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I forgot to tell about today's exercises. Today's
training track for Briz was laid in a more natural manner, as things often
develop during hunting, from open field to dense cover. I also pay attention to
the wind so that I lay the track downwind or sidewind in order to keep a
birddogs nose down. I also went back to sausage as a reward instead of the more
inexpensive black pudding. This time we also used a wound up Briz, instead of
taking her directly from the car as during the first 3 tracks. While I worked
with the track Maud gave Briz a run on another place were they could not
see me. It was a hot day and Briz was rather stressed from heat when I called
them back. We cooled her down with water from a flask and as she started on
the track she seemed a bit stressed but to our delight she collected herself
within a few seconds and then tracked straight to the end with good
concentration. Now she again liked the sausage as a reward, she is a bit
demanding and expensive to please - it seems.
>>When
the dog is first faced with a
blood track of wild game it becomes very
excited. What is the
difference between the blood of a wild animal and
a domestic animal that
causes such a difference in the dog's
behaviour? I noticed that you
mentioned that Briz was a little relaxed
in her first few blood tracks,
it would be interesting to see how she reacts
to a roe deer blood track.
Cj>>>
The tracks have been made with some
several year old blood I found in the freezer. I have ordered fresh cattle
blood and will get it tomorrow. There will most likely be a significant change
in scent. We will see what she thinks of it. Fresh deer blood will of course be
an additional temptation for her. I believe what we simply call "wild blood" is
so much more for a dog. Cattle blood is bled under strict hygienic control. You
get blood and perhaps a few bacteria but not many enough for even the
supervising vets to react to the contamination.
When a wild deer "is bled" a hole is drilled into
it and most often through it, with a drill that hits it with 2000 -
3000 fps, rotating at perhaps 180000 revs per second. Part of the
surroundings of the wound channel the drill creates with its supersonic choke
wave is vaporised straight away, and part of it is turned into a sludge
that is, altogether with blood, fluids from lungs and tissues and powdered bone,
hair and particles from the skin that are shaken loose by the choke
wave, blown out on the other side of the deer like a rich organic cloud with a
huge diversity of biological material. When the wounded animal has taken a few
steps to escape strong stress hormones are mixed with whatever drops from
the hole in it. A few drops of urine will ad to the flavour. Small wonder such
wild blood excites a dog more than the hygienic cattle blood.
It would be interesting to test dogs with blood
that has been taken from deer as it is hygienically taken from cattle during
slaughter.
Our first dog, the crazy Munsterlander, developed
during training into a really good tracker that found the work on cattle blood
interesting. Then came the first real deer track, a neighbour had produced a
"runner". He worked very well and was mighty surprised to find the deer at
the end of the track. I did not suspect anything but was very pleased. Then came
the second real deer tracked. Now he knew what to expect when deer blood was
involved and he totally tilted, flipped out, burned the fuses ......you name it.
A rather significantly sad case of bad nerves, I'd say. He now knew what to
expect and the expectation became too much for him to handle. Somewhat like
taking a young man to the red light district  )))
In fact Springer had the same tendencies but it
took many years for her to tilt so much so she could not be used anymore. I
believe she lasted for 7 - 8 years as a deer finder.
Foxy was the steady rock of course.
Briz has already learned "to know" so many dead
roe-deer that I have dragged home, and I know that she has at some occasions
followed with Maud on lead behind me and Foxy while we have tracked in the
darkness so she is a bit familiar with the type of work. In addition I have
called her "The Calamity Briz" in the past, meaning that she is "kind of
different" in some ways, both negative and positive. One of the positive
sides is that instead of slowly building up more and more stress in game
situations she instead becomes calmer and calmer as years go by.
I think, honestly, that Briz will handle real
tracks very well!
I have to reload some special "slow effect"
ammo so that Briz can have a few real tracks this autumn!
Torsti
Borta Med Vindens Kennel "Ask not what your dog can do for you. Ask
what you can do for your dog." www.rospigan.net |