Moderate rain or snow on the scent line is no problem at all, but dry, windy conditions often make tracking difficult or impossible. The leashed tracking dog method is not magic, and of course the deer or bear must be seriously injured if the dog and handler are going to catch up. More than half of the deer we find are dead.
The difficulty of tracking a wounded deer depends upon the nature of the wound and upon atmospheric conditions, more than the age of the track. Bear, which often leave little blood trail, are nonetheless easy to track because of their very strong body and footprint scent.
Each year our dachshunds are called upon to track over 30 wounded deer and an occasional bear. The dogs are worked on a thirty-foot tracking leash made of stiff, light mountain climbing rope that seldom tangles in dense cover. Since we live in the Northeast, the hunter has almost always made a very thorough attempt to find the deer on his own before we were called in. The dog has to work through an area that has been tracked up by the hunter, on through his point of loss and beyond to where there is not enough visible blood for eyetracking. Situations in which the game backtracked are frequently encountered. The scent lines we follow are often 12 hours or more old, and they have always been crossed by the tracks of many uninjured deer. The dog must discriminate and focus only on the wounded deer.
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