Wildtracks

Wildtracks is a training log for blood tracking. You lay a trail, you walk it with the dog a day or two later, and afterwards you can see what the dog did with it.

LAYING THE TRAIL
Start the recording and walk the route. Mark the wound bed, the blood, the corners and the spots where you stopped, so you know later where the dog should have shown something. Blood trail, drag trail or hoof track: you set the type.

WALKING IT
Start the walk when you come back to the trail, hours or days later. Recording continues in the background, so the phone can sit in your pocket with the screen off. If you want it, the app calls out the distance as you go and ends the walk by itself when you reach the last marker.

You can hide a trail so only the start point shows. Hand the phone to whoever is on the line and the route gives nothing away.

WHAT THE WALK TELLS YOU
Afterwards the walk is laid over the trail you set, and you get the things you would otherwise be guessing at:

• how much of the trail the dog held, and how far off it got at the worst point
• how many times it left the corridor and came back
• markers it worked, and markers it walked past
• speed, drift and elevation drawn along the route
• the weather when you laid the trail, and when you walked it

Close each walk as found, not found or broken off, write down what happened, and the track keeps its history. Walk the same trail again next season and the old attempts are still there.

DOGS, AND OTHER PEOPLE
Every dog has its own profile and its own numbers, so a young dog's work is not buried in the totals. Add a friend by code or QR and you can see their tracks and copy one to walk yourself. Send a track as a code and someone else walks the same route. Walks turn up in a shared feed, and a finished one can go out as an image.

Location: Wildtracks records your location in the background only while a walk you started is in progress, and stops when you end it.