Schweissübung (Blood Tracking Practices)

This weekend is a weekend of rest for our little "family." Normally we would be laying a finally training track in the woods for Simon and Freddie to practice for next weekend. Due to the snow and other life engagements, we are spending a weekend at home.

For the past 2 months, we have been working with both Freddie and Baxter with blood tracking training. Freddie tracked last year, but for Baxter this was a first. Baxter has some nose on him! I'll give you all a little insight into how we train our dogs.

Simon and I usually go to the woods either the day before (20hr track) or 2 days ahead of time (40hr track) with a spray bottle that can be turned 360 degrees or a common a lab spray bottle. For marking the track we use clothespins in red, orange, and silver and on the corners we have orange ribbons. We try to make the longest tracks possible, but we usually can only get a maximum of 600m (they should be 1000m or so). For a track of this length we use 2 dl (200 ml) of blood diluted by 1/2 with water, which gives me more wiggle room with spraying.  I always make sure to have the bottles on the sharp spray/jet setting so that the blood doesn't spread everywhere. We always make sure that our tracks go over a road, stream, or heavily used path to really test the dog. We also do several(2-3) 90 degree turns, at least 1 with a simulated wound bed. At the end of the track (the day of the tracking) we put a thawed piece of hide or a foot and the dogs are always very sad to give up their prize. There are several ways of tracking and everyone has their own style, but this style has worked well for us thus far. Freddie has been tracking well this year and has really fallen into a moderate pace of tracking. Simon is EXTREMELY happy that he doesn't have to sprint through the woods like he did last year. A 500m track takes Simon and Freddie ~15 min to complete. In a test situation, they would have 45 min to 1 hr to complete a 1000m track (I would have to double check the times).

Baxter gets much easier tracks. We started him on a 50 m track with ~1dl of blood, one turn, and sausage pieces on the track to get him to associate blood with interesting stuff. With time we increased the length of the track and the time that the track was aged. Until now, Baxter has been upgraded to a ~175m track with 3 turns and 2 dl of diluted blood and aged overnight. He has a great tracking style that is relatively slow. He will often go back and check if he is unsure and is VERY good about pointing out blood droplets to us. His turns so far have been perfect and he shows a lot of promise.