"Okay. Now, do you have anything in your car of your's? Like a sock, or something?" I asked him. "I can go check," he said. He took off towards the car, and came back with a small pink jacket. "It's my little sister's," he said. "Will it work?" I thought it over. "Yes, just put it under your shirt to get your scent on it. Even if we don't get a lot on it, families share a common scent component, so it will still smell a little like you," I said, patting him on the back. "It'll be fine." It wasn't long before Tyler was hidden behind the building, and Dessi was dressed in her harness, ready to go. My grandmother handed me the line. "You want to track Dessi?" I asked. I had never tracked her before. "You were wondering what it would be like to track a dog other than Rudi, so go ahead," she said. I took the line. Dessi sprinted down the track, me struggling to keep up. I was soon running. She had absolutely no chill, unlike Rudi, pulled harder than he did, and wasn't as controlled as he was. We went behind the building, Dessi pausing for a second and looking up at Tyler before barking triumphantly and licking him. "It looks like Dessi made a new friend!" I giggled. We went to the other side of the park to see a little toddler walking up to Dessi. "Is this your kid?" my grandmother asked a young woman a few yards away. "Yes, thank you. She's a curious little thing," she replied. "Well, just make sure you watch your kid and make sure she knows the fog before she goes to pet it." A couple of her siblings asked if they could pet Dessi and what we were doing. We let them pet her as we explained how scent works. I talked to the first student while the other student worked her dog. She and her dogs were new to tracking, so they had a really easy track. We decided to do a split trail with Gosh next so she could work with child scent. That's where you have a few people walk the track and slowly split off, so you know the dog can follow the right scent. I pulled some hairs from my head and my grandmother put them in a plastic bag to let the dog smell it. The we walked the track. Gosh got a little off and went to follow my grandmother's trail, probably because we're family and we smell the same, but eventually made it back to the track. She stayed a little bit away from the footstep, and didn't make that clean of a corner, but she found me. I reward her with a piece of chicken from my jacket pocket. I'd say we had a pretty fun and very successful day. Rudi did good on his track. Both Gosh and Dessi got exposed to child scent. We even taught some kids about how scent works! I got to see a beginner at work. I got to see a skilled dog at work. I was very satisfied with how it turned out. (2017, January 11). Giant Schnauzer. Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giant_Schnauzer
1 Comment
http://media.npr.org/assets/img/2013/03/11/istock-4306066-baby_custom-aee07650b312c1f240125b669c2aa92a7d36e73b-s900-c85.jpg
My mom wasn't off work yet after we tracked, so we decided to do some obedience, which is where you command your dog to do something, like sit or laying down, and see if they do it. If they do it, you reward them with praise or food. If they don't they just don't get treat or praise. Well anyways, we went to the other side of the park to train. Then, all of a sudden, kids just ran out and distracted Rudi. We didn't want to risk Rudi freaking out, so we packed him up in the car and plotted a track for one of my grandmother's student's coming. Then one of the students arrived. Her dog's name was Gosh, a Giant Schnauzer. Very cute and so talented. She would make very clean corners, lay down on an article immediately, and pee on the track to she could lead her handler back if they got lost. I was honestly a little jealous, because I had to command Rudi to lay down on the articles and Gosh just did it on her own. Rudi, even though he always follows back tracks, has no way of marking check points to come back to and re-scent. We just have to work together to find it. Gosh's handler got lucky to have such a good tracking dog! We were also planning on tracking Dessi with child scent, because she had never tracked with child scent before. Child/teenager scent is more dense than adult scent, which kind of means it's very strong and while contained in a trail, it presses against it, not going anywhere, making the scent very strong. This is because dogs can smell hormones, and because children and teenagers are still growing their hormones are crazy. Teenagers and pre-teens produce the strongest scent because of this. The hormone thing also relates back to the theory that dogs can smell fear. Because different hormones can control different