His main role will be to track any deer that have been wounded, either by rifle or by road traffic accident, and follow the scent through whatever cover we come across until the animal can be located and dispatched. This avoids leaving wounded animals wandering around the countryside, and most importantly means that deer are not left to suffer and die slowly. I believe that every ethical hunter should either own, or at least have access to a trained deer-tracking dog.
I have been training Gunnar since almost the day he arrived with us, to walk to heel, sit, lie down and stay (stand). These basic commands help us to bond as a team, and if I make the training process a game, keeping sessions short and pleasant, it becomes a fun experience that both of us enjoy. He is doing pretty well with these commands and over time I will have him accompany me into the woods, walking to heel, then sitting and lying down a few yards behind me for increasingly long periods up to, I hope, 45 minutes at a time. This will simulate my deer stalking when I frequently sit and wait alongside an opening in the woods. Gunnar's ability to lie down quietly and not to respond to the report of the rifle will be crucial in the final stages of his training as a deer dog.
His most recent training sessions have been slightly different. I have been training him to follow the scent of a wounded deer. How is this replicated? I simply take two of the feet from a recently shot beast and "walk" them through the woods. At the end of the trail I leave one of the feet and the skin for Gunnar to find. Once I know he can follow a short trail, the challenge is then to set the trail over increasingly long distances, ensuring that it goes through the same areas where live, unwounded deer have been moving. Will Gunnar stick to the scent of the dead/wounded beast, or will he be tempted to go off on a trail of a live animal that has passed by earlier in the day? And how on earth can a dog smell the difference between an unwounded and a wounded beast?
The answer to the second question is pure alchemy; I have no idea how he does it, but the dog can follow a trail of a few hundred yards, made purely of hoof slots I have stuck in the ground earlier. I do not splash any blood anywhere; it's just the scent given off by those two hooves. The first question is much easier to explain. He follows the trail I have set because that is what we have practised from the beginning, starting with a 50 yard trail in my garden, accompanied by plenty of encouragement and reward for the right behaviour. Once this has been done a few times he gets the idea that he is meant to follow the trail of a wounded/dead beast and ignore the smell of a live/uninjured one. He also gets the reward of playing with the pelt and eating a foot at the end of it (yum!)
Playtime for Gunnar means a successful training session and a job well done!
So Mr. Preacher, what lessons do I glean from this little snippet? Here are a few:-
- I don't train Gunnar on what he should not follow. I teach him what he is meant to stick to. If I want to stick to the truth of the Bible, I study the Bible, not the errors that have arisen from false teaching.
- Put another way, Gunnar can smell what he is not meant to follow because he is sure of what he is meant to follow. In the same way, I can spot a fake by knowing what is the real, not by studying the false.
- Gunnar is rewarded for getting it right, not punished for getting it wrong. I simply preach the truth so that people can be built up and encouraged in their daily walk. Once I do this, I will hopefully see them spot a fake for themselves. I point out error but I don't spend my life shouting about it.
- Gunnar needs lots of practise so that eventually he will be able to follow a scent that is 48 hours old for distances of several miles. This is nothing short of outstanding, but it is worth pursuing this goal to maximise his potential and help him be all the dog he can be. As Christians we must exercise our minds, our faith and our commitment to God by spending enough time with Him each day so that we will mature in our faith, be able to stick to Him no matter what trials life may throw at us, and be unswerving in our sticking to the truth. We must, by practise, become effectively immune from falling into the traps of false teaching and from those who will preach "another gospel" to us or to those we love.
