06/07/2026
Continuing education comes in all forms. We are just getting back to work after almost 10 days of continuing education in different forms. We will revisit our time on PEI at Behaviour At The Beach later, but for now, we'll talk about 3 days of learning blood tracking with Fyrefly and Marty before we left for Charlottetown.
Blood tracking is a little misnamed, but it refers to using dogs to recover big game such as deer and bear. While blood is a component of the scent picture of the track, it is only one component. We were lucky enough to learn from 2 judges from United Blood Trackers. The workshop days were spent learning about hit site mangement and safety during lectures and then we dove into the hands on portion including line handling, starts, and distractions. To say that Fyrefly loved it was an understatement. She dove into the track and I had to hang on. We did attempt our UBT 1 test, but timed out after we couldn't get refocused after getting Fyrefly's cord tangled in the growth. We went back to finish the track later on and it was fabulous to see Fyrefly find the deer hide at the end of the track. For reference- a UBT1 test consists of a 400-500 yard track with 2 90 degree turns and a wound bed. It is aged 2 hours and in realistic terrain (my garmin watch thought I was swimming at one point as I was crawling in and around deadfall untangling the line). While I didn't test Marty, he definitely enjoyed the workshop and learning the beginning stages of tracking.
Getting outside your comfort zone to learn is important. Giving your dogs things that resemble what their genetics are meant to do is a very important aspect of enrichment.
We enjoyed ourselves so much that we have been talking to the judges about hoilding an event in 2027. Let us know if you want to try it.
