My 18mo.old female GSD finds deer antlers and also follows blood trails. She followed app. a 500 yd trail I laid with deer blood that was 5 hours or so old. We have done this less than 10 times overall and I am proud/impressed so far.
I would leave 10 yd intervals with no blood. I had 4 or 5 right angles & a curve around some woods and over a creek(she took the bridge, I laid it across the creek) she then found the hide that I threw into the woods. There was some slight wind and for half the trail she was 10 - 30yds off of the trail but she found the end goal. When she lost it at the end she overshot and came back and found the hide. So I got Ed's video on competition tracking and before that had no clue how or what they even tracked. This is my first dog and GSD. So my question is, if I train my dog like in the video, with footsteps will she latch on to a specific deer footstep at the exact spot a deer has been arrowed, Or would she pick up the hunters feet and want to track that. I know there are dogs that do this but wondering if there are any that do that have been trained in this way and then back to the blood tracking. I personally would like her to ground scent more than wind scent in case we both lose the trail I know I will be close and can look for other signs of the direction of travel of the deer. I am looking to do some tracking comepetition in the future with her so we can stay busy all year round after hunting seasons are over.

Thanks in advance for input on this.

Adam

Have you read this book?

http://leerburg.com/964.htm

It talks about these tracking shoes in there, too.

http://borntotracknews.blogspot.com/

That sounds right up your alley in what you are wanting to do.

I've got that book. Its good but doesn't say much about how to get the dog to stay right on the trail like Eds video. Being the competitive person that I am and the potential I see in the dog I want to give the competition tracking a shot as well. Maybe AKC this time around. After thinking about this some more I think I just need to make each experience unique so when we walk up to the spot she knows if we are looking for a deer or if we are looking for articles or a person. That was my main concern, distinguishing the two events. Its probably as simple as two different commands. Maybe I'll use find it for sport tracking and where's the blood, as I use now, for the deer. I'll probably have to spring for some of those shoes too. I thought about attaching some to ski poles or walking sticks. I've seen those shoes sell for 200.00 or more!

Thanks for the response.