Gearing Up to Track Multiple Dogs

It may seem as if I'd let this project drop...that's not at all true.  Life has just been incredibly complex this year and I've not been proactive in gathering data for the project.

I have been continuing my research about dog breeds, what the various breeds were created to do, and how their foot morphology might be related to the jobs they were bred to do.

It's a fascinating subject and I've found some differences of opinion, especially related to where and when dogs originated. I won't even make an attempt to distill the theories out there.  I think most of them are valid in part - and we probably won't ever know the real origin(s) of the dog. 

I've made real progress in setting up my documents in preparation for plugging in the data as I track more breeds and individuals.

And, for fun, I've been experimenting with different artificial substrates to see if I can get good tracks without having to drag the dog (and often and anxious owner) to a mud hole.

My next post will describe what happened when I decided to use ink and get paw prints.
 



 

Bibliography - Tracking Books and Manuscripts Used

Tracking Canids: Track and Trail Synopsis (1998)

James C Halfpenny, PhD., Darren S. Ireland, Lara N. Bonn, and Diann Thompson, B.S.N.

Tracking and the Art of Seeing (1999) ISBN 0-06-273524-1

Paul Rezendes

Peterson Field Guides – Animal Tracks 3^rd ed. (2005) ISBN-13:978-0-618-51743-5

Olas J. Murie and Mark Elbroch

Mammal Tracks & Sign (2003) ISBN 0-8117-2626-6

Mark Elbroch

The Tracker’s Field Guide (2006) ISBN 0-7627-3981-9

James C. Lowery

Animal Tracking Basics (2007) ISBN-13:978-0-8117-3326-7

Jon Young and Tiffany Morgan

Mammal Tracks and Sign of the Northeast ( ) ISBN 1-58465-242-X

Diane K. Gibbons

Tom Brown’s Field Guide to Nature Observation and Tracking (1983) ISBN 0-425-09966-0

Tom Brown, Jr. and Brandt Morgan

A Field Guide to Mammal tracking in North America (1986) ISBN 0-933472-98-6

James Halfpenny

Stokes Guide to Animal Tracking and Behavior (1986) ISBN 0-316-81734-1

Donald and Lillian Stokes

Wildlife of the Pacific Northwest- Tracking and Identifying Mammals, Birds, Reptiles, Amphibians, and Invertebrates (2010) ISBN 978-0-88192-949-2

David Moskowitz

Basic Canine Foot Morphology

What Coyote Teaches Me About Tracking Dogs

 Perfect coyote tracks (overstep walk) on the beach at Dungeness Spit, Washington coast.

The lower track is the front and the upper track is the hind foot which has landed just ahead of the front foot on the same side of the body. 

This is the typical walking gait of four-footed animals.  As the animal moves faster, the hind foot moves further ahead of the front foot. Because the feet are close together, I know that this coyote was moving slowly from the bottom of the photo towards the top.

This track photo will be the one used in comparison with the tracks of domestic dogs. I'll use it to point out how dog tracks differ. These are the things I see that make this coyote -the shape and size of the toes and pads

•  overall oval shape
• the tight toe arrangement
• the X in the negative space between the outer toes and the pad
• the short "gap" between the top of the pad and the bottom of the middle toes

Wild coyote hunting in a field near Duvall, Washington