Ep. 115: Blood Tracking Dogs
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Welcome back to another episode of Cutting the Distance Podcast. I'm Dirk Durham, and this week I have a filmmaker with me here, Matt Gagnon, joining me. Welcome, Matt. Thank you, Dirk. Thank you very much for having me. I'm very excited to be here with you today.

Yeah, yeah, thanks for coming on. Man, we've been trying to get together for the last, I don't know, month, I think, trying to get together. It's like either you're on the road traveling or I'm on the road traveling. It's been kind of tough to get together and connect. Yeah, it's always a hectic fall, you know, obviously with hunting and filming. Yeah, I'm glad we could lock this in. It's a long time coming. Yeah, yeah. So how'd you get into filmmaking? Yeah.

It's a great question. It was kind of a little bit later in life, career change. I kind of started my career in engineering, spent a lot of time in the field and always had a camera with me and then kind of hit a point where I wanted to get into more of a creative role. And yeah, kind of quarter life crisis. I sold my home and moved out west and I brought some honey gear and a camera with me and just kind of made a run of it. So it was a

sort of a trial and error to get started. Uh, still did some contracting for some, some companies back East while I figured out the, the film side of it and started working on some small projects down in Salt Lake city, kind of more commercial stuff that Salt Lake's got a pretty big, you know, sort of film and, and commercial world. And then, uh, yeah, eventually worked my way over to meat eater and worked with all of you guys there for a little while. And

Yeah, probably back in 2022 launched my production company and I've been, uh, you know, steadily at it. Yeah. Nice. So are you doing this full time? Yes. Yep. Full time. So running time on our media and doing a mix of producing my own stuff and then filming some, some sort of hunting television content for some other shows as well. Oh, that's really cool. Yeah. Um, do you, do you find it's, it's easy to stay busy as a filmmaker? Yeah, I've been really fortunate. I think that, uh,

I kind of built up a pretty good network and built up some good relationships early on. So I've been, I have no shortage of work, particularly on the TV side of things, you know, filming some, some money television shows. I think once you kind of get established in that world and make some connections and people know that you can tag along on a hunt and sort of be an asset, then there's a lot of work available. But yeah, it took a little bit to build up that network, but I definitely stay busy.

Sure. Sure. Probably a lot of word of mouth that goes on there. Um, you know, once you do a few gigs and they're like, yeah, that guy's great. And he knows when to move and when not to move. And like hunting is so different than filming other projects. I'm sure. Um, it's multifaceted. You're inclement weather. Um, you're trying to stay hidden from an animal. Um, and then once the shots made, then sometimes, uh,

it's not over, right? You know, whether it's tracking animals or packing animals, it seems like it's, it's a pretty, pretty, um, pretty, pretty big deal. Like it's, it's not just, you know, turn on the camera and pushing the go button.

Yeah, you're definitely a part of the hunt more so than, you know, you're filming other content or you're filming other projects. You're sort of outside of it. But filming hunts, you're very much there. I mean, whether it's a, you know, spot and stalk coos hunt. I filmed an archery coos hunt in Arizona last year, and that was incredibly challenging. And we were successful on the first day, but it was challenging.

that was one of the the hardest counts i've filmed and then one of my proudest camera moments is actually you know stocking in 500 yards on a bedded buck with the guy filming and getting into 28 yards and making the shot like you're very much immersed in the hunt or you're sitting in a stand with a guy for 12 hours hanging in a tree waiting for a deer to come by and you know all the stuff that goes along with that being quiet and being still and stuff so you're definitely

You're definitely very much a part of the hunt instead of just an outside observer. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.

Well, I was, uh, I, well, I follow you on Instagram and I saw where you were promoting a film, you know, your latest film called tracking a canine film. Um, so then I got on YouTube and I gave it a watch and man, that was a really cool, really cool film. And I've, I've had lots of like interest in, in questions about tracking dogs over the years. Like, um, as a, as a long time hunter, you know, and I've hunted with a lot of people and I've hunted a lot myself, um,

And, you know, sometimes shots are not ideal and they go, you know, no matter how hard you try for like the perfect close shot, something happens, you know, you can hit a limb or whatever. And, you know, if you're on one of those kinds of track jobs, you're just like wondering like, man, if I had a track dog, like tracking dog, what, what could, what could happen? How effective are they? Can,

man, it, I wish I had one, you know what I mean? Um, so watching that film, I was like, oh, this is so cool. So I thought I definitely wanted to reach out and kind of, um, pick your brain about tracking dogs.

Yeah, absolutely. And I appreciate you watching the film. That was definitely a, you know, a passion project. I have a, I have a Belgian Malinois that in conjunction with developing the film, I taught her how to blood track. So I got this dog and, you know, looking for a task and purpose for her, this breed in particular kind of needs a job. Otherwise they're, they can get a little unruly.

And so I'd actually filmed a track with Mark Kenney. And that was the first time that I ever saw tracking dogs in action. We were down in Alabama. Mark made a good shot, but this buck just piled up and disappeared in the brush. And we brought in some dogs to track it. I just, I thought it was the coolest thing I'd ever seen. It's such an incredible resource. And then the handler sort of dog relationship, I think is really incredible. And

You know, I grew up with hounds, you know, running coon hounds, raising coon hounds. But this, you know, sort of the relationship with these tracking dogs, I think it's way more intimate. And yeah, it's just an incredible resource. And through the film, I wanted to just highlight that to a broader audience. I want people to know that these resources are available and that people, us as handlers, are just really excited to work our dogs. We're really passionate about it and we want to help people recover stuff.

