Hi Konnie,

I just made a general statement in response to your question. It wasn't meant to make you appear to be critical. Also, the fireworks smoke may have affected my eyes but I can't find where Carol wrote that she makes it a common practice to call her dog away from a find.

I also agree with you as well. Think outside the box. Happy 4th.

Howard

Carol - WOW - I loved watching those videos!

Question on Rock's video (love watching air scenting!): how on earth does a dog air scent with so much wind going on??? I'm purely amazed. I know dogs' noses are amazing, but with all that wind?? How on earth?

And Jesea - 4 areas in 35 minutes?? Even not knowing much about this type of training and yet believing 100% on a dog's nose, it sounds like she flew through the course.

This stuff gets me so thrilled!

Post the next video, please!

Hey Sandy....

The wind sounds worse on the video that it actually was. It was about a 10 to 20 mph wind and it was coming up and around the camera mic.

It is usually windy here as we are on the plains and you want a nice wind to work your dog into for air scent work. With my trailing dog, I go with the wind, although it changes so we do go into it and trail in a cross wind as well.
I just have to watch what my weather is doing and adjust as it changes.

With Jesea, yeah she was fast and I am proud of her even though speed was never on my mind.

I will post another video today and show Jesea and how she ranges out and away from me and works independantly from me. Which is what I like in a dog.

Hi Sandy,

When air scenting, the wind is your friend. It carries the odor farther and narrows the scent cone. Once the dog hits the scent cone its almost a straight beeline to the source with little quartering. My dog once had a guy dead to rights from 500 yards away while working in a 20-25 mph wind. Of course his profusely bleeding injuries and gallons of sweat helped.

Howard

 Quote: Howard Knauf

Hi Sandy,

When air scenting, the wind is your friend. It carries the odor farther and narrows the scent cone. Once the dog hits the scent cone its almost a straight beeline to the source with little quartering.

I'm trying to picture this in my mind (it just seems the wind would make the scent pop up everywhere). I'm almost getting it, but it's just not clicking yet. BTW, what's quartering? Maybe that's the missing link to my getting it

 Quote:

My dog once had a guy dead to rights from 500 yards away while working in a 20-25 mph wind. Of course his profusely bleeding injuries and gallons of sweat helped.

Howard

That's just too funny Howard, LOL!

It would be a thrill for me beyond words to be around all these very cool working dogs AND their owners! There's so much to learn and see.

Carol, 10-20 mph winds still seems it would throw that scent around all over the place. In your video it just seemed like the wind was blowing crosswise when the article was actually vertical to the wind, not parallel to it?

When a person is placed out in an area they will create a "scent cone", which is a V shaped cone.

Scent is basically a persons body shedding dead skin cells, called "rafts" and it leaves from the exposed parts of the body. Your head and hands are the main places, and the less clothing, the more cells that are shed and released into the environment.

When your scent leaves it flows upwards and behind and then gets carried off by wind currents. Cells will "catch" in natural borders such as, a taller grass line, corners, bases of trees and rocks ect....
Rafts also stay on the air currents in the air and this is what the "air scent" dogs look for.
Once the dog enters the cone, the dog will "quarter" back and forth between the edges of the cone. When the dog gets to the edge of the cone and turns back into the cone, this is called a "negative".....basically the dog was in scent, came out of scent and turned back into scent and continued on.
Air scent dogs will have their heads level with their shoulders or tilted upwards most of the time when there is strong scent and when the scent is weak, they may actually put their nose down to look for scent that has gotten "caught" close to the ground.....


This is why it is imperative to have a dog that WANTS that reward and will "hunt" for the person or article that gets him that reward.

Wind does carry the scent and spread it out and this is where proper training comes in to where you teach the dog to find the strongest point of scent.
You have to be able to read your dog as well, body language is one of the most, if not the most important thing in you and your dog becoming a good team.

If you ever want to take a trip up here, I will be more than happy to show you how it works......explaining things in type is difficult and I wish I had a dry erase board function.....drawing pictures is really helpful.

Hope this helps a bit. Any more questions, just ask. I am kind of terrible at explaining things sometimes.....

Thats a pretty good explanation, Carol.

Sandy, A lot of wind would seem to be a problem but it is the opposite. Imagine a small fire in the forest with a strong wind. The smoke is carried in one direction and as it leaves the source (point of the cone) it grows bigger to create the skirt of the cone(Farther from the source). The dogs' natural instinctive ability to use the wind to find whatever it is looking for is capitalized on by man for his purpose. The dog should naturally go to the point of the cone because he is hunting something. To find what he is looking for he goes to where the strongest odor is, and thats the source.

On days with almost no wind it is very difficult for the dog. Now he has to cover much more area because the cone is almost a full circle. With no wind to bring the stronger source odor the dog works harder. It's days like that when you know you have a good dog.

Howard

Carol, I'm intrigued. I'm printing out your post, logging off, and going to read it in depth.

I should have come to see you in April when I went on a driving trip through the southern part of Wyoming.

Maybe in the next trip or so, I could come up on Hwy 83, then I could see Kansas and Nebraska with you and your dogs being my main goal in South Dakota. I love driving

Thanks so much for all the work you put into your posts when I ask a question. So appreciated.

You would most certainly be welcome.

Just give me a heads up when you decide to travel this way.

You bet! Thanks!