Comments on: Let’s get ready to go shed hunting http://blogs.roanoke.com/wildlife/2013/02/lets-get-ready-to-go-shed-hunting/ Sun, 19 May 2013 19:07:04 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.5.1 By: Perch http://blogs.roanoke.com/wildlife/2013/02/lets-get-ready-to-go-shed-hunting/#comment-16748 Perch Wed, 13 Feb 2013 21:08:12 +0000 http://blogs.roanoke.com/wildlife/?p=6657#comment-16748 It does Todd, and thank you very much for responding. She sounds like she was a very smart dog and your training technique was classic. Good retrievers can be taught not to chew the birds, sounds like you used her natural abilities, her breeding, and your connection with her to good end. When I told her about your dog, my wife informed me that when she was surveying once in Giles County, they came upon an old fellow with an old mutt. The man had a paper grocery sack nearly full of morels. He told them his dog had figured out what he was up to a few years back and since then he’d found more than ever. Good luck with Max, Todd. And thank you again for the story.

]]> By: Todd Hostetter http://blogs.roanoke.com/wildlife/2013/02/lets-get-ready-to-go-shed-hunting/#comment-16710 Todd Hostetter Tue, 12 Feb 2013 23:10:06 +0000 http://blogs.roanoke.com/wildlife/?p=6657#comment-16710 @ Perch it all started because I would take my dog when I went Morel hunting. I never took her to find them, but she would watch me as I picked them. She was always curious and would run over and sniff what I had in my hand. Then the next thing I noticed she would put that nose on the ground and started finding them. At 1st she would sniff them out and bite them off and chew and then spit them out. After a few firm corrections when she put them in her mouth she stopped biteing them. Then she would just sniff them out and stand there and look at me untill I came over and picked them. I would always praise her when she located them and she just got the hang of it. From then on all I had to do was find the 1st one and let her sniff and she was good to go the rest of the day. I did this the same way when finding deer sheds at 1st. She learned very quick and was always trying to please me. Her sense of smell was great. I hope Max learns as quick as my last Golden. Hope this answers your question. Todd

]]> By: Perch http://blogs.roanoke.com/wildlife/2013/02/lets-get-ready-to-go-shed-hunting/#comment-16670 Perch Tue, 12 Feb 2013 15:56:44 +0000 http://blogs.roanoke.com/wildlife/?p=6657#comment-16670 And Todd, if it’s not too painful to discuss, how did you go about training your dog to find morels? Did the dog like to eat them? I know Europeans use pigs and dogs to find truffles. I am intrigued.

]]> By: Perch http://blogs.roanoke.com/wildlife/2013/02/lets-get-ready-to-go-shed-hunting/#comment-16668 Perch Tue, 12 Feb 2013 15:49:31 +0000 http://blogs.roanoke.com/wildlife/?p=6657#comment-16668 Todd, as someone who has buried a few dogs in my time, I share your pain. Even the laziest shoe chewer is hard to say goodbye to, but a dog that could actually find morels….now that’s a new one on me. Anyone who loses a good hunting dog, be it sheds, birds, ‘shrooms, whatever, has lost more than just a companion.
Here’s hoping your new dog can pick up where your old dog left off. It must be nice to be able to actually pick a dog, also. We usually get picked by the dog some ne’er do well drops off in the country, but we love their useless hides as much as the very few dogs we’ve been able to actually pick ourselves.

]]> By: Kevin http://blogs.roanoke.com/wildlife/2013/02/lets-get-ready-to-go-shed-hunting/#comment-16619 Kevin Mon, 11 Feb 2013 21:30:04 +0000 http://blogs.roanoke.com/wildlife/?p=6657#comment-16619 Todd,

Sorry to hear about your retreiver. They are beautiful animals, indeed. Kudos to you, though, for providing a good home to another. We lost our dog (a beagle/basset hound mix) not too long ago, but cannot bring ourselves to provide a home for another just yet. Some day, but not yet.

