Not typical of deer dogs here either; after teaching zeus to blood trail the first six months i was amazed and sent him to blood trailing school for west texas commercial deer camps to see how he would do; the trainer was equally impressed and unsolicited brokered an offer of $5,000; by then zeus was my friend and could not sale.
A year later my friend 'jim may' who has run blueticks for 60 years insisted that zeus run deer with his dogs on his private 2,000 acre tree farm surrounded by an additional 10,000 timberland acres of landowners who enjoy dogs running; and the first run zeus and jim's dog boomer produced the largest typical deer we had witnessed harvested in southwest arkansas (12 point 168 B&C).
gps collars and shot guns came next and i put up my scoped rifles and purchased a complimenting bluetick bitch to produce one litter a year for backup from which i keep a single pup and sale or trade the rest.
zeus is now in his fourth year and averages over 35 miles per day hunt and either runs deer in big loop back or returns every 1-3 hours on same trail and sometimes on gps ive seen him cut trail from a 1/2 mile away and run straight to his starting point; we start early morning and sometimes he does not return from last run until after dark; he can only run two full days in a row as on third day he passes out while running and has to be carried out of the woods which only happened twice.
zeus is also a skilled self starter and typically locates a deer within 5 minutes of release early morning and within 15 minutes of release early afternoon; he seldom walks beside me as he is criss-crossing or wide circling; jim's surrounding land owner buddies call him to see when zeus is running; the last day of season three deer where killed in front of zeus by three different hunters. zeus will also not leave a downed deer in the woods until picked up.
Most of our blueticks run less than 15 miles per day and start slowing down by 2 pm. ive seen zeus within 30 feet of the deer still after mile long run but he is also sometimes 100-200 yards behind.
from zeus' first sired litter i kept pup hercules (uniquely red ticked) and at six months he runs over 20 miles and returns every 1-2 hours on same trail; he tries his best to keep up with us pop; he still likes to walk beside me and typically locates a deer within 10 minutes in morning hunt and 30 minutes in afternoon. jim said he had never seen a bluetick sit and shake hands on command either. auburn said they typically don't accept blueticks into their explosive detection program, and likewise prefer labs, but that this family of blueticks had above average versitility in intelligence and accepted two as trial.
zeus has an unusual environment here on the farm; at six weeks i put him in a three acre pen with a dozen deer and he still thinks an older doe is his mother; she licks him down every day and he plays with several large bucks in the pen and when in rut he fights back when provoked; he would protect every deer in the pen with his life.