In Gus We Trust - NH Big Game Tracking and Recovery

In Gus We Trust - NH Big Game Tracking and Recovery Gus is a purebred German Shepherd who has been trained to track since he was 12 weeks old. Brendan is a licensed hunting and fishing guide in NH.

We both love tracking & finding wounded bear, deer and moose. When in doubt, back out, and give us a shout!

Mystery solved! This deer we tracked early in muzzleloader season is alive and doing well, despite missing a few chunks ...
01/09/2026

Mystery solved! This deer we tracked early in muzzleloader season is alive and doing well, despite missing a few chunks of bone.

Every tracking season there are one or two tracks that are head-scratchers. This was one. Chunks of bone (second pic) at or near the site of impact are usually an indication of a leg wound. That’s what I thought going into this one, and the other trackers who I showed the pics of bone to seemed to agree.

Sometimes deer can make a full recovery from a leg wound, and go on to lead happy and healthy lives. Other times it can lead to their demise. It all depends on the severity of the wound, where and which legs are injured, and whether the projectile did any other damage along the way.

The only way to tell how badly the deer is wounded is to catch up to it and get eyes on it. This can be easier said than done—three legged deer can still get around pretty well.

We tracked this deer for over a mile before eventually putting eyes on it. All four legs seemed to working fine and we called the track. What didn’t make sense at the time was how the deer could have lost so much bone matter without even walking with a limp.

Fast forward to yesterday, and the hunter texted me a pic of this deer in the exact spot where he had taken the shot a couple months ago.

As you can see from the first pic, the impact was just a little high. The bullet would have nicked the scapula—enough to send some bone flying but not enough for the deer to lose the use of that leg.

The hunter and I are both glad the deer survived and that we made the right call by backing off!

How it started - four years ago. Gus has gotten a little bigger, but that expression has not changed.
12/30/2025

How it started - four years ago. Gus has gotten a little bigger, but that expression has not changed.

12/15/2025

The 2025 tracking season is officially over, and Gus had a good year! He recovered 22 animals, filling the freezers for 22 hunters and their families.

We also found about double that number of animals--either putting eyes on it or hearing it run off with wounds it would recover from.

Along the way we had a lot of adventures, saw some weird stuff, met a lot of good people, and made some new friends. I made the slideshow below to highlight our recoveries and travels this season.

Some of the interesting stories don't have pictures--like the two times we tracked for/with a Game Warden because violators reported themselves. Both of those violators missed.

Gus and I would like to thank every hunter who trusted us to track your animal. We'd also like to thank all the other trackers who were there to talk through challenges, give advice, and share tracks, especially Frank Chase and Phil Plummer -- thanks for everything guys!

We're looking forward to next season. Until then Gus will be playing lots of Frisbee and I'll be working to ensure we are even better when the 2026 season rolls around.

How do you keep a working dog happy when he's not working? Frisbee. Lots and lots of Frisbee.The tracking season has slo...
12/08/2025

How do you keep a working dog happy when he's not working? Frisbee. Lots and lots of Frisbee.

The tracking season has slowed down but Gus's energy levels have not. He'd love to be out tracking, but he will settle for chasing and catching a Frisbee instead.

We are available for tracking through the last few days of archery season if anyone needs us. My throwing arm could use a break!

It’s great when the hunters do everything right. It makes it easier for everyone involved: us handlers, the hunters, and...
12/01/2025

It’s great when the hunters do everything right. It makes it easier for everyone involved: us handlers, the hunters, and—most importantly—the dogs who work their hearts out on every track.

This young man did everything right, and it made for an easy recovery… and an easy drag for the hunter. He was confident he hit the buck well but the blood trail was very light so he backed out and made some phone calls. One call was to a buddy who we had found a deer for earlier in the season. That buddy reached out to me and sent me some pictures of the blood. Liver blood.

Wounds to the liver are almost always a death sentence, but it can take some time. In that time, a deer can go a long way if pushed. The worst thing you can do is to start following blood too soon (even with a dog) and bump the deer. Then you just turned a short walk into a long one.

That is the advice I gave to the hunter on the phone, and we agreed to meet later in the afternoon. With a snowstorm coming in between, any blood on the ground would have been invisible to a human tracker—but snow doesn’t bother Gus’s nose in the least. He took the track confidently and we recovered the deer in under 200 yards.

While this recovery was easy, it could have been a lot worse. If the hunter had bumped the deer by tracking it too soon, and/or called in a bunch of buddies to grid search the snow… well, let’s just say that’s why we walk miles on most tracks.

Thank you Devin for doing everything right, and for trusting Gus to find your deer! And congrats on the beautiful buck!

"I found that deer, why can't I eat it now?"Don't worry, he got a good taste of it when we got back home!
11/30/2025

"I found that deer, why can't I eat it now?"

Don't worry, he got a good taste of it when we got back home!

A shocking discovery! Not really, but if anyone in the Claremont/Newport area is wondering what happened to your electri...
11/30/2025

A shocking discovery!

Not really, but if anyone in the Claremont/Newport area is wondering what happened to your electric fence, I may have the answer: there is about 100' of it tangled up in this buck's antlers.

