La methode gun

Tout dépend ce que tu attends de ton chien…
Si tu fais en sorte qu’il ai confiance en toi, que vous soyez complices, que tu soit attentif a ses besoins, ses demandes, que le jeu et le plaisir (ballades, câlins, nourriture) soient présents, il serra très réceptif et progressera plus rapidement. Un maître très communicatif, qui félicite, encourage, récompense son chien aura des meilleurs résultats (voir la méthode gun, c’est flagrant!).
Entre un prof qui s’occupe pas de vous, un prof qui vous crie dessus, ou un prof qui vous félicite et vous encourage, vous préférez lequel?
L’éducation de base (assis, couché, marche en laisse… ), cela se pratique dès l’arrivée du chiot, quelques minutes tous les jours. Une leçon à la fois: dès le deuxième jour, j’ai appris le « assis » à ma chienne avec la « récompense » (petite croquette bien tendre), il faut aussi faire l’exercice sans lui donner à chaque fois. En 5 minutes, elle avait compris (à la voix et au levé d’indexe, mademoiselle est gourmande).
Une fois mémoriser, on peut lui apprendre un nouvel ordre, tout en répétant ceux appris. Ne pas oublier, de pratiquer tous les jours, tout en étant compréhensif si le chiot est un peu dissipé, il est jeune. En club d’éducation, j’ai vu beaucoup de chiens devoir reprendre dès le début l’obéissance car leurs maîtres n’ayant pas le temps, n’étaient pas venus aux cours pendant plusieurs semaines et en plus n’avaient pas travaillés les exercices à la maison. Leurs chiens avaient tout oublié!
Si votre chien se sauve ou ne veux pas venir, il ne faut pas courir après, il va prendre cela pour un jeu (et il sait qu’il court plus vite que vous en plus) mais l’appeler par son nom en criant « viens » et vous sauver dans l’autre sens: avec ma chipie cela fonctionne à tous les coups!
Pour la sociabilisation, la meilleur méthode est de lui faire rencontrer le plus de chiens (ou autres animaux) et de personnes ( notamment des enfants) possibles.
Pour la punition, il faut prendre le chien sur le fait, un « non » avec une voix ferme et (ou) un regard peuvent suffire. En cas de non obéissance, on peux aussi attraper son chien par la peau du coup et le secouer (comme le ferait sa mère). A la maison, j’utilise aussi un journal, un petit coup sur le museau en même temps qu’un « non »: ils comprennent très vite. Et avec un chien gourmand qui quémande à table, c’est très pratique, il suffit de poser le journal sur le coin de table et vous pourrez manger tranquille (ne surtout pas le nourrir à table).
Brutaliser son chien ne sert à rien, mis à part le rendre craintif et agressif. De même, que passer son temps à le punir ou à crier dessus: il vaut mieux le mettre à l’écart au calme (dans la pièce où il passe sa nuit, où dans le jardin). Et en plus, cela préservera vos nerfs.
Le malinois étant un chien très sportif et vif, une bonne balade du matin fera qu’il sera mieux dans sa tête, plus réceptif et plus calme pour toute la journée (c’est un sportif de haut niveau qui a besoin de se dépenser).
Pour pratiquer une discipline (ring, agility….), il n’y a pas de secret, il faut travailler énormément avec son chien: un chien de ring au top c’est des années de travail, plusieurs fois par semaine!
Les chiens du RAID, c’est plusieurs mois de formation et ils sont entraînés tous les jours: « Le plus dur est de créer un lien fort entre le maître et le chien » « une sorte de connivence » . Perso, je suis en admiration devant les chiens et les hommes du RAID…

Rencontre avec Katharine Gun, celle qui a tenté d’empêcher la guerre en Irak

Alors qu’elle travaille en tant que traductrice au sein du Government Communicatons Headquaters (CGHQ), le service de renseignements britanniques, Katharine Gun tombe sur un mail. Il provient de la section  » Cibles étrangères  » à la National Security Agency, en Amérique. Les Etats-Unis tentent d’obtenir l’accord de l’ONU pour envahir l’Irak. Mais le gouvernement de George W. Bush est fébrile. C’est dans une totale illégalité, et avec l’aide de l’Angleterre, qu’il souhaite mettre les sources de six pays de l’ONU, ceux hésitant à s’engager, sous écoute. Un procédé de chantage qui pourrait forcer la guerre en Irak… Katharine Gun est alors tétanisée. Elle finit par faire fuiter l’information, rompant au passage son serment de confidentialité et son engagement au secret d’Etat, dans l’espoir d’empêcher une invasion de l’Irak. The Observer diffuse l’information. Si deux semaines après les faits, les Etats-Unis ont renoncé à obtenir la majorité, la guerre a tout de même été déclenchée.

