Dogs, cars & sense of direction - Page 1

I usually take the hound out for his evening gallop over some fields nearby that involves a short drive, the last 400 yds or so of which are on a dirt track taken at around 10mph.

A couple of times a fox has crossed the track in front of the car which, naturaly this gets the dog pretty excited and by the time we go past where the fox was seen he has already disappeared into the undergrowth. When we stop, say only 20 secs later, & I let him out he goes dashing off to sniff the fox out however both times he's gone down the track in the direction we were travelling rather than turning back to where it actually was.

Now, is the hound just being particularly stupid or too excited to realise where the fox actually was or don't dogs realise that a car is 'travelling' forward & all they remember is that the prey was in front of the car?

Cheers,

AandA

The dog goes in the direction because it was relating what it saw with the vehicle and not land marks.

AandA,
The dog may be confused and that would be the simple answer.  Did you check the wind direction?  If you stopped "down wind" of where the fox crossed the dog may be picking up the scent blown that way by the fox.  Is it possible that the fox ran back in that direction or could there be  a second fox close by? 

Dogs can pick up the direction of a track and follow it correctly.  For example, in training we lay tracks for our dogs and bring the dog up to a leg of the track, from the side.  So we start perpendicular to the track and the dog almost always follows the track in the right direction immediately.

There are a lot of variables with tracking and how dogs work scent is something that we don't really understand completely.  If a dog is chasing game they will cast and try to pick up the scent.  The scent will "pool" in areas and be stronger there.  It may be that the fox had been in the area that you parked earlier and the dog was getting that scent.  A trained hunting dog would pick up the scent pretty quickly and start working it back to a source of stronger odor.    

We do scent discrimination tracking with our K9's.  We have the dog track a particular person through streets, parking lots, industrial areas, etc.  I've watched dogs go down a street then around a building, I've known the track layer didn't go around this building; bu the dog always works his way back to the track and finds the track layer.  When we do this the handler never knows where the track is so he can't influence the dog.  It is hard to predict  where scent will go and sometimes I'm amazed the route the dog will take to find someone.   It's always a person when we track.    

It's hard to say without actually seeing it.  It could also be that your dog is so worked up that he is only using his eyes and is just running looking for the fox and not actually tracking.  We will get new dogs that are so excited they will search with their eyes at first, forgetting to use their nose.  They will run into a building and look for a bad guy before searching the building for the person with their nose.  Once they realize they aren't successful using their eyes they will focus and start using their nose.  It's like a lightbulb goes off and they realize, hey I'll try my  nose now.

It is an interesting topic.

FWIW,

Jim

Jim,

We've done a little tracking together so I've got some knowledge of how conditions can affect things & observing how the dog works. The hound takes to it really well.

I doubt he's picking up wind blown scent as the lane is sheltered by hedges on either side and there is little or no wind blowing. However this is late evening in the semi-light we get in the UK (when all the critters come out) and the stillness & coolness helps keep the scent down. It wouldn't be a surprise if the fox, whilst on his rounds, had earlier been close to were we park up and he's been swamped by scent. He's definitely using his nose & not his eyes at this point.

And of course it's entirely possible that other animals have also left their scent, we see deer, rabbits & pheasants, which of course then raises the question does/can the dog associate a particular scent with a particular animal?

When I point him in the right direction and use the "Go see" command, which he knows means there is something exciting ahead, he hammers off and comes to a screeching halt as soon as he picks up the scent. It's then all mega excitement and charging into bushes, tail held high & much fast trotting and circling about.

I think it's good to observe dogs been just dogs. For one thing it's hugely enjoyable and for another it lets you see things from their perspective and how they think which can only help when training.

Glad somebody else thinks this is a worthwhile topic... I was beginning to thing I'm a bit odd.

Cheers,

AandA