Yeah. Yeah. That's awesome. It, it kind of showed through it. Like there was some interview, uh, sections through there and, you know, different handlers talking about, um, their dog or why they, how they got into it and stuff, which was really, really interesting. Um, so you have a tracking dog. I do. What, what breed is it? This is a Belgian Malinois. So kind of, uh, like a German shepherd pointy eared, a little bit smaller, a little, a little spicier. They're kind of feisty dogs, but, uh,

Yeah, so she's just, you know, they're used in protection and tracking and law enforcement. But for this purpose, she's incredible. She's got an unbelievable nose and she wants to work. She's got really high drive. So that helps immensely with the tracking. She wants to go find stuff and she's got no quit. How old is she? You know, I rescued her. So the vet thinks she was probably about four when I got her. And so now just under five years old, I've had her for about eight months now.

Okay. Yeah. So she had a whole life before this. I have no idea. She was, uh, she was picked up on the streets of Wisconsin. Holy cow. And, uh, yeah, I went and got her and then, you know, kind of started training with her right away, but she's, I don't know much of her history, but she's taken to it really well, thankfully.

Yeah, that's great. You know, that was going to be one of my next questions because, um, they say you can't teach an old dog new tricks. And I was wondering how old, you know, I'm sure ideally, you know, if you had a pup, you know, start training them. But, you know, if, if someone listening had a dog, who's, you know, several years old, you know, it, maybe it's not too late to start, uh, training and working with the dog on that.

No, not at all. I mean, people will start puppies at eight weeks and they'll do, you know, deer liver drags to get them interested in tracking. But with her, you know, I do a little bit of other sport works and sort of German dog sport stuff, IGP and American Schutzen. And there's a component of tracking to that that I started working with her. So you kind of lay a little track out and there's a big reward at the end and you just start reinforcing that sort of the find it and the, you know, the will to track. Yeah.

And then switch that over to blood. So I had a little bit of experience with tracking beforehand, but nothing with blood or kind of any animal stuff. So, but she took to it extremely quickly. I think I, you know, you show these dogs are incredibly smart and you just teach them the game, show them that there's a really high value reward at the end of it. And they'll work for it. You know, as long as they've got a little bit of drive and they can understand what you're asking to do. I think you can teach, you know, I don't think there's a limitation to what dog that you can teach the track. Yeah.

Okay. Now you mentioned laying out a trail and then, but it wasn't necessarily a blood trail. Could you give an example of what that would be?

Yeah, absolutely. So with the sort of the American Shed Center, IGP tracking, these again, these are like sort of dog sport organizations. You'll use their favorite treat. And in my case, she gets a raw only diet. So for her, it was just dehydrated beef liver, just little chunks of liver. And you make a footstep and you kick your heel in and you just put a little treat in that heel.

lay out a track and normally we'll start with like a circle track so maybe you do 20 paces in a circle there's a treat in each footstep and at the end there's a big pile of treats or like a hot dog or you know some sort of high value reward and then you just show them you just point to the footprint they sniff they indicate that hey i know something's in there and they go to the next and you just start running that circle track so they get the idea that hey if i follow this track there's a big prize

And then from there, you go to straight tracks where you may run it out 100 yards in a straight line. Then you start adding some angles. And then from there, that's when the blood came into it. So like, you know, she kind of understood tracking and she knew that it was a valuable thing. And that's when I started introducing the blood for her to kind of make that the thing she would seek out.

Oh, that's, that's really interesting. Um, yeah, I, in my mind, I was trying to think, you know, what that would all look like. And it's completely different than how I anticipated in my head. So now that's really cool. I have, uh, um, I've got labs, I've got a black lab who's like seven years old and I got a yellow lab who's about eight months old. And, um, I've always wanted to, to work at like trying to train them things to, to be blood trailers. And unfortunately I would,

when I go to hunting camp, my dogs are always home. You know, I don't take them to camp because they, I don't want them to have to sit at home at camp by themselves all the day, all day by themselves. And they can be long days and, and sometimes inclement weather, you know, maybe it's hot as heck, you know, you don't, you don't want them overheating or, or, you know, whatever it can't be an unattended. So, um, yeah, I've been wanting to kind of train my dogs to be able to do that. But, um,

That's a really cool way to get them started. Now on the video, I noticed one of the dogs, it looked like they were training it with like a patch of deer hide or something, like doing a hide and drag or something. Yeah. So that'll be the, that'll be the prize at the end. So when we start laying,

you know, practice packs, but out in the real world, we'll use a piece of hide and, uh, you know, we'll try to, we'll try to get a hide with a little bit of like meat left on the back or something like that. And that's what they find at the end. So they know they're kind of looking for that. They're, they're sending the blood. And then when they get close, they can smell that hide and that's the reward. They get to tear that thing up and they get to chew on the hide. You play tug with it. You get them super excited about it. They can peel some of that meat off and that's the big prize. They get to carry it around at the end. And that's,

that's to get them to kind of go the final distance. So like they, you know, sent to the blood bowl away and then here's the hide, here's the yannick. And then that's sort of indicate on it and let you know where it is. Cause I, early on, I had her walk past a few pieces of hide. She followed the track perfectly. And then she just kept going and I didn't place enough value on that hide. And then you get it out, play with it, teach her that that's a fun thing and a good thing. And now she'll go right to it.

So it's a little trial and error, but yeah. Yeah. Yeah. She had to understand that was the goal, right? Yep. Yeah. That's the prize. There's, that's the fun thing at the end or the tasty thing. She's super food driven. So for me, it's yeah. Like I, I started feeding her her dinner at the end of a track. So she gets the track and then there's a big pile of, you know, beef liver and chicken parts and all that stuff. And that's, that's her big win is food at the end. Oh yeah. Yeah. So then she's probably like, man, can we just track something? I'm hungry. I want to eat.