emotions, they have different scents! So, when you think about it, dogs can actually smell feelings! How cool is that?! So, anyways, we were going to train Dessi to work with child scent and see how she would react to it. The kids that ran out in front of us earlier, asked if they could watch, and if we were getting the "big dog" out. I told them that they could, and that we were just tracking a little beagle puppy. I told my grandmother this, and she told me to deliver a message to them. "Excuse me, ma'am," I said, tapping the mom on the shoulder. "I was wondering if one of your kids would like to track lay for the beagle puppy we're about to track." The kids started saying, "Mama! I want to do it! Pick me!" to their mom. She said, "Here, Tyler can do it, because he's the oldest." The little kids sighed and complained, but stayed in the car to watch. I took Tyler by the wrist and I said, "Okay, here's what you're going to do. I want you to take off toward that building and hide behind it. You got it?" I asked. He nodded. Lombrozo T. (2013, March 11). Is Having A Child a Rational Decision?. Retrieved from http://media.npr.org/assets/img/2013/03/11/istock-4306066-baby_custom-aee07650b312c1f240125b669c2aa92a7d36e73b-s900-c85.jpg Over spring break, I went with my grandmother to go tracking. We hadn't tracked in a while, so we figured we needed to go soon, and Spring Break was the best time to do it.
I got up at nine and got ready. Me and my grandmother drove to city park with her new beagle puppy, Dessi. My grandmother got out of the car and started plotting the track. We did what we call a blind track, where the handler doesn't know where the track goes. When my grandmother got back, she said, "I think I know what causes the scent to be pushed out!" I was surprised and curious, because we didn't know what causes scent to move the way it does. She pulled up a picture on her phone. It was of discoloration in the mud by a fence. It made the same pattern as the fence. "It's the wind!" She said. I understood immediately. The wind was what made the scent blow out, and it would've gone through the same path as the sunlight did. That's why it was on the ground away from the fence. I started applying this concept to other things. Like tracking in forests, for example. The tree's coverage wouldn't let the wind interfere as much, letting the scent spread out and take a wider path. Close to the ground, the tree's trunks are all different sizes and shapes, causing the wind to spread the scent out oddly. Every forest would be different to track in. It's really cool to think about. We had finally found out what causes scent to be this way. In one of my future blog post, if I can discuss all the things I wrote about in my first blog post with my grandmother, I would like to make one about the science of scent, using this new philosophy. Anyways, I got out of the car to track Rudi. Poor Dessi was whinnying. You may be wondering, why do all these dogs have odd names? Every dog has a tracking name based on their real name, with some meaning behind it. Rudi's is "Rudi von Henderhoss," because von Henderhoss is a German name, and Rudi's a German Shepherd. Dessi's real name is Destiny, (we just call her Dessi), and I helped my grandmother come up with her tracking name. It is "A Fortunate Does of Karma," which is our own definition of the word "destiny." We named her Destiny because she wasn't the dog my grandmother was planning to get, but it was love at first sight, like destiny. Cork's mother had to have a c-section, because he was stuck in her uterus. So, they named him Cork, with a tracking name of "Pebble Mist, Message in a Bottle." I went to the start flag, and told Rudi to lay down on the first article. I praised him and we walked on the hill. He was right on track for a little while, until gravity pulled the scent down the hill. Then he went off the hill, and eventually found the track again. He stayed on track when we went to the woods line too. When we went into the woods, and thought about the wind and the scent in forests, I realized how much I trusted him to lead me on the right scent path, and what a good tracking dog he was. We continued along the track, and soon came to a huge rain puddle. Since water draws the dogs in, we expected Rudi to drift off the footstep, but he kept going. We followed it on a hill, until he overshot a corner that went down the hill. He searched for it, but soon we went back to where he started and found it. A long leg later, he finished the track by laying down on a final glove. He was so good! I was very proud. |
Jillian M.I am Jillian. I've been tracking since I was eight and I love what I do. Archives
May 2017
Categories |