Use Shed Hunting to Combat Cabin Fever
Use Shed Hunting to Combat Cabin Fever
I dread cabin fever (February – April). It’s cold. It’s dark longer than it’s light. Most hunting seasons are closed and football season is over. Rather than continuing to let this season get me down, I plan to combat the doldrum with a new hobby of shed hunting. This new pursuit begins with training (at least) one of my dogs to shed hunt.
I’ve enjoyed deer hunting and raising dogs since I was a teenager, but I haven’t jumped into the pastime of shed hunting. Inevitably that means I haven’t trained any of my dogs to shed hunt. My main excuse for not shed hunting has been, “I don’t have private ground that I get to manage, so I’m not focused on trying to gain buck data from one year to the next.” I still don’t have private ground to manage, but I’m not going to let that deter me any longer. I enjoy spending time with my dogs. Plus, I love being outdoors, not pinned down to a couch, waiting for spring.
Because I haven’t trained a dog to shed hunt, I don’t have any first-hand experience or wisdom to pass along to you. That being said, I have owned and trained many of my own dogs for basic obedience and upland hunting and I’m sure some lessons from those sessions will be applicable for shed hunting training. What is more, I’ve been following Jeremy Moore with DogBone Hunter for years and I’ve had the privilege of recently talking with him a couple of times.
Quick tips to help you train your dog to shed hunt:
A good foundation (obedience) is where you start. Your dog needs to obey basic commands (recall, sit, fetch, “find it”). A cooperative dog is key. They need to go where you want them to go. They are an extension of your ability to search. Once you have a good foundation, then you can start training your dog to shed hunt. Now, you have to get your dog to know what an antler is and understand the value of retrieving it. Again, you can’t train your dog to shed hunt if they don’t understand the value of retrieving or don’t like to retrieve in general.
Ther are some great tools to train our dogs to shed hunt, like liquid antler scent and a wax scent sticks; both help train our dogs to use their noses as they search for antlers. They also have a training dummy that looks like an antler. The advantage of using this dummy rather than a shed when we start training our dog is they are less likely to run up and poke themselves with the antler.
Give your dog the same amount of praise for finding a spike as you would if they found a 160 inch antler. Keep the training fun. When things are fun, we tend to do them more often. And, when we do things more often, we get better results. And when you get better results, it’s always more enjoyable.
Even if you aren’t a deer hunter, or you’re like me and you don’t have private ground you manage, shed hunting can be another outdoor experience you enjoy with your dog(s). I’ll be on this journey with you as I train my first shed hunting dog this year.
By Kyle Dana
February 2025