All the time. Whenever we're out, she's always sending, you know, like we've, we've got a ritual when we start our track, I put a certain harness on her and we kind of go through a ritual. I said some stuff I say to her probably, I don't know if saying anything matters for me, it gets me excited to track, but I go through a ritual and then she clicks over to tracking mode and it's like go time. But whenever we're out, she's always sending, she just got a great nose and she's always looking for something. And we've got a ton of deer around where I live. So she's always keying in on them.

That's awesome. I used to have a yellow lab back in the day and I did spend a little bit of time with her trying to get her to track blood. I would take like a, anytime we'd open a, a bag or like a, a wrapped up

Package of elk steak or whatever. Then I would take it with, they had the blood on it and I take it out in the yard and like kind of, you know, drag it out through the yard. And then when she couldn't see me, you know, and then I'd have a little bit of elk meat, a little, you know, bite-sized tidbit of elk meat out there. And then I'd let her in. I'm like, come on, you know, try to put, get her on this scent. And she, she would kind of find it.

And then, um, my brother hit this bull and we were, we were trying to track it and we, we couldn't find it. You know, the thing kind of ducked when he hit, when he shot and it hit it really high, kind of up in the high shoulder. And, but we thought, well, there, you never know there. It's probably not a lethal shot, but you never know. We have to try our best. So I went and got her and I put her on a leash. Of course, Idaho, you have to have your dog on a leash.

And, and maybe that's the custom, you know, for most states or customary for everyone anyway, tracking. I'm not sure. I'm not that familiar with it, but. They're a little wild in the South. They can run them on GPS collars. We have to, we have to be on lead in the Rocky mountain States, but down South, it's a,

They get to have a little more fun. They can just send them. Okay. But yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And, um, it took her a minute where, you know, I walked her back and forth through the brush there kind of where the last blood was. And then all of a sudden it just like a light bulb went off and she's like, and just started pulling and just like, I could, I couldn't hardly keep up. Like she was running me through the brush. Like, and it wasn't like once she kind of figured out what she was supposed to be, she ran like she was on it. And, um, we crested this Ridge and we got up there and,

And there was a flock of turkeys and that flock of turkeys just went everywhere and it was over. She was just like, ah, turkey. All she had on her head was turkeys at that point. Yeah. Over-stimulated. Yeah. Yeah. Five value prizes. Yeah. So we never did find that elk, but I'm, I know it was a non-lethal hit. I seen it. Yeah. Super high shoulder, but.

It sounds like she, she understood though, like what she was doing. I mean, you know, they're, they're very clear when they're tracking versus when they're on a walkabout, you know? Yeah. I used to, I used to take her to camp a lot. Um, she was really good to be by herself and I could, I could literally leave her in the back of my pickup all day. She'd sit back there and she'd had water, food, uh, shelter, and I could leave her in the back of my truck all day and I'd come back and she's there, you know? Um, so one day I killed this bull very close to the truck.

And, um, I shot him and, and he expired and Mike, I didn't even go look for him yet. And I'm like, you know, this would be a great opportunity for it to let her learn and, and find that prize at the end, find that elk.

And so I went and got her and got her on there and man, she just, she got right on that track and drug, drug me right down the elk. It was a pretty short blood trail, but it was funny. I, when we got to the elk, I let her off the lead and she's all sniff, sniff, sniff. And immediately she goes back to the hind quarter, um,

by the, the, by the, the bung and grabs ahold of that, that tender hide right there and just starts tugging. Like, like it was instinctual that, Hey, you start on your, you even, you eat an elk from this direction. Like I've seen wolves do that on TV. I thought, wow, how's this dang dog, the yellow lab know how to start that in on an elk to eat it.

Yeah, they've got that. Mine does the same thing. It's super common to see that with the tree because we let them, we usually ask the hunter like, hey, what are you going to do with this animal? Are you going to cave it or are you going to year it away? Is it okay if she gnaws on it for a little while? And that's the spot. That seems to be the sweet spot that they all go for. We've all seen plenty of gadgets and fads come and go, but here's one product that stood the test of time. Seafoam motor treatment. Lots of hunters and anglers know that seafoam helps engines run better and last longer.

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As I broke that bull down and whittled him down, every time I'd have a little tidbit, man, she just sitting there right there waiting for it, man. She just got to eat her fill of little tidbits and scraps. So that was awesome. But I never did have another opportunity to get her on an elk, which I always regret. I thought, you know, dang it. That was, you know, this is 20 years ago, but I always regretted not having that opportunity. So with my new pups, I'd like to, I'd like to do that again sometime.

Yeah, it's pretty easy to get started. And we have a lot of people in our organization that have dual purpose dogs. You know, we've got folks that have bird dogs that blood track and, you know, shed hunting dogs that blood track as well. So they can serve a multi-purpose. I haven't done any other training with her other than blood tracking, but there are some folks that are really successful with differentiating different disciplines with their dogs. So even if you've got a retriever or, you know, you've got an upland dog, there's a good chance you can teach it the blood track as well.

And there are probably some people that would argue that, but you know, in our group, we've got, we've definitely got some multipurpose dogs that do a really good job. Sure. Sure. I have a buddy who's a, an outfitter and he, he's got a bear, bear and cat dogs, right? Yeah. Yeah. And he said, there's a couple of them that'll track blood. So, but he hasn't put much effort into it, but I'll bet if he worked with him a little bit more, he could probably just have some really good success with that. Absolutely. Yeah. And those dogs are, I mean, they've got so much drive. All you gotta do is

you know, teaching the rules and pointing them in the right direction and they'll find it. Yeah. Yeah. Are there, are there any particular breeds, uh, someone should be looking at, um, for tracking? Um, like maybe, maybe a French bulldog wouldn't be the best, whereas another breed would be excellent. Well, it's funny you ask. This is like the most contentious topic, at least in our organization and in our group about, about breeds. So that a really popular breed is not that far from your French bulldog, which are dachshunds.