Quinze années après, un film retrace le vécu de Katharine Gun. De la découverte du mail à son arrestation sans oublier sa sortie de prison, puis les charges à son encontre finalement abandonnées… La lanceuse d’alerte est à l’honneur dans le film Official Secrets, avec Keira Knightley, en e-cinéma le 2 janvier prochain. A cette occasion, nous avons rencontré Katharine Gun et sommes revenus sur la bravoure dont elle a fait preuve pour défier les autorités. Entretien.

Lorsque vous lisez ce fameux mail pour la première fois, que ressentez-vous ?

Wow… J’étais tout simplement choquée. Ce qui est intéressant c’est que je travaillais pour les services de renseignements (SIS, Secret Intelligence Service en Grande Bretagne, ndlr) mais même pour moi c’était quelque chose de choquant. Et cela m’a mise dans un état de colère. Cela montrait ce qui se passait derrière les coulisses… Je veux dire : même moi je voyais quelque chose que je n’étais pas censée voir ou savoir. Des centaines de personnes ont reçu le même email et au final, c’était approuvé par notre cadre supérieur. Donc ils pensaient que c’était une opération acceptable. Par conséquent, ils s’attendaient à ce qu’on coopère. Donc cela montre dans quelle mentalité nous étions contraint d’évoluer.

Avant cela, vous n’aviez jamais divulgué d’information secrète du gouvernement.

Non, ça n’a jamais été mon intention auparavant. Dans ce cas-là, c’était vraiment une situation à part. Parce que, j’avais la conviction personnelle que envahir l’Irak était injustifié. J’ai fait beaucoup de recherches, j’ai lu beaucoup d’articles et même des livres à ce sujet. Je crois donc, comme beaucoup de personnes, qu’envahir l’Irak est totalement injustifié. Donc pour moi, ce mail était une sorte de cristallisation des faits et du débat de l’époque. Cela m’a dévoilé, d’un coup, vers quelle direction les politiciens étaient sur le point d’aller pour arriver à leurs fins. Pour moi, c’était une méthode totalement immorale et illégale.

Pourquoi avez vous décidé d’avouer à votre supérieur du GCHQ que vous étiez à l’origine de la divulgation de cet email ?

Sur le moment, je ne m’étais pas rendue compte de l’impact qu’aurait la divulgation de ce mail dans la presse. Pour moi, cela a été un choc. C’était évident que cela venait de quelqu’un du GCHQ, nous étions des centaines à avoir reçu ce mail. Donc je ne pouvais pas continuer plus longtemps à nier ma responsabilité dans tout cela. Je ne pouvais pas continuer éternellement à vivre ma vie et aller au travail en prétendant : “Oh non, non, ce n’est pas moi”. Cela me semblait impossible à gérer moralement et émotionnellement. C’est pour cela que j’ai avoué aussi vite et seulement trois jours après la divulgation du mail dans les médias.

Cette décision que vous avez prise, la divulgation de ce mail, a eu beaucoup d’impact auprès des personnes anti-guerre. Nombreux sont ceux qui vous considère comme “une héroïne à l’esprit humain. » Que ressentez-vous par rapport à cela ?

Bien entendu, cela fait chaud au coeur d’entendre cela. Vous savez, j’espère que cela donne de l’espoir aux gens et que cela les inspire. L’important est qu’ils se disent que c’est positif de faire ce qui est juste et en accord avec sa conscience. Je sais que c’est difficile et, surtout, j’ai eu de la chance. Mon expérience n’a pas été aussi traumatisante que d’autres lanceurs d’alerte. Donc bien sûr, je ne conseille pas aux gens de prendre des décisions aussi risquées que celle que j’ai faite. On ne peut pas demander aux gens de prendre de telles décisions sans essayer, avant cela, de changer la loi pour qu’ils soient protégés. Donc pour moi, l’étape suivante serait de faire en sorte que les lois changent pour protéger les lanceurs d’alerte et qu’ils puissent se défendre face aux risques énormes qu’ils prennent.

Que pensez-vous des personnes qui, au contraire, considèrent votre geste comme une trahison envers votre pays ?

Evidemment, il y a beaucoup de personnes pensant que j’aurais dû me taire. J’ai signé un contrat de confidentialité après tout. C’était donc mon devoir de garder le silence. Mais vous savez, je pense que, aujourd’hui en Grande Bretagne, nous avons des lois beaucoup trop strictes sur la confidentialité. Et actuellement, c’est très grave qu’il n’y ait aucune défense mise en place pour ceux qui signent cette confidentialité et qui sont amenés à la rompre. Imaginons que nous avions eu un autre scénario à cette affaire. S’il était question d’un gouvernement menant une opération criminelle remettant en question la sécurité des citoyens britanniques, il nous serait aussi interdits de divulguer de telles informations. C’est complètement ridicule. C’est difficile de persuader ceux qui parlent de trahison alors que agir comme je l’ai fait est dans leur intérêt. Ces lois restrictives engendrent des réputations négatives aux lanceurs d’alerte alors, qu’en réalité, ils font ça dans l’intérêt de la population.

