Field Notes, 4.25.2026 - 5.5.2026 - "King of the Road"

On our road trip to Arizona and back, I hoped to find some space for structured tracking practice. Unfortunately I was not able to do that, but as the days passed and we found ourselves in very unfamiliar conditions, I did have many opportunities to watch Quinn use his nose. This prolonged opportunity to closely notice his behavior was so interesting that I wanted to record some of the things I observed for reflection as we continue our tracking adventure. 

During our travel days, other than driving my only job was to take care of Quinn. I was very concerned with managing any symptoms or complications of his condition (Atypical Addison's Disease) that might be brought about by travel stress, so I was already extremely focused on him during every walk and bathroom break along the way. 

Our first overnight stop was Nashville, Tennessee. The weather and landscape were not noticeably different than at home. Our hotel for the night was undergoing some type of renovation or repair (was not able to discover which) and the dog walking area had signs and cones to block off a trench and holes being dug between the lawn and the street.  My first interesting observation was that Quinn was STRONGLY opposed to something he could detect near the disturbed soil. I inquired with the hotel staff, wondering if they knew what type of work was being carried out in case that gave a clue as to what he might be smelling, but they did not have any information. 

Obviously he has walked on/over freshly turned earth before this, with no reaction, so I was interested to discover if there was a specific reason for him to avoid those areas. He was so averse to whatever he could smell that we had to walk back to our door by crossing the street and making a wide circle back to avoid the area entirely. I have never seen him be so adamant about avoiding something after picking up a scent, so monitoring his behavior and seeing how much space he needed to be comfortable again was fascinating. Admittedly, visions of sinkholes danced in my head as I thought, "trust your dog and STAY AWAY!"

Our second overnight stop was in Yukon, Oklahoma, just outside of Oklahoma City. While the terrain and plant life were similar to home, it was Quinn's first experience with how windy the Great Plains can be. Although he does not rely on air scenting in most of our activities, it was interesting to watch him try to get a handle on the wind. He spent a lot of time turning, pausing, sniffing, and repeating as strong winds brought different scents on each of our outings. No big conclusions reached, just interesting to watch him orient himself into the wind, take in scent, pause, orient himself again, and repeat. Not for the first time, I wished he could just tell me what he was picking up. In a change from his normal behavior, he spent most of the time on our Oklahoma walks with his head up, rather than having his nose on the ground.

Our third overnight stop was in Santa Fe, New Mexico.  While Oklahoma hadn't seemed wildly different from home, Santa Fe was like being on a new planet. It was obviously very dry, with no green grass, and lots of plants that Quinn has never encountered before. I started to notice 'patterns' in his outdoor explorations that I have not noticed before:

He seems to have a baseline amount of sniffing (I think of it as 'casual' sniffing) that he is doing almost all the time. His nose is usually on or near the ground but his ears are forward, body language relaxed, and he moves at a regular pace around the area. He is usually on a loose leash when casually sniffing.

Casual sniffing mode

When he came to an unfamiliar plant - as they generally all were; he's definitely not sniffed a cactus before - his behavior became noticeably more intent. I noticed him moving much more slowly, with more alert/focused body language. His nose traveled carefully over each unfamiliar item, often working in a back-and-forth pattern. Compared to casual sniffing, he moved much more slowly and revisited interesting areas multiple times, as if he was double (or triple) checking what he was experiencing. In this mode, he was also more willing to put pressure on the leash to investigate interesting scents; and even went so far as to climb and scramble into spaces to get his nose directly on areas of interest. 

Intent sniffing mode!

Since the entire landscape was unfamiliar, I enjoyed watching him methodically check not only plants but also the soil, elements of the landscaping, and occasionally the air as he familiarized himself with all the new scents. Unlike in Tennessee, nothing seemed to concern him, but he was very focused and attentive as he cataloged that area. In addition to being very dry, Santa Fe is also the state capitol with the highest elevation - a little over 7000 feet. I plan to do some investigation to learn more about what, if any, impact this has on scent. I'm not sure if any of my observations of his behavior are related to elevation, but it would be fascinating to find out. 