So there is a ton of tracking there. You saw in the film, the little Lucy there, that little, that little doxy that my buddy Scott owns. She's an incredibly accomplished tracking dog and she's tenacious. I mean, you think a dog that size would run out of steam pretty quick. She's like a little ferret through the, through the brush and she's unbelievable. So, so dachshunds are really popular. You see a lot of Catahoulas. You see a lot of,

uh bavarian mountain hounds become a popular i don't know if you've seen those they're a smaller hound they're really cool looking little dogs and uh that's getting popular a few pointy year dogs you know we've got a couple of german shepherds uh i know there's a gal as a malinois so similar kind of the shepherd breeds um but there's a huge variety i mean people run like anything you can imagine i mean you've got your your bird dogs and your retrievers uh it's a big mix but primarily it's

You see a lot of dachshunds. Right. Probably enough. I watched a video. Shoot. I don't even know where I seen it. Maybe on a forum. This was probably even before Facebook, right? This is on one of the, the hunting forums back when that's what we did. And, um, somebody had, uh,

put a posted a picture of their buck and in the story how you know that they shot it and it just starts snowing like crazy and it came out a huge snow that night and it snowed like put down like a foot and a half two feet of snow and drifts and and um they had called someone a local person who had a um

tracking dog when it shows up. It's a long-haired dachshund, right? This dog looks like it has no business being in snow, number one, or tracking anything, right? Yeah. And they made a little video about it, in fact. And this dog, I mean, there's no way you're going to find this deer. And that little dog, it would just like...

sniffing it sniffed around and then just started kind of leaping leaping through the the snow it could barely even get through the snow it was the funniest thing to watch it work and it found that deer it was completely covered in snow it didn't there wasn't even an antler sticking out and it found that deer um like a day and a half later so i thought that was pretty incredible for such a neat little dog to be able to find that but yeah it is it's remarkable just the time that

Folks are finding animals after, I mean, we've got 30 and 40 hour later tracks. It's just truly what these dogs can, you know, I,

you can go online and try to look up there's all these statistics and figures about how much more powerful their sense of smell is and i'm sure it's exponentially more but i think it works in a different way than ours does too you know i imagine it's like someone put it really eloquently is it's like they're they're like painting a scene in their mind every time they smell something whereas you know we smell something it's an odor we try to correlate what it is they're it's opening up this whole visual to them and

really watching these dogs track on very little sign, very little sand. You know, you may have a few spots of blood over a few miles and these dogs can just find stuff. I mean, it's really, that's the biggest part of doing this tracking is just watching them be successful. And it's just, it's kind of otherworldly how good they are at it. So what's the best thing you can do with your dog to like, um,

The best thing you can do with your dog, whether it's like, okay, I noticed one guy on the film said, you know, it's imperative to spend as much time with your dog as you can, you know, maybe not even like working, tracking, just getting to know each other, getting to know each other's quirks, personalities and stuff. What would you consider that would be a pretty high, I think like one of the best things you can do with your dog?

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, whether you're tracking or whether you're just building a relationship and, you know, I'm part of a working dog club. So we spend a lot of time training our dogs. And in the beginning, when you get a dog, we say this over and over again, it's just engagement. You're engaging with your dog, you know, before we do any kind of obedience or, you know, any kind of high level stuff, you're just, you're playing with your dog, you're interacting with your dog. Maybe as simple as like, you're walking and you've got treats in your hand. And if your dog looks at you once, they get a treat.

And then they start correlating. They're like, hey, you're the provider of great things. And that bond develops. And then when it comes to tracking, I think that's the same thing. It's, you know, run a lot of tracks. You know, practice tracks are great. Get someone to run blind tracks for you. That's when I really started to make progress is getting other people to run tracks. So I don't have that confirmation bias of like, no, no, I know it's over here. And then it's just time behind your dog. Like,

you know there's some trackers that maybe a little bit more selective later in the season about what tracks they take just based on data collected from hunters like oh this doesn't sound like a fatal shout out it's far away but initially like i will take every tracking call i don't care if they're like i see it dead i just want to get behind her and watch how she indicates how she moves how she corrects herself and how she corrects me like typically i've

I think if the dog does something wrong, I just by default blame myself as the handler. Like they know what they're doing. I'm interfering some way. So yeah, just the more time you can spend with your dog and then behind your dog on a track,

you know, I mean, just develop that trust. And that's like a key takeaway is just trusting your dog. We say that that's our mantra over and over again is just trust your dog. They know what they're doing. We're just along for the ride. And even we get some hunters that are like, I'm pretty sure it went to the left. And I'm like, he wants to go to the right. I'm just going to follow her. If I start questioning her, this isn't going to work. So I'm just going to go with my dog and, you know, we can meet back up or whatever. And she's not wrong. Yeah. So it's just, it's just trusting that and being able to like kind of

you know, advocate for your dog. Now, as you're tracking, are you like, are you like coaxing the dog, encouraging the dog? Are you just like, once she gets the scent, you're like, okay, I'm just going to let her work. Yeah. I'm just along for the ride. I try not to, to,

It's a little stuff and I'll add a caveat to this whole thing. This is my first full season tracking. So I'm relatively new to this. We've had some great recoveries. We've had some non-recoveries that turned out to be non-fatal, but I'm still learning this process, but I'm really fortunate to have a great network of people that I've trained with and that have helped me. And early on, I'd run some practice tracks and you're like, hey, you're pushing your dog. So I track on a 30-foot lead.