Vous avez attendu un an avant que votre jugement ait lieu et que les charges contre vous soient abandonnées. Comment avez-vous vécu cette longue période d’incertitude ?

C’est comme un gros nuage qui reste au dessus de votre tête. Durant un an, tous les jours, cela a été épuisant émotionnellement. C’était un véritable purgatoire. Mais vous devez continuer à vivre, vous levez tous les matins, cuisiner, gérer le foyer et aller faire les courses… Vous devez continuer à parler aux gens. Donc vous continuez à le faire… mais avec ce nuage au dessus de votre tête. Et quand ce nuage est parti, c’est un énorme poids qui s’enlève de vos épaules. Pour moi, il y a ce moment très important dans le film Official Secrets : j’arrivais au tribunal et j’essayais de ne pas pleurer. Je souriais aux caméras mais j’étais tellement angoissée.

Dans un premier lieu, vous décidez de plaider non coupable. Pourquoi ?

Parce que je ne me sentais pas coupable… (rires) Je veux dire, selon la loi j’étais coupable. Mais nous allions utiliser l’état de la nécessité. (défense qui justifie la commission de certaines infractions, ndlr) Il y avait une réelle opportunité d’utiliser cela pour m’en sortir. Donc nous étions préparés à nous battre devant le tribunal. Et, au final quand les charges ont été abandonnées, cela a été quelque peu décevant… Un tout petit peu, je dois l’admettre. Je pense, en réalité, que toute cette histoire et le sort de l’Irak auraient été différents si cette affaire avait été poursuivie jusqu’au bout.

Comment peut-on expliquer l’abandon des charges à votre encontre ?

Il y a beaucoup de possibilités. Nous n’avons pas eu de vraies réponses de la part du gouvernement. Cela n’a pas été très satisfaisant. Récemment, un article du Time explique que c’était pour des raisons de sécurité nationale. Mais c’est tellement facile pour le gouvernement de dire cela… En partie, oui, ce sont pour des raisons de sécurité nationale. Mais ils ne voulaient probablement pas que le dossier soit examiné devant le tribunal. Ils ne voulaient pas que les relations entre la NSA (la National Security Agency, organisme gouvernemental du département de la Défense des États-Unis, ndlr) et le CGHQ soient ébranlées et exposées au public. Cette affaire était avant Snowden, avant Wikileaks. Personne n’avait aucune idée de ce qu’il se passait. Donc ils ne voulaient pas que tout soit dévoilé au grand jour, j’en suis certaine.

Après cela, il n’y a donc eu aucune enquête. Et, malgré votre prise de risque, cela n’a pas empêché l’invasion de l’Irak. Comment avez-vous vécu cela ?

Cela a été pour moi totalement dévastateur de voir l’invasion en Irak. C’est une catastrophe, cela a été une tragédie pour l’Irak et un désastre pour l’humanité entière. On parle tout de même d’une invasion illégale. A mes yeux, cela a eu des répercussions alarmantes durant ces dernières années. Cela a affecté le monde politique d’aujourd’hui.

Votre histoire et le film posent une question en particulier : à qui et à quoi devrait-on être loyal ? Qu’en pensez-vous ?

C’est une bonne question. Dans dans le film, mon personnage dit “Je travaille pour la population britannique” et c’est essentiellement le rôle des fonctionnaires d’Etat. En anglais, on dit “Civil servants” et c’est dans le terme : on doit servir les civils. Les gens qui étaient contre moi disaient que mes actions remettaient en question la sécurité nationale. Ma réponse a toujours été que, en réalité, c’est la guerre qui fragilise notre sécurité nationale. Tony Blair (premier ministre britannique à l’époque, ndlr) a envoyé des femmes et des hommes au front… C’est cela qui a été à l’encontre de notre sécurité et de notre intérêt national. Des soldats britanniques sont morts en Irak. Et des millions d’Irakiens ont été également affectés par cette guerre. Cela n’a été bénéfique pour personne à part pour l’industrie de la guerre. Que ce soit l’Irak ou d’autres pays en guerre, cela ne bénéficie qu’à l’industrialisation de la guerre.

A votre avis, quel impact votre affaire a eu sur le monde politique ?

Aussi loin que je puisse me rappeler, cela n’a eu malheureusement aucun impact sur eux… C’est extrêmement frustrant pour moi. C’est comme si j’étais un “non-individu”. Personne, au sein du gouvernement britannique, ne m’a contacté. Même lorsque le film Official Secrets est sorti en Angleterre, personne ne m’a rien dit. Personne, du gouvernement, ne s’est adressé à moi. C’est complètement fou ! Et cela montre à quel point les politiques sont totalement déconnectés de la réalité. Et c’est réellement frustrant pour moi.

