A Blood Trail Dog Testimonial 2 1/2 Months Old?

This is Valerie at 8 weeks old, a sister to the puppy Sandy bought from me.




Sandy and his son on opening weekend or there abouts.



I delivered Catahoula puppies to Florida a couple of weeks ago and already, I am getting positive reports that these puppies are trying to find the deer and they are only 10, 12 and 16 weeks old!

If he gives me permission to refer people to him as a reference of my Catahoula dogs abilities, I'll put his email and phone number in another post soon.

I'm sure he will be sending me some more photos and testimonials soon.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Here is the email Sandy sent me.


A friend shot a doe Tuesday evening and called me to bring the puppies. He said he had blood on the arrow but couldn't find a blood trail. I told him to back off and I'll bring the dogs.

We arrived and took the puppies into the site where his arrow was sticking in the ground. All 3 puppies went straight to the arrow and the little brown female (Tracer) took off with her nose down. The others followed close behind.

We found visible blood after about 50 yards and then it was just a drop here and there. The puppies moved thru the block (very thick vegetation) and eventually lost the trail. I couldn't find anymore blood.

We came out of the block on a dim road covered with grass and leaves, I turned them to the left and walked slow watching them work. After about 40 yards all 3 converged on the side of the road, I walked over and found a single leaf with a small drop of blood.

By now we were over 1/4 mile from where the deer was shot. We never found the deer and never found anymore blood.. But for 2 1/2 month old puppies, I can't be more pleased at this point.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Wow! GOOOOO Sandy!

After Sandy and his son lost a 10 point at the beginning of the season, he called me about purchasing Catahoula puppies to use for blood trail.

We began to talk about getting him some of my puppies as soon as they were old enough to wean, and then the holidays were rolling in, and the puppies were 8 weeks before I could deliver. In the meantime, I am bringing deer blood and carcusses home to start the puppies and I do this for all my puppies no matter the age. The more blood, in the woods or my yard, the better.

The lesson here: do not under-estimate a dogs tracking abilities based upon age or experience or the lack there of.

Have faith in your dog, trust in their superior abilities and give them a chance



.

Bring them to as many blood trails in the woods if it is hunting season, and make as many in your yard as you possibly can, no matter what the age of the dog, work them.

So, when do you start blood trail training? When the pups are about 3 1/2 weeks old.

Start feeding them raw beef, goat, sheep, deer meat, or raw liver, and start hauling them to the woods or fields where you hunt. If it is not hunting season, bring some raw liver to a new location, and a string to drag and make a mock trail. Don't let the puppy see you making the trail. Change locations as much as possible. Or change direction if you are doing this at your feeder and hunting stand, ideally about once a month. The sooner you can make long trails and increase the complexity of the trail, the better.




Create complexities and increase difficulty as in crossing water and making 90' turns or make an intermittant trail.

Here is another thing. Don't just always put dog food in a feed bowl by the back door. Spread out kibble once in a while around the yard or in a field. Make your puppy use his nose to locate food if he wants to eat! Keep it close and compact when they are young and gradually extend the exercise into a hundred yards or more. Make them hunt if they want to eat! If they don't put their nose down to hunt, and follow a line of kibble, they don't eat! Just think about it. It doesn't have to be blood.

And don't forget about using roadkill in the off season to tune up your pups.




This is Marcus de la Houssaye, and I want to remind you;

Be safe, keep it legal, and good luck.

The Raw Meat Diet

Let's go back to nature.

In the wild a dog's natural diet is raw meat from a fresh kill or aged meat from a scavenged find.

Either way, a dog does not hunt unless it is hungry!

So if you are feeding your dog right before you need them to hunt for you, they are not motivated by natural insticts, which goes back to the wolf.

Furthermore if you are feeding your dog the dried store bought crap most of us are led to believe is dog food, your dog may not know what real dog food is.

Here is Little Ray, double glass eyes, yellow leopard, three years old, notice his lean athletic physique, he was born on my property, and has been eating raw meat all his life. He is a natural when it comes to finding dead or wounded deer or hogs. He will also catch if the deer if it tries to get up and run. Lil Ray handles very well, is house broke, loves to ride in the truck or boat and does not range out very far without checking back when not on a leash. Although I reccommend using a tracking collar on all blood dogs, I don't feel like you really need one on Lil Ray.


