by Graham Cox-4-
So acute are Beckford's reflections that it is, perhaps, no surprise to find H.M.Budget's Hunting By Scent published in 1933 confirming them. Budget, an ex-Master of the Bicester and Warden Hill Hounds, attempted systematically to measure and classify the conditions under which scent might be good or bad and the book presents the results of years of painstaking experimentation. It includes discussion of the functions of various scent glands and microscopic images of the odorous particles that form the tracks that hounds follow. Budgett's research involving extensive temperature recordings confirmed that the temperature of the ground just below its surface, relative to that of the air, is critical in determining scenting conditions.
Scent consists of molecules of a volatile substance and the more volatile the substance the more given off. The particles are of varying weights so some float in the air whilst the heavier ones fall to the ground. Some are absorbed by surface tension on to droplets of moisture. The resultant phenomena are air scent, ground scent, and the scent which adheres to vegetation against which the quarry has brushed. Air movement and scent is, perhaps, best understood by analogy with a plume of smoke which may swirl and eddy as it disperses. Indeed, the fate of the scent molecules is entirely dependent on a range of conditions, most obviously radiation, convention, wind, and the nature of the ground cover in the vicinity of the quarry.
Moisture and good air/ground temperature variation accounts for the appropriateness of Charles Alington's observation in Field Trials and Judging, published like Routledge's essay in 1929, that scent is almost certain to be good for an hour when the temperature suddenly drops late in the afternoon of a warm October day. 'Under no other conditions', he cautiously added, would he care to 'back his opinion that scent will be good'.
The behaviour of the quarry is critical too, of course. Newly arrived woodcock notoriously give off no scent, and Game Conservancy research presented in Grouse In Space and Time shows how, when grouse counting was in progress, dogs were no better than humans at locating nests belonging to birds which had been treated and had reduced parasite burdens. The sitting bird, with heart rate much reduced, gives off no scent at all. Diseased game, by contrast, was located with ease by dogs. Similarly, there is greater grouse predation by foxes when a bird is fitted with a transmitter and it is wet. This is probably because the feathers are ruffled and scent is given off whereas on a dry bird they are smoothed over and the bird offers no clue as to its location (Hudson, 1992)
Scent, to borrow an old saying, is consistent only in its consistency (Clayton, 1992). It follows from that and from everything that has been outlined that the highest quality dog work is likely to show evidence of the ability to make fine discriminations between competing, and therefore, confusing scent trails; is certain to demonstrate the capacity to adjust the pace of work to suit the changing conditions; should give evidence of the ability to work effectively as part of a collective unit and all these should, finally, be indicative of a mutually supportive relationship between dog and human (Cox and Ashford, 1998).
There are, therefore, a number of dimensions in terms of which exercises in simulation may be assessed. The sheepdog trial, for instance, as well as being a sport in its own right may in many respects be said to bear a very close relationship to the practical tasks such as shedding and penning that shepherds have to accomplish in the course of their work. In other respects the trial ground may be wholly unlike the realities of work on the fell.
Similarly, working tests can provide an exacting examination of many aspects of gundog work and can be organised, as at the Country Landowners Association Game Fair for instance, so as to be an engaging spectator event. But such events are understood to be what they are, and no one with any appreciation of their artificiality pretends that they can have anything seriously to do with gamefinding.