The electric fence didn't slow this buck down, but the hunter's 30-30 sure did. This was some steep, mountain goat territory and after Gus took the wrong line once, we suspected that maybe coyotes had got to the deer before we did (we had also found a large clump of deer hair on the walk in). Coyotes will carry the scent of whatever they had been feasting on as they scatter, and sometimes this can be tempting even for an experienced tracking dog.

Fortunately that was not the case. After a quick restart, Gus took us right to the deceased deer. It was nice to find one that didn't try to put its antlers in us!

Congrats, Jesse, and thanks for trusting Gus to find your deer!

"That deer almost ran you guys over!"Yup, it almost did. It was actually the second deer in two days to try that nonsens...
11/28/2025

"That deer almost ran you guys over!"

Yup, it almost did. It was actually the second deer in two days to try that nonsense. It did not end well for the previous deer either. Angering a highly motivated, 90lb-pound German Shepherd who loves eating raw venison is probably not a good strategy if you are a deer.

The hunter had taken a crack at this deer the previous afternoon, and we suspected the .30-06 round had gone into its neck. The hunter did a very smart thing before we arrived: he thought perhaps his sight had been jarred out of position so he test fired the rifle. Sure enough, the rifle was impacting the target 4" off of the point of aim. Just enough to turn a well placed shot into a marginal one.

Neck wounded deer are very difficult to recover. The only vitals in the neck are as wide as a finger and if those are missed, the deer will be hurting but will usually remain highly mobile. In this case, the ole aught-six did its job though. The deer was still alive when we found it, but after a short sprint, followed by the charge, the deer was spent and Gus filled another freezer.

Congrats, Craig, and thank you for trusting Gus to find your deer!

A buck to be thankful for!This hunter's Thanksgiving was made a little happier thanks to Gus. This was a two part track....
11/27/2025

A buck to be thankful for!

This hunter's Thanksgiving was made a little happier thanks to Gus. This was a two part track. We first tracked this deer last night in the rain and fog and darkness.

For over a mile, we had no blood and never got close enough to lay eyes on the deer. I'm sure the hunter was questioning whether we were just taking him for a walk, but I knew Gus was following the right deer. We left thinking that perhaps the deer would survive.

When I got home, I was reviewing my GPS data and the pictures of the blood the hunter sent me from before we arrived. Two things didn't sit right with me: 1) the deer never went uphill for more than a few dozen yards and was steadily losing elevation as it went; and 2) how interested Gus was in the track, despite the lack of any visible blood.

I reached back out to the hunter offered to give it another shot in the morning. Gus had no problem picking up the track where we left off and followed it a few more miles without blood, still never going up any significant inclines.

At the end of the day our persistence was rewarded, and this hunter got a beautiful buck in time to make it home for Thanksgiving dinner.

Congrats, Ben, and thank you for trusting Gus to find your deer!

Another happy hunter and another freezer got a little more full!This deer was hit in the rear leg. While the wound would...
11/24/2025

Another happy hunter and another freezer got a little more full!

This deer was hit in the rear leg. While the wound would not have been immediately fatal, the first time I had eyes on the deer I knew the injury would prove fatal eventually--likely soon after coyotes or a bear caught wind of the deer.

He was trying to run, but he was not running well or fast and his legs looked like they were made of Jello. I told the hunter we might be in for a long walk but if we didn't catch up to him the coyotes certainly would overnight. Shortly after that, something shifted--likely a bone hit an artery--and the blood started dumping out (third pic).

The deer laid down for the final time just a few yards beyond. Congrats Taylor, and thanks for trusting Gus to find your buck!

"205lbs! My first patch buck!" This young man was hunting with his father-in-law when he shot this big deer mid-day yest...
11/16/2025

"205lbs! My first patch buck!"

This young man was hunting with his father-in-law when he shot this big deer mid-day yesterday. He called late in the afternoon yesterday and we had a few other tracks lined up that evening, so I told him the soonest we could be there was the following morning. Based on our phone conversation, it sounded like the deer was going to need some time to expire anyway.

They had tracked the deer .7 miles yesterday, which likely kept the deer on its feet, and its adrenaline levels spiked. It had rained overnight, which washed away any visible blood sign--but fortunately Gus doesn't track with his eyes. He had no problem following the track another 400 yards to the deer's final resting place.

The deer was still warm when we came upon it--18 hours after a bullet passed through its liver. To say these animals are tough is an understatement.

Congrats Tyler, and thank you for trusting in Gus!

Some things are worth more than money. As trackers in NH, we are only allowed to accept donations for our services. Most...
11/11/2025

Some things are worth more than money.

As trackers in NH, we are only allowed to accept donations for our services. Most hunters provide those donations in the form of cash, which we greatly appreciate--Gus is a hungry beast and so is the old Chevy.

But we also love getting unique donations like this one. A hunter we tracked for this weekend gave me this awesome hand-forged knife to thank us for tracking his son's deer. I can only imagine the number of hours he put into making this knife and sheath! Thank you very much, Jake!

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Contoocook, NH
03229

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+16035027055

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