Things that continue to amaze me....

Another Amber installment tomorrow, I promise. However I just had to share this clip of Steel tracking. I have watched a lot of dogs track - but it is one of those things that continues to amaze and impress me.  I remember doing Steel's TDX track and watching him thinking "wow! look at him go!" Calix's first live finds was two kids that had run away from home in the middle of the night. No one was more surprised than me when we came up over the crest of the hill and there were two eight years olds trudging down the side of the road at 3AM. I understand the whole evolutionary basis for tracking and obviously predator species evolved to be able to determine the direction of travel of their prey. However it is not exactly WHAT they do that amazes me - it is trying to figure HOW they do it.....

In this clip Steel is approaching a track from the right. The track goes away from the camera, crosses the sidewalk and goes halfway down to the water and then turns right. He is going to come in from the right, hitting the track perpendicularly and then, within inches, determine the direction of travel. And you can see from his behavior , it is cursory check and then he makes his decision without a doubt.