Regrettez-vous pour autant la divulgation de ce mail ? Le feriez-vous à nouveau ?

Non, je ne regrette rien. Et si les circonstances étaient les mêmes, je le ferais à nouveau.

Découvrez la bande-annonce du film Official Secrets

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Voir aussi : Ces stars engagées pour la bonne cause

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Dogs have been used to track hunts for a long time. Lyle Avis of Schmavis Outdoors has been using dogs for tracking shortly after his father-in-law and wife introduced him to hunting. He was out hunting in Fort Knox when he couldn’t track the deer that he shot, even after days. Frustrated about the deer he lost, he turned to a tracking tactic that he heard people are using – dogs. In this episode, Lyle describes his amazing journey with Zada, his Catahoula, and how he trained her to be an efficient tracking dog. He also recounts the amazing trips that they have gone to together where Zava exhibited the best characteristics of a good tracking dog.

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Listen to the podcast here:

Deer Hunting – Zada Dog Tracker – Lyle Avis

We’re heading down to Georgia with Lyle Avis, and we’re going to be talking about dog tracking. He’s famous in Georgia. He’s getting famous throughout the social media world with his stories and his handheld videos. What’s the name of your dog company?

It’s Schmavis Outdoors.

You can look them up on social media. Lyle got reverse engineered, he fell in love, and then his wife got him into hunting. How did that happen?

My dad hunted a little bit. I remember I hated deer, but I was never interested. We moved to Iowa, I get married and join the Army and move away. Years go by and we come back and my father-in-law and my wife were like, “You want to go hunting?” I was like, “I’ve never hunted anything in my life.” On top of that, he wants to go bowhunting. I’m like, “I’ve never even shot a bow outside of Boy Scout camp when I was five.” He comes home at lunch, hands me this bow from my little brother-in-law that’s about three inches draw length too short for me. He’s like, “I’ll show you how to shoot this.” About 30 minutes of instruction at lunch, he comes back after work at about 3:30, 4:00. He was like, “Are you ready to go?” I’m like, “I shot for a half hour. Sure, I’m ready to go hunting.” They take me out there on that first hunt. I think I shot every arrow in that quiver and didn’t come within ten feet of the deer I was shooting at. After that, I was hooked. I went the next day, I bought my own bow. You’d be surprised how good you can shoot when you’re shooting a bow that actually fits you compared to shooting one three inches too short. That’s what sucked me in from there was the in-laws and them wanting to go hunting and go out all the time. They’re probably the biggest pheasant-hunting family that I know and a whole house full of pheasant and deer heads on the wall. They have the land that we hunt whenever I go back home to Iowa.

What part of Iowa is it?

Northeastern Iowa, it’s Dubuque, Iowa. They actually live in Epworth, Iowa, a tiny little speck on the map outside of Dubuque. Right on the Mississippi River where Wisconsin, Illinois and Iowa all touch. In that little corner right there, that is my hometown of Dubuque, Iowa.

Is that near McGregor at all?

It doesn’t sound familiar, but I haven’t been there.

McGregor is a little bit north of that. You know where I went to college at the University of Wisconsin–La Crosse. I wasn’t that far from it. I never hunted Iowa. I’ve only hunted Iowa for whitetails once, pheasant hunted a little bit. I like to go back there, but it’s just a four-year wait. That’s how it is.

It’s rough. Like I was telling you, Iowa is where I’ve hunted probably the most, but all my good bucks have come out of Kentucky or here in Georgia. I’m the guy that’s everybody’s dream, they’re like, “I wish I could hunt in Iowa.” I’m like, “I can’t ever get on them big boys like some people do.”

You were twenty-something when you started hunting?

Yeah. If I was making a rough guess, I would say 2007. That whole story that I was talking about coming back and going with my family. I just came back from a deployment to Iraq. I was on leave for 30 days, that’s what kicked it off. The in-laws don’t want you sitting around the house for 30 days while you’re visiting, so we got out and went hunting. I was 24, 25 probably then.

The reason I wanted to bring that up is if you haven’t started hunting, find a gal that you love and get introduced to her family who’s got land at someplace. They got some whitetails, elk or deer so you can get out hunting and start enjoying it because it’s a great sport.

Marry a woman whose dad has land in Iowa.

There are a lot of jokes of that going around. There are posts on that on Instagram all the time, “Your family has how many acres?”

It’s not about how many they have, it’s how much do they have.

We wanted to switch this up to the dogs and tell the story about why you got into the dog tracking. What happened?

I was hunting Fort Knox, Kentucky. The same kind of setup, it’s a semi-public land. It depends on how you want to define public land. I shot probably a 160, 170 twelve-pointer out there. Just by the way the arrow came in, high angle and it didn’t exit the other side, I had almost no blood trail. I had one little tiny drop of blood probably about 50 yards out. I watched the deer stagger through the woods and bounce off trees, so I knew where he went. Even after all this tracking, I would say to that deer probably died somewhere, I just could not find it. I looked for days. I probably went back looked for buzzards like three to four days after that.