Finally, in Santa Fe Quinn discovered that some plants are pointy (cactus) and need to be investigated very carefully. I didn't let him get close enough to be impaled by cactus spines, but he quickly realized he needed to be a little more cautious around the pointy plants! He started a behavior I hadn't noticed before: after approaching a new scent carefully, he would often tip or angle his head to the side to sniff under/around the various parts of the plants. I also noticed that when he was 'investigating' he would angle his head, take a few deep breaths, and move on... but when he found a potential bathroom spot, he would do the same behavior a few times while moving back and forth before sealing the deal. 

(In NASDA urban searches and in Barn Hunt, urinating in the search area is an automatic NQ, so I was very interested to see this definite behavior repeated regularly on our trip. In the past I have not always been certain whether he was working the search area or choosing a bathroom location, so seeing this clear pattern emerge was intriguing!)

On the fourth day, we arrived in our destination: Prescott, Arizona! We remained in Prescott for five nights so I had lots of opportunities to observe Quinn's behavior in a new and different environment. Our hotel was located right next to a community park so we spent a lot of time visiting and exploring. We had to be fairly careful as "foxtail" grasses abound in the area. I was aware that the seeds of this type of grass posed a danger to dogs, but we'd never been in an area where they were present before.

Being something of a nerd, I learned that "foxtail" isn't one type of a plant. The name is commonly used for any type of grass with a stiffly bristled/barbed seed with a point on one end. The seeds can penetrate dogs' paws or legs and due to the barbs, they are difficult to remove and may even require surgery. (Lots of further reading available from many sources; here and here are some good ones.) Unfortunately, the 'foxtail' grass in the Prescott area also produces seed heads that are almost the exact same color as Quinn's legs. He had to put up with me checking his beard, as well as each leg and paw, carefully after our walks, which he did not enjoy (and neither did I - lots of extra gray hairs resulted!) 

Although we had to be very mindful of this danger, he clearly enjoyed investigating the unfamiliar landscape at every opportunity.  Prescott is located in the Bradshaw Mountains and its elevation is between 5200 - 5400 feet about sea level. Spring is a fairly dry time of year with overnight lows in the 40s and daytime highs around 70 - 75. The city (where we were for most of our visit) is in the Prescott Valley, which is surrounded to the south and west by the 1.25 million acre Prescott National Forest. Pinyon-juniper and ponderosa pines are common in the area.

All of that to say - it's very different from central Virginia!  For the first few days, our walks were all 'half speed' as he carefully investigated all the strange scents. Since we had no pressing mileage goals, I let him walk at his chosen pace. It was very cool to watch the speed, pattern, and method of his exploration. I noticed 'casual' sniffing in areas around the hotel that quickly became familiar to him, as well as far more 'intent' sniffing whenever we encountered something new or interesting. He became accustomed to the various parts of the landscape after a day or two and got very brave about sticking his ENTIRE FACE into clumps of plant life to inhale deeply. (This led to much inspection of his beard, and removal of foxtail seeds attached therein.) 

Foxtail evasion strategy

I found it fascinating to watch him work, noting that he sometimes seemed to casually check out an area on one pass, and other times he went into 'vacuum' mode, repeatedly working back and forth over certain areas. We weren't searching for anything specific but I think it echoed what I have seem him do when he is working - areas that don't have the scent he's looking for are checked and passed pretty rapidly, but areas of interest receive a careful, slower, and more methodical investigation as he either sources the scent or determines that the trail of whatever he's looking for passed that way.  

On our trip home, I kept an eye out for these behaviors to repeat in reverse order as the climate and landscape became more familiar.  While we didn't get any true tracking practice in, I enjoyed watching him in a variety of new environments and hopefully refined my interpretation of his behaviors. It is always captivating to watch him work, and even though he wasn't specifically 'working' on this trip, I had lots of opportunities to observe and notice changes in his posture, movement, and direction as he investigated each new area and element. 

Happily, he remained very healthy the entire way and seemed to enjoy his big adventure tremendously. We haven't traveled that much since his diagnosis so I was really glad to see him handle it all so well. It was a great opportunity to dial in my management of his health so we can more safely travel to train and trial in the future. 

There and back again