This is Bud, he is not my blood line, but in spite of not having any spots or blue eyes he is all Catahoula. Bud was only a year old when the deer season rolled around last year so I haven't worked him as much as some of the older more seasoned dogs. He is silent on the track and works well off or on leash, but can at times pull hard. He has a very good appetite, and if you keep him lean during the hunting season he is very motivated to hunt for you, knowing he gets to feast on raw venison when he finds your lost deer and id the honored guest back at the camp. He may not be the best dog for a lady or child not familiar with handling a strong puller.


Here is Jesse's nose it is at least 10,000 times more powerful than your own.





Here at de la Houssaye's Catahoulas we live as close to nature as possible.


Here is a block of frozen meaty bones that I got from the meat market. These are government inspected raw meaty beef bones.




Here is Jesse in the photo below with a box of frozen, government inspected raw meaty bones thawing out on my driveway.





Here is Jesse unable to wait for the meat to thaw, and pulling off chunks of frozen meat-sicles.





Raw meat is a dogs natural diet. When a dog eats a natural diet it improves the immune system, stamina, and overall health. It also improves the dogs sense of smell, and well being. Many times after people start their dogs on raw meat, they tell me their dogs have never been happier or healthier. My daughter noticed that her dog smell better, after I keep Beauty here for a few weeks, because the dogs coat does not have the same smell as it does after eating the dried crap her mother feeds. Many times people advise me that my dogs do not smell like "a dog". Meaning: they don't stink.

I don't know what animal by products is, but it is the main ingredient in many commercial dog foods, and I don't like the way it smells when it comes out the back end of my dog.

When I feed my dogs raw meat, it doesn't stink like "normal" dog feces.

Here is Lulu, enjoying her first taste of venison on a doe that was located the day after it died.



Unfortunately we can't always find a deer in time to save the meat for human consumption, but it can be salvaged into the dogs and puppies diet to reinforce their appreciation and motivation for being blood trail dogs.

My pupppies begin eating raw meat as soon as they are eating solid food.



Many people apparently fail to realize that the raw meat diet is a dog's natural diet and not only that. It is essential in my opinion to easily start and a train a puppy to be a blood trail dog if it grows up eating raw meat from the beginning. By eating raw meat all thier life, my dogs know that the smell of blood leads to food, because they have been nutritionally satisfied eating raw meat since before they were weaned.

Do not feed raw meat exclusively, it can and should be the major percentage of the dogs diet if you can get it, but always give some dried dog food or whole wheat bread in addition to meat.

At five months old, these started pups have been eating raw beef and venison all their life. I have a friend who de-bones deer during the hunting season and mixes the meat with beef and pork to make custom order smoked sausage for deer hunters.

Guess who gets the deer bone carcasses to feed to his puppies? Yah me. And if you are a member of a hunting club, freeze the deer bones for treats in the off season, the tarsal glands, and some strips of deer hide for pull toys with your puppies year round.


As I research and study the information being presented about blood dogs I am in awe how much misconception and misinformation is in circulation.

Here is a link to a site with a list of hunter mistakes and misconceptions:



www.hillockkennels.com/Hunter_mistakes.html

I am looking for issues which are not being presented that I believe are important and one the biggest points being left out is the diet of a blood dog in training and handling.

Two things to consider here:

Raw meat is a dog's natural diet and a hungry dog is motivated to hunt.

Prepare For The Next Hunting Season NOW!

Your Past Disappointments And Regrets Can't Be Changed,
But Your Future Success In Deer Hunting May Be A Different Story

One of the most common "wishes" I hear from my customers who call inquiring about my blood dogs is that they wish they could go back in time and do the things they never did, such as having a blood trail dog at the camp the day they shot the 12 point buck that was never found, or the day their son shot his first deer and there was a good blood trail, but the rain came and washed it away before they got to the deer, but at the time, they never thought about using the family lap puppy to see if it could help locate the deer.

You know what my response to this kind of complaints is?

Keep on whining about your past,
and in a few years you will whining about the present.

Think about it. You can't go back in time
and "fix" anything. Regret won't do you any good.
And what's worse is that if you waste your time
"wishing" you had done things differently or if you
waste too much time trying to "relive" experiences you never
lived (Mid-life crisis - sounds familiar?), then you'll
be missing out on the PRESENT. So in a few years, you're
going to find out life STILL sucks because you have
been wasting time NOW.

Time is always moving ahead, my friend - with
or without you. So stop worrying about what you "could"
have done. Instead, focus on what CAN do right now -
at this very moment - so that you won't regret it 5 months
or 5 years from now.