I was just like, “This is never happening to me again.” I had briefly heard a little bit that people were using dogs. I’d seen awesome shows before. I had seen some guy drop his little Jack Russell on it and go find the deer and I was like, “That’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to figure out how to do this myself and track these deer.” I moved to Georgia right after that season. Actually midseason, I moved like December. I moved down here, I got settled in, I bought a dog and started Googling, YouTubing and Facebooking, everything I could get my hands on to get started.

That was the beginning?

That’s how it all started right there. I got a little Catahoula from a guy down here in Georgia who had all the bloodlines in that dog were all set up for bay competitions and hog hunting. She’s got all sorts of lineage about bay championships and hog hunting and I was like, “I could take this Catahoula and teach it to track a deer instead of a pig.” I was like, “It shouldn’t be a problem.” I got on there, United Blood Trackers website and started asking questions on there, asking Facebook. I watched some videos that Jeremy Moore does from the Dog Bone Hunter and followed along and set it up. Everybody always asks me, “Is my dog too old to start or when did you start training your dog?” Everybody says that your dog is never too old. You can teach them to do whatever. It’s never too old, you can teach them for whatever it is, teach an old dog new tricks, that’s not a thing. I brought my dog home at eight weeks old and the day I brought her home we started training.

Step one, I was feeding her in the backyard. I was feeding her three times a day. She was eating breakfast, lunch and dinner. For lunch, I would take that scoop, that little half a cup or whatever it was in my little scooper and I would mark out a spot in the backyard in the grass. I didn’t mow it, so I made sure it was at least ankle high, mid-shin high. I would sprinkle that food around in the square that I had marked out in the grass. She had to use her nose to find her food, to get her to use her nose more than just wandering around. She’ll eat whenever I put the food in the bowl. I made her work for it a little bit. If she left that little square and didn’t immediately come back, she was done eating, she had her chance, she quit working, she quit getting food for that and then she wouldn’t eat again until supper.

Those were the very beginning days. Of course, I didn’t do enough pre-planning, so I didn’t have any blood saved up from the last season. I didn’t have a whole lot set up to start the training. I had to improvise a little bit. I got a normal plastic baggie and I cut off a little chunk of the precious backstrap that I had in my freezer and put it in that water. The blood got splashed around, you had some watery blood water in there with that little chunk of meat. I poked a couple of little holes in it so the water would leak out. I would just drag it and every couple of feet I would just drop one little piece of hot dog. I would go another couple of feet and a little piece of hot dog. The whole time I’m dragging that bag and just letting that bloody water and the smell of that meat come out, and a little hot dog.

I would probably say my first ones were ten, fifteen yards. You’d have to do it differently if you were doing a bigger dog. When your dog is eight weeks old, it’s like this big ten, fifteen yards, and then at the end I’d give that little piece of meat and the rest of the hot dog. Go back to the beginning, I’d put her on it and I’d get her excited about it and tell her to track and use my same command word over and over again. I’d be like, “Let’s track it, Zada.” She’d go nose down, her little curled tail would come up. She’d be walking along and she’d be like, “Hot dog,” and start eating this hot dog, and then she’d sniff. I’d say it only took a couple of those until she figured out that trail was going to lead to that piece of meat that she could smell. From there, anything else you just build on it more and more. I’m at twenty yards, then I’m at 50 yards and I’m doing some slow S-curves in the track at 50 yards, then I’m doing some 90-degree turns, then the hot dogs come away. It gets longer and longer. Eventually, I’m at 100, 150. Dog Bone has those kits because I didn’t have anything pre-planned. I should have saved up for it from last season and put blood on it. They have a kit with a chunk of deerskin in it.

I would take that chunk of deerskin, I’d put a little blood on it and then I would drag that once I had stopped using the hot dog. Just the dander from that deerskin would come off in the grass and that’s how they’re tracking it. I’m going a couple of hundred yards, 300 yards. By the time I got to about 400 or 500 yards, that’s when I started aging it and dialing back. I would go from running it within 30 minutes. I’m going back to a 100-yard track, but I’m letting it sit for four or five hours, then it’s twelve hours. I’m running 500, 600-yard tracks with 90-degree turns and those S-curves that I’m laying out the night before, and then not running them until the next morning. Basically, it’s like how you would if you shot that deer that evening and didn’t want to go track it. It keeps progressing along that trail. We’re to the point where I have a deer hoof on the end of a stick, I’ll put a little bit of blood on it, and I’ll just go for a walk, like a walking stick. That little bit of that interdigital gland as it hits the ground is what the dog is tracking the whole time. I’ll go for a mile, walk through the woods, zigzag, cross creeks and the next day, 12, 24, or 36 hours later put it on that. I always go back and put the leg at the end so she has that real good treat that keeps them fired up. You’ve got to keep them excited or they’re not going to want to do it anymore. Training-wise, that was the progression of the whole scenario.

