When we jump a wounded deer my dogs don’t take out after it like a walker hound. I’ve trained them to stay close to the handler so it kinda limits us to what we can deal with on the ones that aren’t dead….I’m good with that though. What we do is once we get it up and it takes off….I let the dogs get in behind and continue to track it at however fast they want to take it. Otis is about like a beagle running a deer on a deer drive. I do this so that we can assess how injured or weak the deer might be. If we go 600-800 yards or something and we haven’t once seen the deer or heard it jump out in front of us….then we make the call that he is still pretty lively and going. However, if we get up on him several times and hear him struggling up ahead then we know that if we continue to push him there’s a good chance of him baying up.

I believe the coyote is doing the same thing….and that’s likely what you saw. I think when they come across a deer that they perceive to be a target for whatever reason they push it a little to test out the potential of taking it down just like we do when blood tracking. I’ve read a study or experiment that talks about the impacts of coyotes on deer behavior and I believe this is where its occurring. The more times a deer is pursued in order to check it for weakness…..the less they move and the more wary they become. It has the same impact as hunting pressure.