One of the things you can do RIGHT NOW is to sign up to be on the mailing list and get my "Blood Trail Dog Training Course" and start learning to handle and train a blood trail dog, so that by the end of this year you are knowledgeable and are doing the things that will make you more successful in the deer hunting game.

Think of it as one of the best investments you
can make for yourself, your hunting club, and for your family's future hunting success.

I don't know about you, but hunting is a family tradition for me, and one that is or should be passed down to future generations.

Based upon my research, state government biologists are proposing that more deer are shot and lost, than recovered.

This is justifiable cause for the animal rights activists to protest hunting in general and lobby our state governmnets to restrict or deny our privledge of sharing this great sport and American family tradition with future generations.

One way to change the future statistics about deer hunting and the shot and lost factor is to begin using blood trail dogs to locate wounded and dead deer during deer hunting season.

Your best option for having a blood trail dog this coming hunting season is to consider using your family pet or the hunting dogs you already own.



And my course, as well the book I am presently writing on that subject, will enable you to learn how to raise, train, and handle a blood trailing dog.

Many people are worried that the family pet will not perform and I understand the concern. But the reality is that the dog has accepted it's mediocre existence as a pet and playmate for the kids and being a sometime alarm system and guard dog
as this is all there is to life, and it is Ok with that, yet it's natural instincts to hunt and be a valuable member of the wolf pack is still alive and well in there somewhere.

All dogs have an incredible power of scent that may be be 10,000 times greater than our own. And in a blood trailing scenario the scent of blood is often the main focus, not that of the bird or mammal that has been shot.

Another justifiable concern is that using a bird dog pointer or duck retrieving dog may get the dog confused as to it's proper duties. I say that a pointer or retriever is already a blood trail dog, because the scent of blood is so much greater than the scent of duck or quail.


I will be offering my course in a online subscription which you can pay for and download from the website as soon as possible. My webmaster is creating the templates and pages as I write this article for this post.

I will also offer a printed version which I can ship to you in a manilla enveope in the mail if you are so inclined.

But for now, if you will email me at marcus@delahoussayes.com, I will put you on the mailing list to be notified as soon as the new websites are up and running.

You can go to www.bloodtraildogs.com for more info on me and my dogs if you like.

If you would like to call me about purchasing a Catahoula puppy, or a trained or started dog, I can be reached on my cell phone at 337-298-2630.

A Blood Trailing Puppy?

Here is an email from a a satisfied customer who bought a puppy last year. That puppy is only about 4 months old now and already working a blood trail just fine.

Here is Stacy's email to me.


Here is a new pic of our baby girl. She was from the catahoula/cocker spaniel litter. We picked her up from you in early January. She was 4 lbs then, here she is at 4 months and about 18 lbs. She is a very smart baby, VERY active, but such a sweetheart! We love her very much. She did her first blood trail this weekend, she did awesome.

Stacy

If you need a blood trail dog, get it now!These guys and girls are bored, need a job, and a good home.

Just because you show up at my house with money, does not qualify you to own my dogs.

I suggest you call and talk to me a few times to see if one of my dogs fit your service needs.

I do not need to sell these dogs, I spend a lot of time getting them right for you. I need to find the right people for them.

Don't wait until this fall and you have a downed deer you can't find to contact me.

You spend all year planting feed plots, scouting, planning, buying more camo, ATV's, outboard motors, guns, scents, treestands, calls, knives, gloves, hats, videos, etc.

And you don't have a blood trailing dog?

I have a few left from this litter and they were bred for blood trail work.

These puppies are bred to be easy to handle and devoted to what ever you need.

Be it security, companionship, or squirrel hunting, these dogs wait on you hand and foot!


I have several crosses specially for blood trail and quality pet placement.

I have found that crossing with a Cocker Spaniel, Beagle or Chihuahua makes a better pet, or blood dog because they are easier to handle and it takes some of the wild wolf behavior out of them.


These pups will hunt and help you find a dead or wounded deer, but are easy going, and much easier to train and handle, not like my elite,(as seen below) high performce, smart, fast, gritty, hog dogs that will not stop at a dead deer and wait for you.
Because a pure bred Catahoula can be a hand full for most people, I recommend you consider getting a cross bred dog for pets or blood trailing.

Bob, the father of Jesse, Spider, and Whiteboy


Beau Jocque, a son of the legendary, Maurice
Sammy, a son of Maurice and Alida