How long did that take from puppy to adult?

She was four months old when we did her first aptitude assessment with the United Blood Trackers where she went out and got tested and they said, “Yes, this dog has what it takes to be trained as a blood tracker.” She was four months old then and at six months old we found that pig that I was talking about that was the first pig that a guy called me on. She was only eight months old by the time of her first deer season. All of that time probably six months of hot and heavy work, then after that, it was only once every other week we ran a track. It was a good twelve, twenty hours old by the time we were running it.

You don’t have snow in Georgia, but what happens if it rains?

The rain is bad for people tracking, but good for the dog especially down here when it’s hot. The water will hit it or the rain condensation. It’s the same thing in the morning when the ground is wet from the dew. It will almost revitalize that scent and brings it back up. Whereas if it’s hot and sunny out or dry, not only does it affect their nose, because the dog’s got to have a wet nose to be able to be effective. Not only that, but it also brings that scent back, brings the blood back. It doesn’t let everything dry up. It fights the ants back. You have a lot of problems down here with ants too. The ants will get on it and they’ll just destroy your blood trail sometimes down here.

The things I hadn’t thought of. I get the moisture because hunting pheasants out here in Eastern Colorado, it’s dryer than everything and the dogs are dying. The pheasants are there, but there’s no way they can find them because it’s way too dry.

For the rain to have a negative effect, it’s got to be pouring, it’s got to be washing the blood away like a stream. If it’s just a general rain and everything is wet and you’re getting wet, it’s much better to have that than a hot, dry day.

How old is Zada?

She’s two and a half.

What credentials does she have?

We went through the United Blood Trackers. I’m going to hit them up a lot because those guys took care of me. By far the best setup for everything. They have the best websites and you can find a tracker and they generally take care of everyone. They have three levels. Four levels if you count the aptitude. You have the aptitude assessment, the AA, and then you have the UBT level one, two and three. They just get progressively harder, the one, two and three based off of age. We’ve done the UBT-1. I’m trying to remember if it was 12 or 24. I want to say it was the twelve-hour age track. When I’m talking about putting blood out, I’m talking three ounces of blood when we go out and put a track out, but that track was three ounces of blood, twelve hours old. Some of the judges go out and he puts the track out.

It’s like pretty much a blind scenario where I don’t know where the track is, unlike our normal training tracks where I know where it is and I can correct her if she gets off the track in the beginning. That was completely blind. You go up and it’s almost like a normal scenario where you come up and the judge pretends he’s the hunter, “I shot a deer and I think it went this way.” You go out and just put the dog on it and she executes. Like any test, you hope for the best. It gets progressively harder. The UBT-3s are hard. They’re 24 hours old, there are multiple turns and fake wound beds and they might be crossing a creek or several creeks. They can get pretty serious with some of the UBT-3s. We were hoping to knock out a UBT-2, but we didn’t get a chance to go to the annual Trackfest. I think this last one was in Oklahoma. Oklahoma just legalized using tracking dogs. It’s a pretty big deal. I still can’t understand how not everyone legalizes tracking deer with a dog. People are still scared of it but it’s making progress.

Why?

I don’t know. I think that people are afraid that they’re going to use those dogs to deer hunt with the dogs. You know how some of these southern states will do that.

They still do. Louisiana still runs dogs.

Marry a woman whose dad has land in Iowa.

Yes. I know some people do, but I couldn’t tell you which ones. I think people are just scared of that, which it doesn’t make any sense to me just based off of how could you not make every effort to recover a deer that you know you wounded. I was looking at my maps on here on the UBT thing, but I want to say there are still seven or eight states that don’t allow it, if I remember right. It’s mainly north and western states that are fighting it a little bit. I know Washington doesn’t. I want to say Oregon is on that list. A couple of the northeastern states. It’s always been weird to me that that wouldn’t be a higher priority. Washington, Oregon, Nevada, Arizona, Wyoming, North Dakota, Minnesota, West Virginia, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, no dog tracking.

Folks, if you live in those areas, get a hold of your rep, get a hold of somebody, your DNR and say, “Why not?” One, we don’t want to lose game. Bad shots happen, and so why not do everything we can to recover that game and use the meat?

Most of the trackers that I know, I’d say we’re probably split 50/50. I run my dog probably 50% of the time on a 30-foot leash. For me, it’s more than that, it’s probably 75% of the time I’m running her on a 30-foot leash. She’s not running wild. She’s not out chasing every deer in the woods, ruining people’s hunts like people are afraid of. She’s on a leash essentially. It’s just a long leash. I know a lot of other states have put that requirement on their tracking, “You can track here but you have to be on a leash.” Some states will have if you’re on public land, you have to be on a leash. Most people I know don’t mind that too much. It’s easier on the tracker if I can just drop the dog and meet her at the end. I’ve been dragged through my fair share of brier bushes by a 30-foot leash but you heal up, you find the deer and you move on.

