Sypris Deer Tracking with Robert Miller

All photos are courtesy of Robert Miller, and this article is edited by Marcus de la Houssaye

Sypris is a European standard size Dachshund specifically breed for tracking wounded deer.

 She has currently recovered 162 deer.

If you need deer tracking services in Michigan or Ohio call Robert Miller at 810 240 4891 

The post below is great example of how having a very experienced and highly successful tracking dog
in the hands of an expert professional tracker doesn't always produce a happy ending. The point I want to make here is that breeding, raising, training and especially the handling a blood trail dog is very complicated and in the long run very satisfying, but in the short term and heat of the moment during deer season we professional trackers, are often overwhelmed by our passion for helping clients find wounded or dead deer, because it is extremely emotional and often very consumptive of our time and energy. The 2 points I want to educationally lead you into is #1. the teamwork that went into this track between, dog, hunter and a professional tracker, and then #2. in the end the tracker used his experience of hundreds of tracks to make a good guess what the deer did based upon deer/geography movement, and it led them right to the deer. That's teamwork and experienced tracking at it's finest! 

Having your own tracking dog minimizes your losses, saves time and energy, and in the long run the dog will teach you so much more about what deer actually did after you bloodied them, than you could never learn without their team effort.

I am sharing this for hunters who already have tracking dogs for education purposes and for deer hunters who are shopping for, or thinking about getting thier own blood tracking dog. Just because you have a finished tracking dog doesn't mean it is 100% of the solution in finding lost deer. Teamwork is essential, and a good tracker will know when his dogs is struggling and try to get creative in moving the track forward. It is important to trust the dog, but also to know when to not expect too much when the dog struggles, and allowing that to use your own knowledge and understanding of deer behavior to back up the dogs efforts and then you guide the dog forward as much as you let him guide you when you don't know which way to go. Once again teamwork is crucial in finding wounded deer. 

If you are interested in owning a tracking dog, I am Marcus de la Houssaye and I breed and train Louisiana Catahoulas. I am in Lafayette, Louisiana and can be reached by cell phone @ 337 298 2630. I am sharing my Michigan friends post in the interest of educating the deer hunting community of the importance of tracking dogs and the challenges in it for the dogs and the tracker. When hiring a professional tracker always remember to trust the dog and then the tracker, and then follow and work with them as a team! 

if you enjoy deer hunting, and don't own a tracking dog, you don't know the fun you are missing until you hunt deer with your own tracking dog ready to go. I have more fun and actually enjoy tracking and finding other peoples deer more than still hunting. Too many deer are being shot and lost simply because you don't have your own tracking dog or a professional trackers number already in your phone book when you pull the trigger. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Below is my friend Robert Miller's post on the am of 10/03/2016 

 My final track last night was a roller coaster of emotions. 
Through teamwork we found my clients buck. Unfortunately the buck ran off. 
Looking back we should have just left him alone and had my client come back today. 
I didn't get to bed till midnight and I have to work my full time job. 

Learning how to function on minimal sleep. 
#deertrackerlife!

and seven hours earlier Robert had posted this:

This evening's track was extremely difficult. The buck was shot this morning. Shot placement was good with a slightly quarter to angle. Buck ran off looking extremely hurt. My client tracked the buck 300+ yards before backing out. Sypris worked the track really good for most of it. Then we got in some wide open woods with pure top soil dirt and she started to struggle. 

After 45 min she worked to the edge of swail and she couldn't line out the track. My client seen blood heading into the swail and we found a bed then another bed, then Sypris started struggling. 

After looking at the land I figured out the direction he would go. We started walking that way and we seen him bedded. 

We got up close to confirm it was him and my client could see a giant hole in the ribs big enough you could fit a hockey puck inside. On the side I was looking at the deer didn't have any wounds. The buck jumped up a ran off. The Hunter didn't have his bow so we watched him run off. My client will go back tomorrow to look for him. We figured out that the rage deflected off the rib and exited out the bottom. The deer is gut shot. We should have backed out and let him lay over night. Gut shot deer need 12-24 hours to expire.