I’ve only watched the first half of this one so far but I think this guy has finally settled the interdigital gland debate for me…..It turns out trackers are pretty close to right but maybe just wrong about which scent the dog is detecting and where it's coming from…….I’ve always been skeptical about us tracking “interdigital gland” scent
Long story short…..guy in the video is a police officer (maybe retired) that handled tracking and catching humans……He talks about it in the podcast but apparently its been proven that the dog can differentiate which human they’re after due to the runner typically secreting elevated levels of stress hormones……cortisol, epinephrine, norepinephrine…….We don’t have interdigital glands but the dog still detects them…..I suspect our dogs are detecting the exact same things in the wounded deer we’re tracking and that's at least part of how they differentiate those individuals as well…..It may not be “interdigital gland” scent but rather the scent of the stress hormones….
Got a little more to go but this one is well worth your time to watch if you're a reasonably experienced handler that can relate to the concepts he talks about with man hunting and dog training
"A deer's stress response can leave behind more than just hormones in the waste. In highly stressful, life-threatening situations (such as being pursued by a predator or enduring a fatal wound), deer experience an massive hormone dump. This physiological reaction releases distinct chemical scents through bodily fluids and active scent glands (like the interdigital glands between their toes)."
So who is too say that the “high stress scent” is not emtted by deer through their interdigital glands. This podcast, in my opinion, supports what we believe dogs smell.
So who is too say that the “high stress scent” is not emtted by deer through their interdigital glands. This podcast, in my opinion, supports what we believe dogs smell.
I agree......It sounds like a big dump of cortisol, adrenaline, and norepinephrine occurs and is emitted from various glands including the interdigital
Something I've been wondering about since listening to that podcast is how much a jacked up hunter could taint an area with his own dump of chemicals after the shot......or if he's along with you on the track and is still emitting high levels
Its something to ponder over anyways......If our dogs are keying in on the scent of adrenaline and cortisol and we're walking around with a dude pouring sweat and emitting it out into the air in high doses.....that's very likely to create challenges for a dog that stays close to the hunter and handler......Think about how often they would wind the hunter's chemical dump......The police officer in the podcast said his dog located a human 7 or 8 yards away on the wind......I'm talking about urban back yards....not 3 ft ......7 to 8 backyards away......
Catching cows in the brush must be similar. Use to help catch cows with Catahoula dogs and horses some. Dogs would seem to know which cows to get after in a pasture full of cows. Stress was the biggest factor I felt like. Like they could smell the cows that was stressed and left other cows alone.
Because our sense of smell is so poor, I think us trying to comprehend how great a dog/deer/bear/etc can smell is like trying to explain the color blue to a blind person.
E.g. We can smell a person ~3-10 ft away. A dog can smell a person a mile away.
Because our sense of smell is so poor, I think us trying to comprehend how great a dog/deer/bear/etc can smell is like trying to explain the color blue to a blind person.
E.g. We can smell a person ~3-10 ft away. A dog can smell a person a mile away.
& their brain can process smells better than us
What you’re describing is why I get a kick out of folks carrying on about human tracking being a lost art……Human tracking is barely even art compared to what a dog is doing…….Its like a page out of 3 year old coloring book next to a Picasso ……..
Something on that idea of a dog smelling someone a mile away……When you add distance to the equation it really isnt about the dogs ability to detect the odor as much as it becomes about the odors ability to reach the dogs nose from that far away……There are all kinds of variables that effect the way a scent flows across the landscape such as wind, thermals, terrain, humidity, temperature, etc……It many scenarios that scent will never make it a mile out before dissipating in the wind or rising, etc……It would likely only be at night that this could happen… especially between 12-5 am when the air is sinking and pressing to the ground and scent if flowing across the land….These scenting conditions during this time of night are why in my opinion you see bucks really moving during those hours……They know the best conditions for using the greatest tool they have…….
On the flip side of that……We tracked a deer one morning that was shot with a bow down through the top of the back and was giving Otis fits to follow……He gave us a good direction though and we eventually came to where there were buzzards perched on the side of small clear cut…..We knew the deer was in the clear cut but this was about 8 or 9 o’clock in the morning when the thermals we in full effect and because of that my dogs ran circles all around this dead deer without being able to locate it…..One of the searchers eventually found it……The scenting conditions matter as much or more as the power of the animals nose
That answers the part about how a dog is able to keep track of the injured deer amongst all the others but the other question I always had with the interdigital debate was the question of “How long does that scent remain detectable?”……..In our case if we show up 12 hrs after the shot is cortisol and adrenaline still present on the old scent trail…….or are we simply tracking blood and ground disturbance at that point??.......I tend to think that this “fear scent” only lasts on the track for very short time and after that we’re relying on those other scents……..
I just know that its not as simple as being able to follow “interdigital gland” scent to every deer we track…….That bow shot deer I mentioned above is a good example…..It was stuck down through the top of the shoulders with a fatal shot that didn’t have an exit and left zero blood on the ground…….We were there roughly 12 hrs later (overnight) and Otis was having to meticulously try and pick out that deer’s track……There wasn’t any dumped out line of fear scent on the ground for him to easily follow to the deer…….I’ve seen this over and over and its why I’ve always questioned that idea that we’re tracking interdigital gland scent…..I think that the fear scent is probably something we are dealing with when we find live deer that are injured and we get in behind that fresh scent being emitted but not so much on tracks older than a few hours
......7 to 8 backyards away......