What’s the cost of getting a good tracking dog?

It’s all over the map. I know people who were at some of the convention stuff that I’ve gone to that picked up their dog from the shelter. On the other end of that, I know some people who are importing their Bavarian Mountain Hounds for $3,000, $4,000 from Germany, Poland, places in Europe. The same thing for wire-haired dachshunds, people are bringing them in from Germany. It depends on what you’re looking for. My dog was middle range. When I went and picked her up, she was about $700. People spend that money on junk on a regular basis, but she’s paid for herself ten times over probably. It’s how much work you want to put into it. You’re looking at that original initial instinct that might be coming from generations and generations of bred for this specific work or you might have to put a little more work into it and get them fired up about it.

Folks, check it out. I think if you live in a state, you need to take a hard look at this. There are a lot of reasons. One, dogs are fun to have around. If you can come back to camp and the next morning put them out and have your deer recovered by noontime or earlier, what’s wrong with that?

On top of that, if you’re going to be the one who wants to get a tracking dog, it can be some pretty exciting times. There are times where I’m in the tree and I’m not seeing anything, and somebody will call me. I’ll just look around and be like, “Tracking would be more fun than sitting in this tree right now.” I’ll just climb down and go track with people.

What does the tracker cost?

I would say a fair average price is you’re going to spend anywhere between $100 and $150 to have somebody come. In your case, if you’re in Colorado Springs and you’ve got to have that guy come from 115 miles away, you’re probably going to have to offer them a little bit more than that. Most people are going to come out and they’re going to tell you they take a donation to cover gas and time spent looking and future training supplies. That’s usually what I tell people. Which then flips over and I usually get between $100 and $150. If I have to drive somewhere outside of my little 45-minute, an hour radius on the map, we’ll just make sure we discuss prices a little earlier and it might go up. You might go out and find that guy’s 170-inch buck and he’s willing to pay you $3,000 to $4,000.

$100 bills are flying.

I’ve tracked some deer where guys have thrown me a pretty good donation because we had a good time out there tracking that deer. I’m telling you, nothing will get your blood flowing when that deer jumps out of that bed a couple of feet from you. You’ve got to let the dog go, the deer is running, the dog is running, I’m running behind it. I keep looking over my shoulder, the hunter is back there trying to keep up with us. I usually can watch on my GPS and see how far the dog is getting away from me. I almost have it down to a science now. If she starts baying that deer and it’s about 300 yards in front of me, something magically happens in that range.

She’ll almost always get about 300 yards and she’ll get that deer stopped. I’m looking back like, “Where’s the hunter?” Because seventeen years of being in the army put me a little ahead of most of the people running through the woods. I’m looking back getting him to catch up. When it’s legal, some states don’t like that either, but you get another shot at the deer and they’re looking at you sweating and breathing hard and shooting deer on the run and it gets crazy. People get excited about it and that’s when it might cost you a little bit more. I’ve never had somebody pay me and then walk away and look like they wished they didn’t pay me, and it gets exciting. You’re holding leashes. We got charged a couple of times.

Tell me about that. The deer spun back and came at you?

Yes, I had probably three times that were over-the-top exciting. We had one nighttime, we’re on the track. I want to say the guy said that he hit it a little bit low. We’re talking bottom of the rib cage, all the way across. Maybe nicked the lungs, but definitely is causing damage because it opened up the chest cavities. The lungs are collapsing, but that thing is still going. We’re out there and we’re finding little bits of blood every now and then. I’m running Zada on the leash on this one. I would say 99% of the time if she thinks that deer is still alive or picks it up and it runs and she sees it, she instantly flips to bay mode and starts barking and trying to drag me to the woods. That’s part of the little brief that I give my hunters when I get there, it’s like, “We’re going to be tracking, she’s going to be silent on the track until she thinks the deer is alive or we’re close to it alive, and then she’s just going to go crazy. That’s how we’ll know.”

We’re going there and it’s dark and we’re on our hands and knees crawling under these low-hanging branches on some pines. The leash goes slack. I’m like, “I don’t know, maybe she’s going to the bathroom or whatever.” Whatever she’s doing or whatever dogs do. I didn’t even think about it. I’m like, “What are you doing under there, Zada?” I’m talking to her and I was like, “Let’s find that buck.” I get on my hands and knees and I crawl under this branch, and I got my hand lamp on. I can’t see anything and then I lift my head up and look, that buck is about three feet away from me standing there, the antlers right at my face. All sorts of explicit language were coming out at that point. I’m trying to hand the leash off to the hunter so he can hold the dog. Because I had the .357 on my hip, so I’m trying to pass this off, grab the .357.

