I have moved along the animal tracking dog hobby somewhat from the early days of trying to use what I have - a Border Collie.
As was questioned and discussed here on GS I learnt about these dogs and the forms they come in. I believe it has been 3/4 years since the desire to have a tracking dog arose to the acquiring of this
yyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy by David Frank Allen, on Flickr

There were many considerations and a GSP was top of my list till almost last year of considerations. I saw this dogs parents in a picture on the internet and tracked the owner to the USA, to find the dogs were on his farm in Transkei area.
The dogs name is Ratiolla,when Cody was 8 yrs old he watched the movie Ratatouille, which fascinated him to no end but could not say that word" Ratatouille' it became Ratiolla. He said one day if we get a small dog he would name it Ratiolla, not bad since his cat is Gannet (a seabird), his hen is Omelet. Unfortunately the word Ratiolla means the ratio of nipple to areola on a female breast

The dog is now 6 months old and we train it as we can, but I am noticing some unusual or perhaps need explaining activities.
I would like to compare notes on how dogs track and possibly the understanding of the how they do so.

At first (9/10 weeks old) Rat would hit the ground running and start tracking the spoor we had laid. When I say hit the ground running I mean like a motor cross bike on launch. We decided we would always carry her to job site and then place her down in/at work area. Very early in training I noticed she was already running when in the air, and the wheel spin take off is quiet impressive.

She would nose down fly along the track and find the blood bottle in a straight to the objective manner.
In the following weeks she was introduced to corners which clearly indicated she was working on nose and not just guessing. A sharp turn to one side would be made in the track and she would more often than not turn on turn as if it was not even a change of direction, indicating she was not just relying on the ground track. Sometimes how ever she would overshoot the turn like that motorX rider and come to a stop some way on from last blood. It is a thrilling thing to see this puppies brain at work, she stops and tests the air in front of her with her nose outstretched like a blind man feeling ahead of himself.Its at this point she often squats and has a pee. She then casually walks back to last spot and does a sniff about and then rockets of again on trail.
Now 4 months later we have added bigger gaps to the blood drops (introduced from a Energade bottle vigorously shook at intervals). Bigger gaps, turns and U Turns were made in the trail and blood was lifted to branch's and tree trunks at intervals. All this in a track of no more than say 50 m, a turn and a kink and a loop.

It was at this stage that I started noticing little changes in the how it was done, so much so that I always observe from high ground if possible now. I see she sometimes makes big circles with no apparent purpose, I could understand if it was down wind every time, but its not. Sometimes she does this cut across too a spot and picks up the spoor again and sometimes she loops away to one side and come up on the animal or blood bottle.
LIKE SHE IS FINDING THE ANIMAL - as in apposed to tracking the animal. Like a scholar answering a question with out knowing how to do the equation.
This worries me somewhat, I want her to track and find lost animals, not just sniff out a body in the bush.

So I started the high ground thing, watching from up top.
It seems to me that she is still tracking, but nose up, not just nose down. I will now risk ridicule and try dog thought to paper as I understand what I see.
Its like, Ok! here's a drop and here and here and there are some more, sniff sniff I can smell them from nose up - sniff sniff, strong track this, I can smell blood from way over there, not gonna waste time following this lot I will just shoot over there so long, cut along here Yea!! hoo ha I am on it, impala this, just know, smell that shitty plant stuff they eat in their blood, not like kudu with sweet stuff they eat, Impala yea, definitely, male, got some cow dung mud on him too can smell along track. Sniff sniff, what that, that on the breeze, its him? Up that way can smell him on the wind coming to me, his cattle dung male smell, also smell he is still bleeding, smells sharper than the blood thats been out in the air for half hour, bit of pens smell from up there, I will cut across here and skip this drop drop nonsense, I know where he is. Somewhere here, I know it, give me a mo sniff sniff, where **&^* is it I know its here, you cant fool me - there, got it, forget the blood, smell that impala smell, fills the air, how can you miss it.
Ta taaa ! told you wag, grin, wag, bark.

I have worded what I have seen from up higher. I took a 17 kg Impala that had been shot and fell on the spot. Dragged it some distance downhill and across and a bit back up hill. Went back to vehicle drove around hill went up to top sent Cody and dog down and got him to where animal dropped. He put dog down and I have written what I saw above.

The Impala Cody shot in the light trigger post.
I was not close enough to see the tracking, but as related back to me by Cody.
The animal bolted on the shot as per a heart shot, and he was almost in tears because he thought it was wounded, "Yo dad it went so fast, gone, one jump gone"
The dogs were put down and they sniffed around and wandered off, my dog first and off in way wrong direction up a hill, the WHT went in right direction, and as Cody relates, he was just going to go fetch his dog obviously on wrong track, but then Daddy I remembered you said to let her do her work. So he shouted "work Rat Work"
The WHT then tracked up and across to our dog. Quick picture, the animal was shot in a valley, small valley 20 m high side 100 m across. The animal was shot from 06h00 to 12h00 direction which coincided with lowest track at bottom of valley, the animal when shot turned and headed straight away as along the path the bullet would have taken on exit. The dogs had wondered off and up to higher ground along right side.
Cody ran after his dog as best he could and then saw his dog enter a thicket and when he got there the WHT was already there at the buck.
The buck had run from 06h to 12h then turned to a 15h position where it was found considerably higher than the valley floor. So a a straight line away from shooter and then turned right up hill, likely at a constant angle more than a turn.
The dogs went from 06 to 15h00 from animal shot position at a right angle away from animal shot position, then turned left to the animal and went to it in straight line.
cccccccccccc by David Frank Allen, on Flickr

What am I seeing, whats happening, is this the usual progress?, is there matters I should try curb.
We now use a spry bottle to squirt and mist a trail, I notice the less understood way of tracking is more evident using the sprayer, this indicates there are things going on I do not see, understand.
Who has good blood spoor animals, and how do they operate?