Different approach to Deer breaking...

[Goose87]

My grandfather was a wildlife biologist for LSU, state of Florida, state of LA, and biologist and land buyer for International Paper,  so all my mothers life she has raised just about all of God’s fur bearing critters, I’ve drug home everything under the sun literally myself that I found or caught and she’s always been “the baby animal lady” to a local game warden that has brought her injured or orphaned babies of all sorts of species, couple weeks ago my dad found a baby deer in middle of parish rd in our lease and tried to scare it off but it kept following him back to the truck and was disoriented and head all scrap up like she had been hit maybe, so he loaded her up and called the local warden who used to be a member of the lease and patrols the area and he told him to just bring it home because he was just going to bring it straight to mom anyways, I got 3 older pups around 6-7 months old and a 12 week old, with moms work schedule I’ve been the one whose had to take care of the little thing, so I decided to try and capitalize on this burden, each evening I swing by my place to feed up and check everything and then go up to moms to eat and pick the deer up and go to my camp and then bring it back in the morning, and leave it there with dad, so I’ve been taking one of those pups each night and making them sleep in the screened in back porch at the camp with this deer along with spending time around it during day, my two older males pups have become friends with her, during the day my dads Mt. Cur squirrel dog has designated her self the official keeper of the deer and acts like it’s mother, sleeping with it, licking it and cleaning it and won’t dare allow another dog around it in her presence, I’m hoping this progresses to the woods with her being as this is going to be her first season and she’s a really nice tree dog , I’ve always heard about and even seen a few myself , beagle breeders and hardcore rabbit hunters raising their dogs around a deer, and read many more instances of others all around the country doing the same, one old man had a pen he would call his old doe up to feed once he let her he let her roam free, he would shut the gate behind her and let her eat and put a few pups or green dogs in there, she knew the routine and knew she was safe and would kick the wine out of them as they sniffed her, and would even run them down and stomp them, and the other I saw had a large running pen behind his kennel he started his pups in and had a deer that he raised that would stay in there and around behind the kennels and once the pups learned she was off limits they never would fool with her, I layed down the law the first time my pups ran up on her and they wouldn’t have anything to do with her after the scolding, now they act as if she’s one of them, I could be severely shooting myself in the foot and be creating deer running demons, but I feel positive enough that shouldn’t be a problem, I’ve never allowed my pups to bay horses or small stock like goats and sheep and left them alone on cattle, I’ve never had an issue with horse baying or goat catching while hunting and have had some hat stompings trying to get un collared pups off a set of yearlings, they’re taught from jump street that horses goats and sheep are the cause of pain and scoldings and knock on wood has never been an issue, I’m hoping I’m able to apply that same concept with this deer, and even once she’s grown, when she gets off bottle she’s going to be vaccinated, ear notched and orange fly tags put in and let roam as she pleases at the camp, 6k acres around me is owned by 3 different groups and all are friends or kin someway to my family and have agreed to let their people know about her and that she’s off limits, all the does we’ve raised in the past have always stayed close to my family place, there’s to many ignorant greedy neighbors now that will shoot one in a heart beat even with orange ear tags and the dang thing walking around them w/o fear and then brag about it, if I can keep her around the camp I’m going to use her to give pups in the future a lesson from the school of hard knocks from the tri tronics, we’ve raised quite a few in the past but I never thought about it doing this myself, I even did an SAE in Agclass in high school that won state and made it all the way to national FFA finals on raising some deer,but never gave it any thought as to purposely do this, last ones we raised were bucks and for whatever reason the dogs never messed with them and I guessing that’s cause they came and went and would stay on the goat yard with my moms goats and sister 4h lambs, definitely going down a new path for myself here and only time will tell if I’ve done something good or created trashy fools, my brindle Kate gyp off a running walker gyp I have and Cajuns Jack dog started herself on rabbits and then discovered the red fox den by my house and laid with them and coyotes, to say she was trashy would be putting it nicely, a tt15 is giving her reasons to think about stuff now and she’s on her way to becoming and nice rig and jump dog and definitely inherited her sires nose, it’s hard to correct her when she’s 500 yds off trailing and idk what she’s on and don’t want to shock her if it’s a hog, this has been her first full summer of hauling, and she’s right on pace, I’m planning on setting up a hot wire in some sort of configuration I haven’t came up with yet so she doesn’t hit it as soon as she gets to it but will be surrounded by it when she does run into it and when she breaks to run she bounces off a few times, my plan is to walk the deer down a fairly long trail to the hot wire and then take her to house and casually walk Kate over the track and let her take it, I plan on making it long enough she has enough time to get good and cranked up on the trail and BLAM, this smell causes severe discomfort and scares her, I’m not scared of ruining from running a track period because she is super gamey and has it on her mind to catch what she’s after, she’s also fairly smart so I’m hoping one or two of these lessons will give her a new outlook on her occupation...