At the same time, I started to pull it out of my holster, that buck charged me and flung Zada up in the air through the trees, probably four or five feet back towards the guy holding the leash. I’m yelling at him, “Hold the dog.” Because I’m not going to start shooting at the thing when the dog is right there. He’s like, “I got her.” I started shooting and trying to put the deer down and finishing this job. He takes off and runs at me again, but then the guy let go of Zada and she’s on that deer, drags it to the ground and we’re all standing there. It’s perfectly silent except for the dog. We’re all just looking around like, “What just happened?” That’s the only time they’ve ever ran at me.

Why didn’t she bay? The deer was right there alive.

I don’t know. That’s the only time that she didn’t. Maybe there was some blood there and she stopped and was sniffing the blood and the scent hadn’t pulled and she just didn’t see it. I got no explanation on that one but it was low, the bottom of the chest cavity.

The deer are powerful. They’re all shoulders.

They’re so strong. I know a lot of guys that they’ve had the same thing happened to their dog. That antler will catch inside a rib or catch in an armpit. They can tear them up pretty good. We got lucky on that one, but there are crazy ones. We’ve had somewhere we’re tacking, the dog’s quiet and no noise, nothing is going on. All of a sudden, the dog just loses it and starts freaking out. We’re all looking around like, “I don’t know what just happened.” I look over and the hunter is getting up off the ground. I’m like, “What happened?” He’s like, “That deer just ran me over. I didn’t even see it.” He got up, ran over my hunter and took off. I unclipped the dog because we knew that one was gut-shot, you could see some guts on some of the branches. I let her go, and the same thing I tell everyone, “You’ve got to keep up.” This time, he had the gun and I didn’t and gave him the warning like, “You do not pull the trigger until I tell you to.” The same thing, we’re running through these ravines and up and over.

When training, you got to keep the dog excited or they’re not going to want to do it anymore.

I’m trying to keep the dog at that 300-meter distance. Finally, it stops and we start closing on the dog a little bit and there is this big creek, probably 30 feet wide, with steep banks on both sides. I get over there and I can hear her, she’s barking, she’s baying, she’s going crazy. The hunter is nowhere to be found behind. I come up, she’s on the far side of the creek, and that buck is standing in the middle of the creek but the sides are steep and she was not letting him out of that far side. The guy gets up there and he’s like, “Where is it?” I’m like, “In the middle of the creek, right there.” He puts another shot on it after we find it and the deer goes down. Now we were left with the problem, we got this buck floating in the middle of this creek. We’re over there and Zada is barking underwater and swimming around this deer. The hunter has to get down in there. This was probably in December or January. That water could have been 50 degrees. It was freezing cold, dragging the deer. That’s another one where everybody looks at each other and says, “That was crazy.” They don’t all end like that, but most of the time there’s a dead deer laying in the grass.

How do people get a hold of you, Lyle? Tell people how to reach out to you.

The easiest way to do it for me is if you go onto my Facebook or my Instagram and just shoot me a message. If that’s not working for you, you can get my number directly off of United Blood Trackers’ website. If you click on the Find a Tracker, then click on Georgia, it will be on there. I’m in the Georgia Outdoor News Network. Several other Facebook posts are around here, but those are the primary. If you hit up that Facebook or that Instagram, it will lead you right to me.

Folks, this has been great. I got a hold of Lyle and said, “I want you to talk about tracking,” because he’s the first tracker I’ve had on the show. People are using dogs, retrievers, for sheds and more and more people are using tracking dogs. It’s a big win-win for everybody. Lyle Avis, thank you so much for being a guest on Whitetail Rendezvous.

Thanks, Bruce. Thanks for having me.

Next up is Wilbur “Spanish Mac” Ramos. He’s part of Mass Pursuit TV. If you haven’t heard or watched Mass Pursuit TV, what are you waiting for? Mass Pursuit TV is all about deer hunting. He talks about the excitement of hunting with a bow and the pleasure he gets. He does say it’s different than any other type of hunting. It’s killed them with shotguns and muzzleloaders and rifles, but he likes it up close and personal. That’s what their shows’ about. Mass Pursuit TV is all about getting up and close and personal to bucks, and tells them the story. Sometimes we watch hunting shows and storyline fuzzy at best in this guy’s opinion. This guy, Spanish Mac gets up close and personal and brings the whole thing out to home. I think you’re going to love Spanish Mac bring home Mass Pursuit TV.

important links:

• Schmavis Outdoors
• United Blood Trackers
• Dog Bone Hunter
• Schmavis Outdoors on Facebook
• Schmavis Outdoors on Instagram
• United Blood Trackers
• Find a Tracker
• Georgia Outdoor News Network
• Mass Pursuit TV