Mounted search and rescue

[Una Smith <una.smith@att.net>]

Irv wrote:
>What Una refers to as air scent is not the same as most air scent search
>dogs in my experience. Dogs tend to use their nose as the primary sensor
>where horses tend to fuse their nose, eyes, ears, and maybe a sense of being
>hunted.

Dogs from scenting breeds tend to have olfactory tunnel vision ... but I
have watched sight hounds search and their attention zone is far broader.
That may explain why some breeds are used mostly for scent tracking and
scent discriminating, and other breeds are used mostly for air scenting
and without scent discriminating.  There is a trade off there:  it isn't
good to have tunnel vision (and maybe pass right by the subject while
following the subject's trail), but it also isn't good to pay attention
to too much and loose focus.

I think 20 or 50 or 100 years from now (if people don't all wear embeded
tracking devices from birth), we will have identified some horse pedigrees
that excel at air scenting.

        Una Smith
        New Mexico