From: Dr. Resi Gerritsen and Ruud Haak: K9 Professional Tracking.
Outdoor Temperature and Tracking.
In my previous post “Physical Stresses of Tracking” I showed how the body of the dog reacts at not too difficult tracking tasks.
We also know some interesting facts about outdoor temperatures that come to us via micro-meteorology. Research has given us valuable information about the temperatures in the first 1.5 meters above the Earth’s surface, namely, the level at which our dogs track.
At a height of 1.20 meters, the temperature on a sunny day was about 20° Celsius. However, the air temperature just above the ground surface was at that moment 44° Celsius!
At 2.5 centimeters above the earth the temperature was 10 degrees less (34° C) and at 30 centimeters above the Earth a temperature of 27° C was measured.
Directly after sunset the temperature just above the Earth’s surface was only 13° C, while that at 30 centimeters’ height was still 29° C.
This means the dog tracks during daytime in a temperature between 30° and 40° Celsius!