And if I'm not at the end of that 30 foot lead, I'm probably pushing my dog. So like if she's, you know, she stops and she's airsending or she's indicating or sniffing and I walk up on her, there's a potential that I'm going to push her forward and kind of break her concentration off that track. So, you know, once I give her the command, I use a, you know, German command soup, go find it. She takes off. I let her run out to the end of that.

30 feet, she starts tracking. I put a little back tension on it just to kind of keep her drive up. She's pulling a little bit and then I just stay back and let her work. And if she needs to, you know, if she needs to, you know, go to the edges of the scent pool, she may, you know, track a little bit to the right and a little bit to the left to kind of get where that concentrated scent is. I just let her work through it and then off we go. So yeah, I try not to, I try not to, I try not to interfere, you know, if not much, if not all.

Yeah. I, I wondered about that long tracking lead too, because I noticed in that film, a lot of the dogs had a really long tracking lead. It's like,

wow that's that's a lot longer than i would have anticipated but um but i don't know a thing about it so that's interesting um which makes sense you want to let you want to kind of you don't want to interfere right you don't you want to let them kind of figure it out and not distract them so that's good yeah and we all have our biases like you know all of the like you know uh gotcha deer goes to water every time wounded elk don't go uphill there's all these like weird little you know you kind of get a bias you look at the landscape and you're like well it probably went that way but

We don't know that at all. So if you're up and you're pushing your dog, you could be pushing them off the track simply because you think you know more than, you know, a dying elk or a blood tracking dog. So getting back that, you know, getting back that 30 feet and just letting them work through it, I think just gives them all the opportunity to kind of make the right decisions and figure it out on their own. Sure. Sure.

What do you think would be the worst thing you could do for your dog or do to your dog if you're trying to train this dog to track blood? Well, that's a great question. I think probably running super complicated tracks to begin with and then your dog not winning is probably a huge one. You know, people have this

I don't know if this is true, but I've seen a few folks try to run these really complex long tracks with a bunch of right angles and crossing different mediums, going from grass to gravel to woodland. And then the dog doesn't find it. And then they get super discouraged. There's no reward at the end. And then if you reward them for not finding it, you're creating this terrible habit of like, oh, if I just, if I'm just out here, something good's going to happen instead of I have to work for this. So I think people, and I was guilty of this when I started, I laid a few good rules

100 yards straight track she did great and i'm like cool we're going for 500 yards and i'm going to throw some turns in it and it was not good like it just didn't you know she just didn't she didn't learn the rules early enough and so yeah i had to kind of put an end to that very quickly but it's not not making it too complicated in the beginning like you must have a bunch of victories over and over again and reinforce that good things happen if you complete this correctly yeah yeah that's good advice i would i would

definitely be the first one to be like all right cool you found it let's let's make this interesting you know let's really learn but but like you said let's give them lots of little victories and then maybe work up to that slowly let's work up to those long ones huh yeah and i think that's what all dog training whether you're training a bird dog or anything like that it's just you know you just got to make it super fun and super rewarding for them otherwise they they're not dumb i mean they get bored they realize that they could break the rules so it's just

Yeah. You've got to like really, really force that in the beginning. Okay. Now, how, how often are you working with your dog, uh, training on this or is it like once a day, once a week? Um, yeah, so I, I do like obedience training with her and just some, some detection stuff every day, just with this breed. They're, they're a lot of, they're a handful. If I don't train her every day, she gets, well,

Probably my couch. So I do about an hour of obedience training every day. That's going to, I've got a baseball field that I train at. So I take her to the field and we do some healing and, you know, down commands and just some, some basic obedience stuff. And then I'll lay a track nowadays, probably twice a week.

that I'll do a little bit of a longer track with her. And that's just to reinforce. I might throw up, you know, like a right-hand turn or two into it, but we're tracking a lot this season. So I haven't been, you know, I was doing daily tracks in the beginning, you know, kind of some short, just some short, quick tracks, like, you know, lay it in the morning and then take her out four hours later at lunch and run the track and she wins and to reinforce. But yeah, with the season being busy and we've been on the road quite a bit. Yeah. Maybe once or twice a week, I'll actually do a practice track with her.

And then otherwise, just every day, you know, our kind of fun, obedient stuff. I'll throw a tug. We'll play a little play fight and stuff like that. And that keeps her engaged and happy.

Okay. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. I want to switch gears here for a minute, and we're going to do the Pendleton Whiskey's Q&A. This section is sponsored by Pendleton Whiskey. And normally I read a question from a listener or play a question from a listener, or I get something off of Facebook or Instagram. But this one, this week is for me. This is a little self-explanatory.

self-serving here this week. Um, and plus I didn't have enough time to like put anything out any, any feelers out to see if anybody wanted to ask you a question. But, uh, so this one's for me, um, as a hunter, what are some things to do or not to do if you've hit an animal?

You can't find it. And then you think, you know, I want to get a dog to recover it for me. What, what, what are some things you should do? And what are some, some things you should definitely should not do before getting a dog on that track?

That is a million dollar question. That's the perfect question. There's so much you can do right in this situation. And there's a lot that you can do wrong that can impede the dog. So we'll start with the right stuff. You know, mark all of your blood, you know, for using Onyx, drop a point, make sure you get the hit site, first blood, last blood, you know, be really specific about where you're finding stuff.

And then take photos of the blood is a huge one. You know, if you're if you're tuning archery, if you recover the arrow, take pictures of that, like, you know, kind of play CSI crime scene tech, take a lot of photos, take notes, mark stuff. The more data we have when we start to track, you know, I think the better off we are, you know, reach out and reach out and be prepared to answer some questions. We're going to ask you stuff like, how far are you away from the trailhead? How do we get to you? Where are you?

