Deer Shed Dog has been on the Internet for over five years now and most shed hunters have heard, or read about how much a trained shed dog can help you find deer sheds.  But my method can also be used to find elk and moose sheds.

The following is a shed hunter success story using my method to find moose sheds. View pictures below.

“I own a small hunting camp in Vermont’s northeast kingdom and had taken a passing interest in moose shed hunting back in 2002. My buddy, Ed, and I hunted one day that spring and were astonished to find a nice, palmy moose shed of about eight pounds. In the three years that followed, we increased our antler count each year until, by the spring of 2005, we had amassed a total of 36 moose sheds over our four years of searching for them.

In the summer of 2005, while doing some on-line research to try to understand moose activities better, I stumbled upon Jerry Carlson’s website. I contacted Jerry and discussed the possibility of using his method of training deer shed dogs in training a dog to find moose sheds. While Jerry had not actually seen his method used for that purpose, his belief was that it would probably work. The drawback, we both agreed, would be the likely inability for a dog to retrieve the much heavier moose sheds, especially in brush or brambles. Still, I thought it worth the reasonable price Jerry was asking and sent him a check along with my request for his instructions.

I followed Jerry’s instructions closely and within less than two months I had my son’s black lab, Riley, regularly finding and retrieving moose sheds that I had hidden. Though it was early September, I just couldn’t wait until spring to bring Riley out on a moose trail. On September 11, 2005, during his maiden voyage to the moose woods, Riley found and retrieved a fork horn antler shed by a young bull moose the previous spring.

This success prompted my buddy, Ed, to try the method with his wife’s six month old black lab puppy, Mandy. She also quickly learned to locate moose sheds using Jerry’s method.

The following spring, between Ed, myself, Mandy and Riley, we found 31 moose sheds and one deer shed. Perhaps the most unbelievable part is that when we tallied up the finds at the end of the season, Riley and Mandy had found 21 of the 32 sheds with Ed and me totaling just 11 sheds between us.

Riley works quite closely to me, ranging only fifteen or twenty yards when we are in the woods. This is just his “personality” and it coincidentally works out very well for moose shed hunting. Riley has winded and found moose sheds at what I have paced off to be about 40 yards. He will retrieve sheds up to about seven pounds or so. He has located many sheds over seven pounds, the biggest being just over 13-1/2 pounds to date. By working closely with Riley I have come to understand his demeanor and recognize when he “has the scent”. Since he is rarely out of my sight, whenever he does disappear, I quickly stop and look for him. I believe I have found every big antler he has ever located, either by seeing Riley in the distance tugging on it or by following him back to a shed once I located him and encouraged him to again “get the bone”.

Riley once found the 3 inch broken tip of a moose antler that was buried under a layer of leaves in a large clearing. I saw him wind it at about five yards, find it, dig it up, and bring it to me. It had apparently been snapped off from a bull moose in a fight during the rut the previous October.

I also watched Riley wind a large moose shed near Jackman, Maine, in 2007 at about ten yards. He followed the scent and began digging in the rolled up earthen birm along the perimeter of an old logging header. As I approached I could hear the sound of his toenails on something hard. He continued to dig until I recognized the veins of a moose antler palm. I helped Riley unearth the 12-1/2 pound shed that had been fully buried in several inches of damp earth and grass, apparently by some logging equipment at least six months earlier.

I have been very pleased with results of Jerry’s training methods. Both labs we trained were regularly finding moose sheds in fields and woods within a couple of months. While we trained them regularly (15-30 minutes) several days each week, we did not pursue a crash course. The dogs stayed interested and learned quickly."

                                                                                    Steve Martin (Vermont)

Riley’s tugs on a nice 10-1/2 pound moose shed he found in April of 2007.

Steve, Riley, Mandy & Ed with all 31 moose sheds from 2006, the first spring of shed hunting after using Jerry Carlson’s method of shed dog training. The two black labs located 21 of the 31 moose sheds found that year.

Riley’s best day of 2007. He found all four of these sheds.