Harder blood tracking

This time the blood track was quite serious. It is wrong to call it a blood track because it didn't contain any blood at all. Maybe it was even too tough - it was made only with a deep frozen wild boar leg - the track was 24 hours old and the terrain was long grass and quite wet because of the rainy days. Ruudi smelled the starting point but was unable to find the right path in the beginning. He jumped around and smelled the air. I was constantly thinking how to teach him to smell the ground instead of air - but no command can be productive in this case. So I tried to be calm and tried to praise him if the nose touched the ground. We somehow still reached to the first "resting place". I didn't throw any peaces of flesh in it so Ruudi was very confused and didn't know what to search - although he was VERY keen on searching something. I'm not sure if Ruudi smelled something or it was my guidance but working together we somehow reached to the second turning point. Ruudi marked it quite well because I put a very small peaces of flesh in it the day before. Then again we had some troubles to find the correct path. Ruudi jumped around and smelled the air. Luckily the last part of the track wasn't in the long grass. Once Ruudi got there, the nose went down. Yes! Good, Ruudi! And the nose down we reached to the "animal".

I think it was a very good training for Ruudi. Now he understood that it's not the fast running but slow searching on the ground. But still the track was too difficult because it was in a wet long grass and 24 hours old very light footprints. The German guy said that water and wet grass is one of the biggest troubles for a dog. I must do this every weekend or Ruudi will not get the touch of it.

But.... before all that, we had a full hunting day. Ruudi was also quite tired after that because he had jump in the meadows again, play with the Jämptland puppy, attack the raccoon dog, dig in the ground and make sure that one wild boar is dead.

Here is some video and picture materials about that:

(click on the photo to see full album)