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The following narrative shows how
the Pointer GSM/GPS dog tracking system
works in pratice in a moose hunt.
“I have been training and rising hunting
dogs for years. Hunting trials for dogs
and dog shows are my hobby besides going
hunting with my dogs. Training a hunting
dog takes many years and endless hours.
Good dogs are invaluable to their owners
and hunting team. The dogs are meant for
working with game and they do not care so
much about hunter. They can trail tracks
or follow moose kilometres and bark them
many hours, sometimes until next morning.
Because of that I would often lose my dogs
during moose hunting without having any
dog tracking system. Current dog tracking
systems, which are based on radio bearing,
are not best solution to the problem, since
they only give a rough estimate on the direction
to the dog, but distance is hard to estimate
much less a seeing dog’s location
on map. We tested B Esc! navigation phone
for tracing two of our dogs in our hunting
team and here’s how we did it.
We set B Esc! phones on the back of two
hunting dogs with an improvised harness.
The dogs were my Karelian Bear Dog “Manta”
and my friend Pertti’s Norwegian Elkhound
“Piku”. After a few trials the
phones stayed nicely on the back of the
dogs and did not disturb them. Bradley and
I had our own B Esc!s and tracked the dogs
by sending Friend Find requests to the dogs’
phones.
One cold and dusky Saturday morning in November
we hiked to our waypoints in the forest.
The waypoints had been set in our B Esc!
GPS phones previously while planning the
hunt. We had downloaded the maps too, but
had also paper maps with us, because in
forest you shouldn’t rely only electrical
equipment. From paper map it is sometimes
also easier to get overview of the hunting
area and plan hunting with the team. But
during the hunting the paper map is usually
in the pocket protected from rain. ESC!’s
map is enough during normal hunting.
Bradley started looking for moose from the
south with Piku and I hiked from the north
with Manta to the checkpoint. We let the
dogs free and checked occasionally their
position with Friend Find. Dogs ran to seek
moose traces. Suddenly Bradley heard that
Piku started barking far away. He checked
immediately Piku’s location with Friend
Find and found out that Piku was already
in an unlicensed area. Because Bradley is
keen to go hunting trials with his dog,
he also checked that it took a half an hour
for 2.252 kilometres (1.25 miles) from Piku
to find the moose. Informing the news to
the team leader was easy, since all what
Bradley needed to do was to send Piku’s
position with a message “Piku &
elk” as an SMS (text message) to leader’s
B Esc!.
We all spent some exciting moments waiting
if the moose would choose to come to our
hunting area. Fortunately it happened and
Piku ran the moose together with its fawn,
as we learned a few moments later, towards
the check point of Robert. He checked with
Friend Find if Bradley was nearby in order
to avoid shooting at him if they both approached
the target from opposite positions. Bradley
appeared to be some kilometres away and
Robert had the honour of slaying the fawn
with the first shot. A fine hunt indeed!
Piku was caught on a leash on the spot.
Manta got a sense from the adult and followed
it towards south. Meanwhile, I checked where
Manta is with Friend Find. She was quite
far. I also called to her phone and heard
that she was barking the moose. Stubborn
dog, my Manta, she would not give up barking
for a long time. However, I had no wonder.
I could easily check her location from my
home in city with these B Esc! equipments.
I can pick her up after she has returned
from forest. The hunt was a success and
the dog appeared to be safe; a good day
for all of us.”
Hannu Lohi, Haukipudas, Finland.
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