[t-dog]

Good luck with it. I'll bet it works out fine for you.

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[Cajun]

Goose, I'll give you my 2 cents on this as I used to raise a few deer and thought the same thing. All my dogs were broke off the deer I had but still had to be shocked off a few deer in the wild.  That being said, I do think it was easier breaking them because they knew they had been shocked off of deer before. Of course I have those hard headed Plotts. lol Best of luck with your venture.

[Rough curs]

When I used to bear hunt I put my dogs down on every deer that crossed the road ,when they wouldn't leave the truck or started to look the other way  I figured I was good. Did this every year with new pups or new dogs I got and worked about 99% of the time , had a few hard headed ones that ended up gone. Old tritronics works pretty darn good.

[Goose87]

Goose, I'll give you my 2 cents on this as I used to raise a few deer and thought the same thing. All my dogs were broke off the deer I had but still had to be shocked off a few deer in the wild.  That being said, I do think it was easier breaking them because they knew they had been shocked off of deer before. Of course I have those hard headed Plotts. lol Best of luck with your venture.

Yesterday I made a John wick set up and put some buck piss I found in an old hunting bag on a cotton ball wrapped in hot wire, one of the young males who plays with the deer all the time winded it from about 30 yds and went straight to it and didn’t know what hit him, it wound up hitting 3 out of the 4 I got running around, I’m going to order some pre orbital gland scent, I think is the name, If I’m not mistaken is the gland in the foot, which I’m figuring is what most dogs actually are smelling, I’m not fooling myself and thinking this is a cure all I figured they’re going to want to run deer in the wild, I’m just hoping this makes the process smoother...

[t-dog]

I took a fresh dead deer and put a dog collar around it's neck. I put a shock collar on my dogs and let them run around the yard and forget they had it on. Then I took a looooooooong lead line and attached it to the dogs collar then ran it through the deers collar and stood back. I let the dog get up on the deer and smell it real good then pull all the slack out so that the dog is right up against the deer and I lay on the shock collar. When I release the button I release the slack. Then I pull the dog back up to it again and lay on it again. When I get through they think deer eat dogs. I never say a word. I let them think its between them and the deer

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[Cajun]

T dog, that is very similar to how I break my dogs off deer. Every deer season we bring a deer up to the barn and put a short leash around the deers neck and hook it to the dog. I burn them enough where all they want is to get away from that deer. I had my bosco dog drag a doe 20 yards to me trying to get away. lol I do it a few times a year and it breaks most of them. It is a lot better method then turning dogs loose on a deer you see and then shocking them. I have seen that take the hunt right out of them where they are afraid to leave your side.

[Reuben]

T dog, that is very similar to how I break my dogs off deer. Every deer season we bring a deer up to the barn and put a short leash around the deers neck and hook it to the dog. I burn them enough where all they want is to get away from that deer. I had my bosco dog drag a doe 20 yards to me trying to get away. lol I do it a few times a year and it breaks most of them. It is a lot better method then turning dogs loose on a deer you see and then shocking them. I have seen that take the hunt right out of them where they are afraid to leave your side.

Yes...I have seen you write up about this method...

Many years ago I needed to do something about those get out there quick and strike a hog kind of pups and if no hog you could bet there was going to be a deer race...back then there weren’t any shock collars with any kind of range...

I got this idea to buy some deer breaking scent as a matter of fact I still have the same bottle...I use an old deer shoulder mount to break the pups at around 6 months of age...the first thing is to make sure the pups are baying hogs so there won’t be any confusion even though the breaking is done in my back yard...I roll up a white paper towel to simulate a white deer tail and tack it to the back side of the old shoulder mount...I add a few drops of deer scent on the rolled up paper towel and then I walk up to the dog pens...I will have the mount and cattle prod with me...I make sure the pups smell deer in the air and they know where it’s coming from...the first pup to get tapped is always the alpha...because if he’s about to pi$$ all over himself his subordinate siblings will take note and follow suit...all 6 month old pups get about three love taps each every time they make contact with that ferocious deer...I make sure they are smelling deer the whole time...the following week I repeat with two taps each...this usually is all they need but a third week with one tap each on each will seal the deal...you will know when they encounter a deer in the woods the first couple of times because they will come out straight to me with their heads and tails down...I move a ways and send them forward...after a little while they learn if they ignore the deer the deer won’t hurt them...