Spring 2011 Blood Tracking at the NATC - part 2

By Andy Bensing

Part 2

Saturday

After the Friday tests were over it was my responsibility to put the blood down on the three lines for Saturday morning. Claire Mancha, an NATC member who had flown in from Oregon for the workshop, assisted me and it barely took three hours to complete. Because of all the rain the night before, the ground was soft and moist and the deer feet on the tracking shoes stayed moist and sank into the ground the whole time the lines were being walked. I was expecting the Saturday morning Test to have much better conditions than we had on Friday morning but I ended up being quite wrong.

At 1:00AM Saturday morning a torrential thunderstorm came through and it poured for an hour and continued to rain hard for another hour after that. By morning it was anybody's guess how well the lines might have held up but I was not too optimistic. Just to make matters a little more interesting, it continued to drizzle on and off the rest of the day.

The judges for Saturday's test were Mme Agnes de France, Teddy Moritz and myself. The first dog up was from Canada. Steve Durocher's male wirehair Whiskey was raring to go at the start and took great interest in the hit site but unfortunately could not do much with the line. The smell of fresh tracks shortly after the start kept luring Whiskey away from the very faint scent left on the test line after the previous night's rain. Whiskey was called back for lack of progress after 30 minutes and shown the line. After another 10 minutes of working hard but not being able to make progress on the line the judges ended the test.


Steve Durocher (Canada) and Whiskey

The second dog up was John Jeanneney and his wirehair Joeri. Joeri also had quite a bit of trouble trying to lock in on the line but was able to very slowly pick his way along the first 150m of the line until he drifted off to the left and lost contact with it and eventually received a call back for being out of contact with the line for too long a distance. John at that point decided to withdraw his dog from the test. John reported that his dog had never really been able to lock into the line properly and after 20 minutes of trying he thought it would be a waste of everyone's time to continue trying.

John Jeanneney (NY) and Joeri

The third dog up was Steve Durocher again but this time with his female wirehair Flair. Flair took off like a shot right from the start and motored right down the first 115m of the line with no trouble whatsoever. The start of this line was even a little tricky and she had no problems with it. The line started on a logging road and went right up a steep hill and in the middle of the hill the logging road turned off to the right but the line went straight up the hill. Most dogs would have been a little sucked to the right at least for a few yards as the road arced right but Flair kept her nose to the ground and followed the line perfectly straight with excellent accuracy. I was really impressed with the dog's start and it looked like she was going to just ace the line but unfortunately for Flair at about 115m into the test she encountered some distracting cross scent in an area of ferns that started to give her trouble. This seemed to break her concentration for the blood line and things started going downhill from there. Steve was very good at reading his dog and knowing when she was tracking and when she was working hotter scent. He brought her back to the blood line several times but the easy, hot scent kept drawing her away. Eventually Steve just went with his dog and ended up with his first call back. The other judges and I showed Steve where the line was at for a restart but Flair went off again on the hot line and got a second call back.

Training note: I discussed with Steve later after the test what I thought would have been a better way to handle the situation with the hot line. Steve could read his dog very well and clearly knew when she was tracking hot and not on the blood line but he never actually stepped in and let her know firmly that taking the hot line was wrong. I would have given her a very firm "no" and perhaps a pretty good leash jerk for tracking hot. Especially when she went right back in the hot line's direction on the restart after the first call back. I asked Steve if perhaps Flair was a softer dog and could not have handled the correction and he said she was quite tough and easily could handle discipline on the line. I can only guess but I believe his dog could have passed the test if Steve had taken assertive action early on when his dog started to investigate the hot line.

After the second restart Flair seemed to settle in a little better but her concentration was clearly diminished from chasing all the hot scent. She was able to pick her way along the next 140m but as she approached the first turn she wavered off the line and ended up catching a piece of the second leg and bringing it back to the corner. She worked the check at the corner for quite some time and Steve could tell his dog was struggling and did not have the line so he would not let her go too far off from where she last had it. They circled a bunch of times and eventually the judges decided that the dog and handler needed to make progress or the test would be terminated. The handler was informed that he needed to make progress for the test to continue. At that point Steve gave Flair her head and just went with her. There really was no other choice. Unfortunately, she went off in the wrong direction and Steve and Flair received a third call back and the test was over.

It had been another tough day of conditions and the conditions had made it too difficult for any of the dogs to pass the test.

Part 3

Epilogue

And now for a funny story (depending on your perspective) and a little bragging. The NATC event was held at a Boy Scout camp in northern New Jersey. Most of the participants were staying in cabins right on the grounds. The night after the test, at 4 AM Sunday morning Eibe woke me up and kept standing on me. She wouldn't go back to sleep so I decided to let her out thinking she must have had to take a leak. Well as soon as I opened the cabin door all heck broke loose. She bolted out and around the door, and all I heard was a blood curdling scream that sounded like her guts were being ripped out. When I looked behind the door I saw something furry and two feet high fighting with my dog and the both of them disappearing off into the woods 10 yards away with my dog still screaming. I thought a coon or a coyote was dragging my dog off!

