Quote: bradley t. martin

Has anyone else with a workingline pup had a similar experience with their dogs?

Bradley, my dog is a showline and he did the same thing. Hopefully you'll still want to hear the story :

This story is not about a 2 mile trek in the woods but to me it's still impressive that he found his way back to my car in a place where he had never been before.

Since the day I brought him home, he has had his nose to the ground. I'm quite sure he doesn't even realize there is a blue sky above his head !

Once I took him to a fairly busy retail section of a town when he was about 14 weeks, maybe younger. I had parked my car in a lot, walked all thru town and at one point during our walk back, he just started running. Mind you, this dog, unless is ass his on fire, will not run. He meanders.

Well at this point in our walk, we were a little more then 2 blocks away from the parking lot. So I'm walking w/my sister and he decides to haul ass. So I start running, leaving my sister behind, yelling to her, "I don't know where he's taking me but I'll see you later"! He then abrubtly took a left turn (into traffic I might add). Then after running for about another block took a sharp right turn. That little bugger ran to the parking lot where my car was! So I thought, let's see if he's doing what I think he's doing. Let him find my car. And find it he did! He went right up to the passenger door and sat down!

I have always said that my dog should be a drug/bomb sniffing dog. He's got skill!

Most intellegent animals & even the lesser intellected ones, have a 'homing instinct'. Dogs live all of their lives using their noses from birth...trying to find their mothers nipple to feed on in spite of only being born minutes before & not haveing the use of eyes or ears to help locate anything...acting only on their sense of smell & the need to eat & survive.....& all thru their lives smelling who was at that particular spot to pee last to where their toys are or rooting out their next snack or meal. Horses also have an incredible homing instinct as Angelika mentioned. There were many times when I would trailer my horse to differnt places to ride & get lost in a new area of the park & just giving my horse his head & telling him 'lets go home' he would find his way back without a monent of hesitation on his part until we were right back to the trailer. It is not at all unusual to hear stories of animals that have been relocated to new homes or lost while on a family vacation & then have gone missing only to find that they have traveled back to their old homes. I guess I don't understand why you all are so suprized by the abilities of your dogs, even at young ages for this 'survival' instinct.

A N G E L I Q U E

My retired showline Scutz2 tracked amazingly, that dog was a born FH dog, showline or not tracking can be accomplished by most animals.