuel, generator, boots, ice chests, freezer, etc, etc, etc! And here is the irony, you probably have failed to realize you already have a blood dog candidate at home who knows you and would work for you given the chance.
So it is opening day, and the deer that was shot this morning is lost and you want me to drive a hundred miles to possibly help locate your deer, but why didn't you bring Momma's little lap puppy to the camp, and give it a chance to be more than a pet? Ohhhh....you think it is hard for a dog, any dog, to trail deer based upon your past failures at trailing blood visually, but truth be told, we see the world, a dog smells the world and has a nose about 10,000 times more powerful than your own.
Here is Jesse's nose
So stop judging dogs based upon the criteria of a human being and start realizing you are handicapping your dog based upon limited, negative, fault finding assumptions.
Now, before you start considering the cost of purchasing a finished blood trail dog, I want you to calculate the cost of not having one. Just think about how hard it was to go sleep the night after you shot the 12 point of a lifetime and couldn't find it because you didn't have a de la Houssaye's Catahoula ready and waiting to serve your every need. Let me ask you this; can you afford to not have one?
Here is Elijah, born 5/05, a blue leopard son of C Arrow Patch and Ruby,
he is for sale as a blood dog or cow dog; price: $5,000, and you wonder why so much? You put 5 years into a puppy which I'm selling for $800-$1,000 and tell me that it is not worth $5K
And the fact that all of my dogs eat a natural diet of raw meat makes them excellent candidates for blood trail dogs like Jesse below.
How about we change the course of history and start using blood trail dogs to help us find lost and wounded deer?
When I first started researching the statistics of deer hunting, I couldn't believe the wildlife biologist were estimating and proposing we shoot and lose more deer than we find. Is it any wonder that the anti-hunting activists want to ban deer hunting?
Getting a blood trail dog does not guarantee that you will find your deer, but it does stack the odds in your favor.
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