It's 2pm, dirty and hot, have a chance to call a yote, so I decide to take “Bert”, and see if he is up to the task. Bert is one year old, and this will be his first “real” calling stand. I set up on a fence line, and get the sun to my back the best I can. Wind is crossing, and I feel fairly confident that things are going to go my way.

I start out with a “pup distress” on my old mouth call, 30 seconds of blowing my lungs out, and I quit. Now I wait for 3 minutes before I call again. I never did make the second series of calls before a yote came up the fence out of site, when Bert saw the yote at 15 yards out.

Now we have a race, the yote running for his life, and Bert trying his heart out to catch it. I spent the next 3 hours trying to find my dog, and never did kill the yote.

That was July of 1998, I was just out of college, and I had a bright idea of taking my yote calling to the “next level”. I had no shock collars or tracking collars, just a fair knowledge of yotes, and dogs.

Fast forward to today, I have a pen of 10 dogs, I breed and train coyote decoy dogs, and consistently kill 125 to 150 yotes a year.

One of the most common questions I get is “How did you get from one dog that was marginal, to a pen full that are great?”. Simple answer, stubbornness, and hard work.

Types of decoy dogs

There are two basic types of decoy dogs; passive and aggressive.

A passive decoy dog will sit with you when calling, and his job is to be a “visual decoy”; the yote sees the dog, and keys in on it. The dog should sit behind you and not engage a yote.

Aggressive decoy dogs, will engage a yote that is “hung up”. The dog will go to the yote and pick a fight, as soon as the fight starts, the dog quits, and returns to the handler. I insist, and train my dogs to “go behind”. I don’t want a dog blocking my shot at a yote, or multiple yotes.

Why do decoy dogs work?

Decoy dogs work because the nature of a yote is to protect their territory, and fight to the death for it.

There is an innate hatred between domestic dogs and coyotes. When a coyote sees a dog, they want to kill him, or at the least run him off. This does not mean that all yotes will “work the dogs”. Young yotes many times are scared of a dog, and they will leave the country. Mature yotes will “most times” (I use that term loosely), engage a dog, or pair of dogs.

In my pack I have sight chasers, passive decoy dogs, and aggressive decoy dogs. This leads to the next question, and answer.

How do you train a “Decoy Dog”?

This is a bit of a loaded question. What type of dog fits your style? Most guys cannot do what I do, and have a few of each. The first thing any person new to decoy dogs needs to decide is “what type of dog do I want?" and then train accordingly.

The very first thing is “control”. I learned this lesson the hard way in the early days.

I start all my dogs on fresh yote hides at ten weeks, but I will not hunt them until they are solid on a “sic’em", and also a “come back”. Those two commands are not debatable, they must respond instantly. I use the very best electronic shock collars when training, and also when hunting any of my dogs - even my finished dogs.

I could write a book on the details of training different styles of decoy dogs, but for the purpose of this article, I will hit a few highlights.

Styles of Decoy Dogs

First of all, “Common Sense Wins”.

If you want an aggressive long range dog, you need to be dragging yote hides, and encouraging your dog to bite. If you are calling and the dog comes to you, he needs to be scolded or corrected, and he needs to learn what you expect.

The flip side is if you want a close range dog, you need to nick him with the e-collar when he gets out to far. The same principle applies; teach the dog what you expect.

The term “Decoy dog” means different things to different people. To me it’s a dog that helps me harvest more yotes, and I expect them to engage the coyotes, come back when told, and run any blood trail I set them on.

In my opinion a large part of what decoy dogs do is hold cripples. Let’s just be honest, guys make bad shots once in awhile, and I would rather have dogs that can find those cripples and hold them, opposed to having any wounded game get away.

Ole Bert

 It's 7 AM, and I’m hunting in a contest. I crawled into a spot in the rocks, over looking a huge sagebrush flat. My hunting partner is 50 yards down wind of me. “Ole Bert” is loose and moving around maybe 200 yards below us. John “lip squeaks” after a yote is spotted, I give him the “thumbs up”, shot fired, yote dead, Bert goes to the dead yote, and yote number two arrives. Bert picks the fight, and runs to me, I kill that yote at 10 yards. I send Bert back into the brush. Yotes 3, 4, and 5 arrive on the scene. They are building into Bert, and he is fighting his way loose and comes behind me. Yote number 3 killed by John at 15 yards. The other yotes pull the pin, and leave. The next day we went back to the same spot with Bert, and killed 2 yotes, are they the same two that got away? Who knows?

The date was Jan 16 2008.

Bert is still alive; he is “retired”, and will live out his life being my “Buddy”.

I make no promises that a “Decoy Dog” will increase your yote harvest, but I will promise if you do your part, calling coyotes with a dog, can be the most fun you can have.     

                                                                                                                                             

For more info about me, my dogs, or guide services that I offer, check out www.shooterservicesunlimited.com. 

                                Duane Freilino.