]]> By: Mark Taylor http://blogs.roanoke.com/wildlife/2013/02/lets-get-ready-to-go-shed-hunting/#comment-16614 Mark Taylor Mon, 11 Feb 2013 19:22:21 +0000 http://blogs.roanoke.com/wildlife/?p=6657#comment-16614 Hate to hear about losing your dog, Todd. That’s never easy. Here’s hoping that Max turns out to be a good shed and morel finder!

]]> By: Todd Hostetter http://blogs.roanoke.com/wildlife/2013/02/lets-get-ready-to-go-shed-hunting/#comment-16613 Todd Hostetter Mon, 11 Feb 2013 19:18:07 +0000 http://blogs.roanoke.com/wildlife/?p=6657#comment-16613 Dogs are the way to go. I just lost my golden retreiver right before Christmas, she was 13. I would take her shed hunting and she found way more than me. I now have a 11 week old male Golden ( Max ). While he is to young for this years shed hunting, I hope to have him ready for next year. The Goldens have outstanding nose’s and easy to train. I have found sheds in and around my small food plot for the last several years. Have not looked this year yet, hope to look this Saturday. I have also found nice sheds where a down tree has fallen across deer trails. The deer jump the tree and the jolt on landing will sometimes knock them off. My last Golden could also find Morells ( Mushrooms ) as well. I miss that old dog…: )

]]> By: Mark Taylor http://blogs.roanoke.com/wildlife/2013/02/lets-get-ready-to-go-shed-hunting/#comment-16603 Mark Taylor Mon, 11 Feb 2013 13:13:08 +0000 http://blogs.roanoke.com/wildlife/?p=6657#comment-16603 Perch — I have a camera over my traps and am very eager to see if deer are at least visiting. We will see.

As for dogs, my neighbors recently got a pair or red tick coonhound puppies and they give them antlers (store-bought) to chew on. They could possibly be trained to be shed dogs (they’re not hunters, though they would let me train them for coons if I wanted to, or knew how to). The one thing is, at least at this point they are not very good at returning. The last time they took them to the woods the puppies took off, as hounds do, and they were lucky to get them back!

]]> By: Ralph Barton http://blogs.roanoke.com/wildlife/2013/02/lets-get-ready-to-go-shed-hunting/#comment-16600 Ralph Barton Mon, 11 Feb 2013 10:47:21 +0000 http://blogs.roanoke.com/wildlife/?p=6657#comment-16600 I am in the woods year round… I hike/scout in the mountains at least once or twice a week. I call myself “shed hunting” but mainly I’m just keeping up with critter movement always trying to learn more about them. I very rarely find a shed antler although I hike deer trails/areas where I know bucks live. Of course in large expanses of the national forests the deer densities are low so it really is like looking for the proverbial “needle in a haystack”. I didn’t find any last year and none so far this year either. However in 2010 I found three including one very nice 4 point. That year there was snow on the ground and that’s what helped me see the sheds. I don’t have dogs but that is obviously a great way to find sheds…. I have a buddy whose dogs roam the woods and they bring back antlers regularly.

]]> By: Perch http://blogs.roanoke.com/wildlife/2013/02/lets-get-ready-to-go-shed-hunting/#comment-16591 Perch Sun, 10 Feb 2013 20:44:08 +0000 http://blogs.roanoke.com/wildlife/?p=6657#comment-16591 Another thing is to be timely. Sheds are seldom found later in the year because of the very reason dogs are good at finding them. Coyotes and foxes probably chew them, mice, wood rats and squirrels absolutely chew them, for their mineral content I would guess, with birthin’ time on the way and food scarcer from winter.
Mark, please try to let us know if your traps work. I thought mine would, there were plenty of bucks around when I did that and I didn’t hunt them there at the house so they shouldn’t have been spooked, but no luck. Your trap sounds better.

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