Non-working hound skill "Footprint Tracking"

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SOAW
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Non-working hound skill "Footprint Tracking"

Post by SOAW »

Hi everyone.
Esterday im buy the dog Bluetick Coonhound dark color. He is abolutly useless!!! He can found first 3 blood tracks!!! Any animal. Skill "Footprint Tracking" is not working absolutly! Is it not a very big problem, but it do a dog usless. In my streams all vievers laughs at this dog and laughs at the game.
I think time to change it. It hurts your reputation.
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Dubitabilus
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Re: Non-working hound skill "Footprint Tracking"

Post by Dubitabilus »

Hi SOAW,

Welcome to the frustration of all Scent Hound owners.
We know how annoying it is to see our buddies miss tracks literally right in front of them but it take time and patience to get them leveled up (ALOT OF TIME since you have 50 levels to go through).

The footprints are probably too far apart and the blood trail is too light to track for a young pup.
I suggest using dog treats and spamming the "Go to Player" command everywhere you go to gain exp along the way.

If you have a bow you can purposefully go for less-ideal shots to the body and gut.
Arrows, in my game experience, keeps the blood flowing and will eventually kill the animal.
It will take a LONG time to die, but at least your pooch will get some good tracking training.

Hope it helps!
Semper vigilans, Numquam dubitabilis - "Always Vigilant, Never Doubtful"
https://www.boone-crockett.org/minimum- ... n-big-game
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DanthemanBoone
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Re: Non-working hound skill "Footprint Tracking"

Post by DanthemanBoone »

Go do some single player hunts without streaming them. Gut shoot some pigs or deer with a 270 or 300 and let the dog track them to build up its experience more quickly. Dogs can only be set on a blood trail, not footprints so if it looses the track keep tracking yourself until you find the next blood spot, and set the dog on it again. And yes it does take some time to train a reliable tracking dog.
Old hunters never die.They just sit around the campfires and tell the biggest lies.
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DutchCourage
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Re: Non-working hound skill "Footprint Tracking"

Post by DutchCourage »

I agree with previous posters, my now lvl23-ish coon pup took some time to be able to track somewhat reliably, especially with badly placed rifle shots and fast animals they tend to lose track at first but it's not a bug it's just inexperience (or the animal has stopped bleeding completely). Also having the trail cross a lot of other tracks will throw it off at first. So you really have to train the dog at least to lvl2 in all skills to get it to perform for my standards reasonably well.

To train them up use intestine or gut bow / crossbow shots and track the wounded animal (bonus, your own tracking skill will improve as well while you're following your dog and pick up the tracks yourself)
Hope this helps

tldr; Scent hounds are not a magical find everything tool
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TheSheWolf
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Re: Non-working hound skill "Footprint Tracking"

Post by TheSheWolf »

SOAW wrote:Hi everyone.
Esterday im buy the dog Bluetick Coonhound dark color. He is abolutly useless!!! He can found first 3 blood tracks!!! Any animal. Skill "Footprint Tracking" is not working absolutly! Is it not a very big problem, but it do a dog usless. In my streams all vievers laughs at this dog and laughs at the game.
I think time to change it. It hurts your reputation.
If the shot will not kill the animal, the dog will stop tracking. So, two examples of when it will, and won't, work:

1. Any bow + arrow will eventually kill the animal. In this case you can keep putting the dog back on the track if it loses it (due to being untrained) and it will track the animal "forever" (until the animal dies from the bow bleedout).

2. If you fail a fatal gun shot, and shoot an animal in a way that it will NOT die from, the dog will stop tracking shortly after the blood trail ends. This isn't a bug. It's because the animal isn't hurt anymore.


So, if you want your dog to track, don't mess up your shot, or use a bow. The dog is great for finding ex. tracks of a bow-shot animal in the high grass of Timbergold Trails. It isn't for finding the tracks of, say, a leg-shot kangaroo hit with a pistol in the open areas of Bushranger's Run.

Hope this helps!
DanthemanBoone wrote:Go do some single player hunts without streaming them. Gut shoot some pigs or deer with a 270 or 300 and let the dog track them to build up its experience more quickly. Dogs can only be set on a blood trail, not footprints so if it looses the track keep tracking yourself until you find the next blood spot, and set the dog on it again. And yes it does take some time to train a reliable tracking dog.
This isn't accurate anymore, just fyi--the INITIAL track can only be blood, but if it loses the track, you CAN set it back on a footprint track now. It was fixed about a year ago, I think?
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alssn
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Re: Non-working hound skill "Footprint Tracking"

Post by alssn »

How many times my dog show the "?" signal in front of the dead animal!11 ahahahaha

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TheSheWolf
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Re: Non-working hound skill "Footprint Tracking"

Post by TheSheWolf »

alssn wrote:How many times my dog show the "?" signal in front of the dead animal!11 ahahahaha
It will do this if you are kneeling, or lying down; I think it's because in a real situation barking might spook other prey? I'm not sure, but if you're standing up it'll bark!
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DanthemanBoone
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Re: Non-working hound skill "Footprint Tracking"

Post by DanthemanBoone »

I have bypassed the pie menu by setting my dog commands onto my numberpad on the keyboard. This way lets me command the dogs with one keystroke without having to stop hunting while using the pie menu. It also alows me to control the dogs when in the prone position. Much Quicker and tidier way to play.
I basically only need four keys for the primary commands for the retriever and 3 for the tracker dog..

1 Get in the blind
2 Come.
3 Lie down.
8 Fetch/Track.

Dont forget to turn your number pad on when remapping the controls and leave it on .
Old hunters never die.They just sit around the campfires and tell the biggest lies.
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