Winding…

This is one of those fascinating things about dogs to me. The dogs I use have a real strong winding instinct. If I want to cast a certain area first, I have to make sure that I cast it according to the wind because they are very instinctive about hunting into or across the wind. Obviously there are times when this isn’t possible but I have seen them hit that area and work around to manipulate the wind on their own. I love to see a dog working and all of a sudden get jerked around sideways by scent that they just caught out of the air. Obviously once they smell it, if the scent leads into the wind, it is easier to line out. I have seen dogs wind though and travel with the wind, and be correct in doing it. To me that is as puzzling as it is fascinating because in my simple mind it shouldn’t be as easy as they made it look. I’m not talking about they crossed a track and worked it with the wind but truly winded, going to it with their front feet barely touching the ground and their nose almost pointed up, I freaking love watching that. We all know that dogs are as diverse as people in the way they choose to do things. Some hunt head up 90% of the time, some work high to low and back to high, and some work low 90% of the time. I like the higher headed dogs for the simple reason that I don’t have to have a super cold nosed dogs. I do believe my dogs have better than average noses because when I do need it, they are able to get it done. I know they’ve taken some tracks that were made on camera 12 hours prior in less than ideal conditions and bayed the hog in bed in very short order a mile away. Let me retract slightly, that wasn’t “my” dog but a littermate to Raylynn. I have seen many of my dogs go 3/4 - 1 mile in a line so straight that you would think they knew where the hogs were ahead of time. Most of those times were off the wind. It was neat to see because the route we would have to take to get to them would often times carry us over sign where the hogs had been but that the dogs never made over far enough to get into. Winding from that far out and taking it at a clip as fast as they did makes me believe they have good noses and know what to do with minimal scent. The further out you get the broader the scent cone gets. Obviously the broader it is the less scent there is. I’ve seen it done where it was a sounder and I’ve seen it done on solo hogs. I’ve always felt like the dogs that worked high and low or more up than down had an advantage over the predominantly low headed dogs. Not necessarily because of how cold a nose one or the other has, but because they were putting themselves in a position for more scenting options. The dog that lives low so to speak limits themselves to track situations more times than not, in my opinion. I also believe timing plays a role in winding. Depending on conditions, one dog might come through 5 minutes too soon and not be able to smell what the next dog winds. Sometimes it could be nose power or an experience thing, but I’ve seen dogs I would place equal ability on do it and I just believe circumstances made it possible for one and not the other to make it happen. Several times since starting these collie dogs, I have had them leashed up and headed back to the buggy and all the sudden they’re pawing the air wanting to leave because they are winding another one. That is fun and neat to me for several reasons. My dogs won’t usually say anything verbally when they smell or wind one, be it while hunting or rigging, but their body language is undeniable. I love hiding things like hot dog pieces from smaller pups. Not because I feel like I have to but because it’s fun to watch them running around and all of a sudden hit the brakes because they smelled the prize and then go to scrambling trying to line it out. I gives me some pretty good laughs sometimes.

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