Hoffman Deer Recovery & Training Kennel LLC

09/16/2025

Two more recoveries this morning. Both recoveries were these hunters first time ever using dogs and they got to see some great tracking here.

First track they called me last night they had a quartering to shot had blood for 50 yards looked for awhile and found no more blood from that point. We put Freyja on it 350 yards later with two pin drops of blood I marked along the entirety of the track and we had their deer. About 275 yards in this doe tried pulling a slick one and backtracked on her blood trail and changed direction on us. As soon as I saw Freyja check every direction from the last spot and not advance the track I told them she most likely doubled back and changed direction here and they got to see Freyja piece it together which was a great experience for them. Shot was low stomach.

Track 2 they jumped this deer twice yesterday tried looking this morning with no luck and no blood from the second bed so we came out it was about half a mile from hit site to where they jumped this deer the second time. We started her at the last bed they jumped her from. Freyja locked in quick and off we went about 375 yards later I see her stop and start to tail wag in some tall grass then she jumps back and I know this deer is still alive and off this deer goes and I can see she is shot in the leg. So we go after her again and jump her about 100 yards later so we go again and about 80 yards later we spot her laying along a creek bed in front of us so we backed out and let the hunter finish the job. This shot never entered the body cavity just went through the front legs breaking one of them. She most likely would have been coyote food in the coming days or weeks. No chance either of these deer are found without a well trained tracking dog. This was also the hunters first time bow hunting in 13 years so they were pretty pumped.

09/15/2025

Got another beautiful buck this morning. Two other dogs were out on this track before us one last night and one this morning. The hunter originally booked me for the drone if the second dog didn’t find it. I convinced him to let me bring both the drone and dog with the foilage early in the year I would never be 100% after a thermal drone comes out. Freyja went 355 yards in 6 min and showed us why she’s Freyja once again. I would have also been able to find this one with the thermal drone since it died in some open head high grass. Deer was one lung liver gut hit you can see both entrance and exit in the pics. Not one drop of blood the entirety of this track. Can’t beat following this dog around the woods. Congrats on your biggest buck to date Justin!

09/15/2025

Was able to go 1-2 today. First one the hunter had what looked to be from the video they had of the shot a pretty good shot then the deer almost tipped over at 50 yards so they went to track it and no blood from the spot they almost saw him tip over. They went back in the morning and grid searched thinking this deer wouldn’t be far and came up with nothing and got ahold of me. Hot weather plus a grid search makes for a very hard track but about 400 yards later without a drop of blood we found this beautiful buck. Turned out to be a gut shot buck that wasnt dead that long. Entrance and exit of this shot shown in the pics. Track two was a high behind the should shot with no exit. They couldnt find any blood at all. We were able to push this track out quite a ways with just two pin drops of blood before I called it off. I believe she will live to see another day. When in doubt back out!

09/12/2025

Goodluck to all of the bowhunters this season as we get underway here tomorrow. We have been hard at it with the dog and drone on a handful of bears this past week just not on any dead ones yet. As always when in doubt back out and feel free to reach out. Don’t let the early season heat or rain affect your wait times and cost you your animals. Be safe and have fun this is the time of year a lot of us live for!

09/02/2025

Good luck to all the bear hunters here as we are on opening day eve! My services will be available throughout the entirety of bear season again this year. Both dog and drone options available all season long this year. Early season with the heavy foilage the dog is going to be a much better option. Deer season right around the corner as well here. Looking forward to another season helping everyone and seeing old and new faces!

08/20/2025

Here is a track I did with Copper the other day. He’s just a puppy not even 4 months old yet and I’ve only had him for a month but he is showing great promise. Excited to see how this pups next couple weeks of training go and how his first season will go!

08/19/2025

Spring session was pretty busy but summer session was jam packed this year. Here’s some of the faces of our summer session training. Cant wait to see what these dogs do this fall! Hunting season is almost here!

07/14/2025

Here is Cici she is a 3 year old coonhound mix. If you are wanting to get into the tracking game or know of anyone who is she is available. I’ll be looking at getting her into a tracking home before season starts. I took her in from a tracking friend who had to give the dog up due to unforseen circumstances. She has a handful of real life recoveries under her belt. She has been here with me for a few weeks and has been working in on training sessions. Shes well past the puppy stage very focused on track and calm. Shes a fairly easy read on lead. Well mannered and listens very well. She would be a great first dog for someone looking at getting into tracking or a solid additional dog to any current trackers. A great opportunity for anyone regardless.

07/09/2025

Here is a look at Dixie the GSP. She’s been here about 5 weeks now. She has tremendous drive and is starting to come along nicely. Normally I post dogs running tracks 2+ months into training when they are about ready to get picked up and those videos I post are very nice clean runs not really drifting off the actual track much at all. I never really post mid training or early on training vids of fresh dogs with no experience that come in to show how much progress is made throughout. So that’s kind of what I’m doing here with her. From day 1 distractions have been something I knew I was going to have to spend quite a bit of time on with Dixie. Every 10 steps into the track a chipmunk, bird, or something would make a noise maybe 70-80 yards away or she would catch wind of a rabbit that ran out in front of us a few moments prior and I’d completely lose her focus and sometimes we would have to sit 20-30 min or more before being able to continue the track or maybe not even being able to get her back focused on the track at all that day. We ended up getting in a couple very nice clean almost perfect runs in a row last week. And if we aren’t struggling a little we probably aren’t learning much on the track so with her confidence pretty high after the last couple tracks on the walk back from a track with a different client dog a couple days prior I found a nice distraction with a dead bird that was tore apart which also happened to be in an area I train where I knew there would be deer, rabbit, turkey and squirrel sign all over the track. An area I usally train in towards the last month they are here. And I ran the track right over the top of the dead bird to test how she would do. I know a couple weeks ago this would have been the end of our track or a sit and refocus moment for quite some time . But after all the work we are starting to see distractions be much less of an issue for her. Still plenty of work to do as there always is to make the tracks come fall look easy. But super proud of the progress this pup is making and she will be locked and loaded come fall to put some Kansas bucks on some tailgates. The bird was probably 300 yards into the track but I started the video there and she checks out this dead bird for a little bit gets her excitment level up a little after but then continues the track on through to finish it.

This is Dixie 5 weeks into training. The track was set up to work heavily on distraction work as she has been running pretty smoothly but distractions have b...

06/29/2025

Getting those practice flights in with the thermal drone inbetween working the dogs.

06/24/2025

Here is one of the summer session client dogs. This is Lemy the Basset Hound on a 14 hour old track with several hours of rain on top of it. She’s a real fun dog to track with and is coming along very nicely. She self corrects nicely and is a fairly easy read. I believe this dog could tailgate a lot of deer if given the opportunities to do so.

06/04/2025

You might recognize this little pup from previous training videos or pictures I’ve posted. Shes one of the Illinois dogs I’ve had the privilege of training and she passed the UBT-2 test the other day. Jaxie was a fun little dog to work with who has a ton of fire. Congrats Steve and Jaxie excited to see you guys tailgate some more deer this season! Keep up the good work!