You know, how many people are you with? When did you shoot? What did it sound like? What did the animal do? What are you shooting? So we'll collect a bunch of data as well. So kind of be prepared to answer some questions and then some stuff not to do. The biggest thing is don't call 12 of your best buddies and grid search for five hours because you've taken any of that scent and you've dispersed it over this giant kind of giant area. And it's really confusing for the dog. I mean, I've watched her.

Someone walked out to a hit site in an alfalfa field, stepped in some blood and walked back to their truck. And I started running back and she followed that straight to the truck. She followed those bloody footprints right back to the truck. And I'm like, all right, we got to restart. And I let her run it. I don't mean I didn't want to pull her off. But yeah, the more people you get out and the more time you spend kind of grid searching and stomping around, you're just spreading scent all over the place. And they can work through it, but it just adds a ton of extra work for the dog.

So you're better off kind of going into a clean. So, you know, mark everything back out and then just, this is common hunting stuff, but just don't push it. We've had a lot of animals get pushed this year after, you know, liver shots or like kind of a single lung, you know, uh, you know, quartering away, shot it in the pocket, hit a lung, maybe hit the far shoulder and people are going in super soon and bumping them. You know, we, we ran a track this year. We, it was a three and a half mile track.

with just a little bit of blood at the head site. And then maybe we found one drop of blood a mile in and then we hit a meadow and this thing was gone. So three and a half miles seems like a long way to track, but for a wounded elk that's up and moving, that's minutes. Right. Yeah. So just that like back out, be patient, you know, like liver shot, it's okay to wait 12 hours. We can come the next day and track. Okay. I think that's it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That that's great advice because I think,

I think a lot of times people, by the time they think, oh, this is our last resort is to get a dog on it. We've grid searched for hours. That's, that's like,

The, the wrong, the wrong mindset I think, um, is, is, is having all your buddies, um, cover every square inch and then call the dog. Like when it looks like it's a bad hit and it's not going to be a great blood trail, like you said, back out and get ahold of the dog. And then that way they have fresh, fresh trail to run. And it's probably going to be a lot more effective. Yeah. It makes a lot of sense. Absolutely. And another thing, don't worry about weather. If it rains, it's better for the dog.

Oh, wow. I don't know the science, but whatever reconstitutes or intensifies the scent. So like, don't worry about weather. Don't panic if it's raining or drizzling or a little bit of snow, you know, the dogs can still track. And per your example, that, that little dog from, you know, leaping like a coyote through the snow, they, the weather doesn't bother them. Yeah. That's man. That's awesome. That's, that's good information. I think, I think a lot of folks, um, would, uh,

Would definitely not do that. You know, they would definitely try to grid search and all that before they found it. So that's good information. Yeah. So everyone, you want to find your animal. I understand, but yeah. Yeah. You have to be smart about it. Yep. Give it some time. Yeah. We've all seen plenty of gadgets and fads come and go, but here's one product that stood the test of time. Seafoam motor treatment. Lots of hunters and anglers know that seafoam helps engines run better and last longer.

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folks. Can you talk about that a little bit? Yeah, absolutely. And we touch on this in the film. My friend Scott started this organization back in 2019. And the catalyst was him seeking a tracking dog and kind of getting new experience. And he started training his own dog.

And it was a way to get a group of people together that are really passionate about tracking and make it more accessible to the general public at large. You know, like I think for a long time, tracking was just, hey, I know a guy, I know a gal, sort of word of mouth, people advertising at their local hunting shop and stuff like this. But with Rocky Mountain Big Game Recovery, it's, you know, on the website, we have a map that says find a tracker and you can put in your zip code and it'll show a map with the nearest tracker and their contact information.

So you can reach out and request a track. But the nice thing is we all keep in contact. We all have a WhatsApp running and a private Facebook page. So if I say like, I can't track and share it and I've got another tracker, Jana, who's just a couple of hours away, I'll just say, Jana, can you come take this? And she'll come on the track. So we've got a pretty robust network growing and very seldomly are we not available to track for folks.

So, and, and it's just, uh, it's a lot of really good people. You'll see some of them in the film. We're, we're, we're nerds. We're really passionate about our dogs. It's, uh, yeah, we're a little bit, a little bit crazy about it, but, uh, yeah, we love working our dogs. We love helping hunters. We're all hunters. I mean, we're a hunting organization. And so, uh, I think it's just a, you know, it's just an act of service that we all really enjoy being a part of.

That's really cool. Now I seen like some ribbons and like, sort of, do you like, do you, you and your dog get certified before you become like a member of the, of the trackers per se, the network?

Yeah, you can. So there's an organization, United Blood Trackers. And so they're kind of a bigger organization. They've got folks all over the country, a big presence in the Midwest. And they do do a certification program. So you've got three levels, your UBT one, two, and three. One's pretty basic. Two's definitely a more challenging and three is nuts. There's like water crossings and stuff hidden in rivers and backtracking and all kinds of, it's sort of a

I don't, I don't know how many threes there are, but a lot more prevalent for the UBT ones and twos. And so you don't necessarily have to have a certification to offer your tracking services, but when you do get your certification, it shows up on the map that you're a certified tracker. So I think, I think it's a good way to let folks know that you're serious about it. And then I also just think it's fun to, to kind of run through that with your dog, just to go have that experience. And the judges are phenomenal. You know, we do a,

We did our first annual seminar, I believe it was last March, down in Bailey, Colorado. And so we ran it out of Big Scout Camp, and we brought in trackers from all over the country. We had people drive all the way from Florida, the upper Midwest, the East Coast, stayed at this ranch, and we did a bunch of certifications, ran a bunch of dogs, and then did a big workshop. We did everything from like, you know, we have a woman in our group who's a veterinarian, and she did a how to care for your dog and gear breakdown for stuff that happens in the field. Well,

a bunch of regulation stuff, you know, different tracking training. And so, yeah, we're going to run that again this spring and try to bring people out and certify some more dogs and get some more teams on the map.

