Tracking & Reading Sign.
Being able to read sign is an incredibly important part of Tracking. Reading sign means that you are looking for clues left by the animal that you are tracking. “Sign” can be paw prints, scat, broken or disturbed foliage etc.. I once found cat fur that had been caught in a spider web on the side of a mountain. When there was no other sign of this cat, the sun shimmered on this web and it caught my eye and that’s when I saw the piece of fur. Not long after that, the cat was caught on camera. Sign can be present in the most unsuspecting places. You just have to be aware.
Below is one of my favorite excerpts from the book “The Science and Art of Tracking"
“When we track, we pick up a string. At the far end of that string a being is moving, existing, still connected to the track that we gaze upon. The animal’s movement is still contained in that track, along the smallest of external and internal details. As we follow these tracks, we begin to become the very animal we track. Our awareness expands from the animal we have become to the landscape it reacted to and is played by. We feel the influence of all things that surround us and our awareness expands from our consciousness to the mind of the animal and finally to the very cosmos. In tracking and awareness, then, there can never be separation. One without the other is but half the story, and incomplete picture, thus an incomplete understanding. It is the track that connects us to that grand consciousness and expands us to limitless horizons.”
Good stuff, right?? There is so much truth in that quote. You can’t track w/o awareness. When you are aware, you begin to see things that others won’t see. I will often track w/o my dogs. Sometimes we are put in situations where we are not comfortable putting our dogs out. This is when we have to channel our inner Daniel Boone and do a bit of tracking ourselves. This means recognizing different paw prints or scanning through a pile of scat etc. When you find a clue, what does it tell you? Where will it lead you. There are many layers to some clues that can help your track.. I once tracked a dog that was eating bird seed. I know this because I found his scat. The scat had bird seed in it that only one person on that block was using. Once I located that person, a trap went out and I had the dog trapped that night. I have seen a coyote track a dog I was assisting with, therefore I looked for coyote sign along w/ the dog’s. So use whatever sign is shown to you. But if you are not aware, you won’t see it. BE AWARE! Happy Tracking!!!
-Michelle