When I finally ran close and got my flashlight on all the commotion (bare foot and in my underwear no less) it turned out that it was a skunk! I don't know who had a hold of who at that point but I just reached in and grabbed Eibe by the back of the neck and when I picked her up the skunk came with. I gave the whole thing a shake and the skunk came loose and I ran for cover. Luckily I did not get a direct hit from the skunk but Eibe sure did! I tied her to a post while I surveyed all the damage. She continued to moan for another couple of minutes as I looked her over. Her chin and neck were solid yellow from the skunk spay and she had a bloody snout with a small hole in her nose but that was the only damage to her. I don't know how well the skunk faired but I did not go back to check. Luckily I had some Skunk Off in my first aid kit so we went right to the shower house and I washed her down. I thought it took pretty good care of the smell but when I got to breakfast that morning my friends thought differently!

Before the skunk incident Sunday morning I had planned to take Eibe out after breakfast to see if she could work one of the Tracking Shoe test lines at 40 hours that were not completed on Saturday at 20 hours. After her great performance on Friday under difficult conditions I thought she just might be able to do it and I knew it would be fun to try. After the skunk incident I thought at first the skunk in her face would prevent her from smelling anything but at the last minute I decided to give it a try anyway. I picked a line that had the last 600m, 2 wound beds and 2 marking points untouched and my plan was to get within 50 meters of the first wound bed using my GPS and then have Eibe do a search start to find it and begin the track from there.

Eibe's unofficial 40 hour line - click to enlarge

The search start was harder for Eibe than I expected but with a little guidance from me using the GPS she eventually found the wound bed I wanted to start from. During the search, we actually bumped the line two times and she indicated it but I wanted to be positive about the start so we kept searching for the wound bed. After finding the wound bed I started Eibe on the line. The first 120m were very difficult. The scent was so faint and there was so much other scent around that I think Eibe had a hard time figuring out which one she was supposed to follow. Eibe got off the line twice and I questioned her and she returned to searching and eventually got locked in on the line.

She went the next 240m slowly but with little trouble. As she tracked along out in front of me I could smell the skunk scent wafting off of her but it seemed not to give her any trouble. I had laid the line two days before so I thought I remembered exactly where it had been laid. At one point I thought she was off to the side 5 or 10m but right at that moment she stopped and stood solid and when I looked down she was standing over a marking point. Boy, was I proud of her!

We eventually got to a more open area where the canopy was not very dense. Part of the line was actually laid down a grassy logging trail and I knew for sure where it was but Eibe could not smell anything. I suspect the open canopy allowed the rain to hit the line harder in this area but for whatever reason this area was very difficult for Eibe. She spent a whole lot of time searching and trying to figure it out. I had to question her two times for taking heightened interest in cross trails, but I did not help her back to the line and just left her work. Hoping to blow through the difficult area I eventually I picked her up and restarted her back on part of the line where she clearly had it before but that did not work either. Finally I decided to cast her with a directed search wide around the difficult area. You can see from the GPS map how much trouble this area gave her. During the cast she picked up the line about 50m in front of the difficult area and she back tracked the line back to the edge of the difficult area and found the wound bed. When she reacquired the line after the search and found the wound bed I could tell she was smiling. I know I was!

Eibe over wound bed

At the wound bed I turned her around and pointed her in the right direction and she motored down the 50m she had just back tracked. The next 100m or so there was apparently not much scent and she slowly picked her way along. At one point she seemed to be stuck in a small 10 foot diameter area and just kept searching very hard and deep with her nose even under the leaves. I thought she was maybe after mice until I looked at my GPS and I realized that this was the area where there had been a marking point. The marking point was no longer there but it must have left a lot of scent or at least the critter that carried it away did. I encouraged her to continue on and the last 100m or so went pretty easy. All in all it took us 1 hour and 50 minutes to cover 600m of difficult 40-hour-old tracking shoe line. Eibe found and indicated the one wound bed and one of the two marking points and likely the second marking point as well.

Eibe Finishing a Difficult 40 hour Blind Training Line NATC 6-2011 from Andy Bensing on Vimeo.

Training note: On my ride home from New Jersey I was contemplating the weekend's tracking activity and my dog's  performance (on both tracks). This was the fourth time in a year that Eibe was in a test where she was able to do quite well even under difficult conditions and all or most of the other dogs in the test either struggled or could not finish. I think the reason she does so well can be attributed to two main abilities that she has, and neither one has to do with her having a great nose. Actually, I am coming to believe that her ability to smell is really just average. I think Eibe's most valuable natural ability is her ability to concentrate and stay focused for long periods of time. That's what seems to get her through the tough times. Secondly, she is very trainable and easily absorbs the training exercises I set up for her to learn new skills or unlearn bad tendencies. I believe that the combination of these two abilities and a strong hunting drive has enabled her to accomplish as much as she has already at barely 4 years of age. I really look forward to the next 6 or 8.