Oh, that's awesome. I w I was looking at the website and I noticed that it said that the date was to be determined still. But, uh, yeah, if anyone's interested in attending that, then do they have to sign up ahead of time? Uh, what probably once they determine what the date is, the probably be a way to sign up and, and, and get your name on the list.

Yeah. And I think we should be sending that out pretty shortly. I think we're doing mother's day weekend. So sorry, everybody in the club, if I was wrong about that, but I know we had talked about it in our last monthly meeting and then yeah, you'll register. And what's nice about this camp is it's got just a ton of different cabins. So there's actually, you can get a place to stay. You can bring a camper, you can bring an RV, you can pitch a tent, but they've got cabins available. So you can rent a cabin out, have a place for you and your dog and all your gear. And then there's the big main hall where we do all the, you know, uh,

workshops and lessons and then from there we run the tracks it's all you know a bunch of private and national forest and we'll run tracks and people will go certify and you know we've got some folks that are going to go for their level one and two in the same weekend so they'll run two tests and like we've got a maybe one or two folks that are going to go for three which i'm going to film that that's going to be a spectacle it's a crazy long track with a bunch of obstacles and

Yeah. And I'm looking forward to it. No, that's, that's incredible. It's just crazy how smart and good dogs can really be at like following tracks or you see the drug dogs and all these different working dogs that, that use their noses to detect different things. I've like, I seen a thing where dog, you were using a dog to detect like sicknesses, different kinds of sicknesses in somebody's like if they had cancer or something, but it's just crazy or incredible that dogs can,

And I always say this, like, I feel like people always underestimate dogs of how intelligent they really are. And I think this just really proves it. Absolutely. Yeah. It's just, you know, I think we try to parallel what we can do versus what dogs can do. Like, sure, we smell things, but I don't, I don't think it's in the same league by any margin. When these dogs are smelling, I imagine...

This whole world is being created to them. They're seeing visually what the scent leaves behind. And it's hard to quantify that in our brains, but they just, again, we've had some long tracks where we've gone miles and you're starting to lose hope and you're doubting your dog and the hunter's like, there's no way this is going to happen. And then all of a sudden there's a little drop of blood on a log and you're like, this is the smartest animal that's ever lived. Like, no question. It's an incredible feeling to watch that happen. Oh, yeah.

Yeah. So if I wanted to get ahold of a, uh, of a tracker, I get on your, the web Rocky mountain, um, big game recoveries website. I go to the map, I type in my zip code. I try to find a local somebody. What if there's nobody close by? How far will a tracker go to, um, like there's like five, six hours. Is that like out of the question? No. In fact, I'd so, you know, in conjunction with producing this film, um,

uh i was out in colorado with some friends at a camp and we were tracking from there so we basically all go in a central location and we go off and there's a guy out of missouri that gosh he'll drive 12 hours to track to track where he literally he'll go from like steamboat colorado to moab in one shot to go track an animal and then drive back like he's holy cow yeah well well you know we've done i've done some good like three hours one way to track all day drive three hours back and we just don't mind it i mean it's it's just uh

Yeah. It's, it's probably unhealthy, but we, we get a lot of satisfaction out of it. Yeah. Yeah. Well, yeah, you want to try it, probably take every opportunity you can to get that dog out there and let him do, do his work. Cause it's probably really fun for the dog.

yeah it's her favorite thing and they deserve it i mean she deserves to work that's like you know she's brought a lot of joy into my life she's an incredible companion and it's just the least i can do is give her an opportunity to do something that she loves and that she i mean again when i put on her tracking harness she transformed she becomes a little tasmanian devil so just she'll get her harness on and i'll be holding her back and she's just digging a trench because she just wants to go and knowing that she loves it that much it's just uh

Yeah. There's no too far to drive for that. Yeah. That's, that's good. That's good news. That's good news. Cause I could see somebody looking at the map and be like, ah, that's like three hours away. They're probably not going to, I won't bother him. I don't want to call him. That's too far, but yeah. Chances are if they're available, they probably would come. Yeah. And I would recommend just reach out to somebody on the map because again, we all communicate with each other. You know, there's,

I think there's a little over 40. It's time of filming. We have about 40 tracking teams in the sort of Rocky Mountain West. We're all on WhatsApp. So if a track comes in, we push it out to the WhatsApp. We'll put some details in there and like, hey, who can take this? And we'll liaise with the hunter if we need to connect them with the tracker. But even if you don't see one nearby, just pick a person on the map, send them a message, and we'll get it out to the network. I mean, we really do want to recover it.

recover this stuff for folks. We'll do everything we can to get out there. That's so awesome.

I, every year I, I see on social media where somebody will like on a, like an elk page or whatever, they'll say, Hey, does anybody know anyone that has tracking dogs? Um, or sometimes somebody will send me a message and be like, Hey, I shot a bull and you know, this is, you know, what I've been finding and any, any ideas what I should do next. I kind of try to walk them through, like if I were to be looking for that animal, what I would do, but, um, it's good to know, like have that resource to recommend, say, Hey, reach out to these folks and see if,

if anybody can come and help you, um, what, what do they normally charge someone to do that, um, to come out and try to find your elk for you or your deer or whatever it is you're looking for?

