I Love It When The Plan Comes Together!

About six years ago, I turned my hog dog training facility into a blood trail dog training facility because I was getting too old to be rodeoing wild hogs and I wanted to continue breeding and training my Catahoulas to go to working homes. It was an easy transition, but in the beginning I and my dogs were just getting started and we had a lot to learn. 

Now that a lot of people are starting to track, I am watching them go through some of the same experiences that I went through in the begginning with my dogs and tracking experiences. I want to post one such newbie's track that didn't go as well as planned to help others who are struggling at being new to the game, to continue to press forward and have faith that it will get better.

                            Above is Scott Phillips with his blood tracking dog and a recent find.

            If you are in the Kalamazoo Michigan area and need tracking services, here is his card.

I am copying and pasting his post from facebook to encourage new trackers to get out and go for it.

      This is a process and it pays off in the long run, but in the beginning, we do the best we can.

If you are a deer hunter and do not have your own tracking dog, I suggest you find someone that does have one and keep their contact info in your phone so you can call them if need be.

Also to help us be better prepared, we who are just getting started need training tracks to teach our dogs to track even if the deer is not lost. So if you have an opportunity to call us in to get our dogs in on a traing track, we would appreciate you helping us now to be better prepared to help you in the future.

Scott Phillips

November 14 at 12:32pm · 

Although this is a little embarrassing and I still feel somewhat defeated, I have to get this off my chest. Zeus and I went on a track yesterday which I felt was a good one for him. Hunter did everything right by waiting and not walking all over. Zeus seemed to be doing good at first but then lost the scent at some point. After resetting him and following him a couple different ways, I realized we weren't going to find this guys deer. Knowing this deer was 100% dead, I advised the hunter that it might be wise to call a veteran tracking team. That team came in and found his deer! The hunter called me afterwards and told me that "Zeus was only 100 yards off". That may not seem like much, but when finding deer, thats huge!! Hence; THE VALUE OF A VETERAN TRACKING DOG.
This is our first year tracking and Zeus has been doing great! He has made a few hunters happy but we are not the best. We may be the closest and cheaper than most but we are certainly not the best. Zeus is going to make mistakes and I'm going to make mistakes. It's part of learning. Just know that we have a lot of time, effort and money invested in training and give it 100% everytime we go out. We want to find the deer as bad if not more than you do.
Dont hesitate to call us this gun season. If we cant do it I can refer you to someone who can.
Good luck. Shoot straight.

Also, we are still looking for training tracks. These are untracked, known kills, preferably 75+ yards. These tracks are FREE of charge.

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I am Marcus de la Houssaye and I am in Lafayette, La. and can be reached by cell phone @ 337 298 2630 if you are shopping for a puppy, started dog or finished dog. I will be glad to sell you one of my dogs, and if I don't have what you need, maybe I can refer you to someone who does have what you need.

Above is one of my early sumertime training exercises with fresh liver at the end of a track

It was my goal from the beginning to educate the public about the importance of having tracking dogs for hunting deer and I love it when the plan comes together!