Yeah. So we don't charge. We do work depending on what some States we can't do this. So depending on where it's legal, we can accept it. You know, we can accept a gratuity if you're happy with our service and you want to, you know, provide a tip gas money, stuff like that. We can, we'll graciously accept it. Again, if it's legal, some States it's not in that case, if you feel inclined, we do have a, you know, we're a nonprofit, so you can donate on the website if you find the, the service valuable, but you know, we don't charge, we don't have set rates. We don't,

have a price list or anything like that. We'll come out and we'll come out and track for a candy bar if we need to. Man, that's, that's remarkable. That's,

That, that just proves, you know, you guys are doing it for the right reasons. Um, but definitely I'd feel awful guilty if somebody drove four hours and spent half the night looking for my elk and then at least pay for their gas. It definitely make a huge donation of some kind to the organization. So. Yeah. And that's really appreciated. But again, it's just the,

You know, like just one of my first tracks is a new tracker. I found a bull elk for a guy. So I live in Wyoming now. We're kind of by the Bighorns. And this poor guy, he just, he made a shot. He couldn't find it. And he was just, he was really distraught. It was a nice elk. He'd been hunting that region his whole life. It's his biggest elk of his life. And it was gone. And it's like a hot day, 30 hours later.

And it was a tough track. We had no blood at the head site. He had a busted arrow that he stuck in the ground about where he found it. And there was no blood we could see. It was kind of that sagey step. And then grabbed the arrow. I poured water on it and let her kind of sniff it and just center. And a long track. I gave up a little bit. He gave up a little bit. Finally found a little bit of blood. And then we talked to Ryzen. His elk was there and just...

The, the, the emotion that guy went through of seeing his elk that he thought he would never see again. He thought he wasted this beautiful ball. Like that was enough for me. That was like, she was so excited that she found it. This guy was, you know, over the moon that we recovered his elk like that. I probably felt just as strongly about finding that elk as this guy did. And just so proud of my dog and so happy for him. So, I mean, that's, that's really what, that's what motivates us for sure. Yeah. I keep,

You guys are making a difference definitely out there. Thank you. Man, I hope some people hear this and listen to it and, number one, want to maybe get involved and train their dog and become a tracker and maybe become part of your guys' network. That would be really cool just to have more people out there doing it. And then I hope folks who are listening –

If they get a pickle and just, you know, maybe lose an animal and now they have an alternative, like, Hey, I get it. I can get ahold of somebody and we can recover this or have a good opportunity or chance to recover it. So. Absolutely. Yeah. And we could use more trackers. There's the, the demand is rising and.

You know, like with this film coming out, I think it's a really good glimpse into the world of what we do. And I just hope that people see that, they realize that resource is there. But then again, you know, we can always use more tracking teams. I think that as people become more aware that this resource is available, you know, the demand is going to go up and we'd love to be able to never turn down a track. It would be great to be able to track everything, everything that comes across the network. Yeah. Yeah.

Now, if I wanted to come to your get together at the Rocky Mountain Big Game Recovery, what did they call it? Like just a rendezvous or something? Yeah, it'll be our 2025 spring rendezvous. Okay. Now, if I wanted to come now, do my dogs have to kind of know what they're doing? Or can people who are complete novices and don't have never trained their dog yet, they just want to see what it's about, bring their dog out. Can they do that?

Yeah, absolutely. I think it's a great way to kind of get introduced to the, you know, kind of get introduced to tracking. And then for me, the biggest thing was just the people that are there that you can kind of count on as a mentor. Like I was really new.

I went to this, I went to this seminar with just a little bit of training. I'd obviously never done any live recoveries yet. So I probably only trained her for, gosh, I was maybe a month into having her and training her before we went out on this thing and just following, following other people on their tracks. Like if you ask the handler, Hey, can I just come

observe your certification. You'll learn so much by walking behind that person and that dog, hearing the feedback from the judge, just learning, you know, how to read the dogs and their behaviors. Yeah, if you're interested at all in tracking, I think it's a really incredible way to, hey, just see what it's all about, see what's involved, but then be just to network with people, you know, maybe find a mentor, find some people that might be near you that you can go train with. I think it's incredibly valuable, even if you, you know, you want to leave the dog at home and just

I'm having that experience. I think there's a lot of value to that, but of course, bring your dog. We love dogs. So you're more than welcome to bring them. Yeah. Yeah. That's awesome. I'm going to have to definitely keep an eye out for that. Cause that might be, if I, if I don't have a schedule conflict, I'd like to maybe come, come check that out, come and see what it's all about. Oh, we'd love to have you. That'd be great. Yeah. Oh, let's see.

All right. Well, I think that's going to about wrap it up. We've been on here for 50 minutes, almost an hour. If folks want to look you up, how do they get a hold of you? Yeah, probably the easiest. I'm on Instagram, just at Matt Yagen Photo. And then my website's timehonoredmedia.com. Okay. And then the website for...

For Rocky mountain, big game recovery is Rocky mountain, big game recovery.org. It looks like. Correct. You got it. And I snooped around on that quite a bit now so far. So yeah, if anybody is curious about that, get on there and check it out. Any, any closing thoughts on, on, on blood tracking? I just say, if anybody wants to watch that film, I think it's a really good intro to why we do what we do. And yeah,

I think it does a good job of highlighting the relationship we as handlers have with our dogs. I mean, that's the biggest part of it. That film is available on the Pelican YouTube page. So it's tracking and it's sponsored by Pelican. Gosh, it launched a couple of days ago. So the film was out and so far we've had some really good feedback on it. So if you want to learn more about the world of tracking and see some of the personalities behind it, I suggest you go take a look.

Great. Great. Yeah. I'll put a link in the description. Um, yeah, I encourage everybody to go watch it. I enjoyed it. So, so, well, thanks Matt. I appreciate you coming on, uh, taking some time out of your day to talk about dog tracking. Well, thank you so much, Kirk. I appreciate you having me on. Yep. Thank you.

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