How to Track Dogs & Cats

Video Transcript

"Hi! We are Nick and Valerie Wisniewski on behalf of expertvillage.com. We are here to talk about animal tracks. For more information, please visit our website at walnuthilltracking.com. Here on the ground we have the track of two wild animals and we are going to compare these two. One of these is a wild feline. It is actually the track of a bobcat. The other is a wild canine. It is actually an eastern coyote. When comparing these two tracks, it is often easy to confuse them but there are several important features that will help you distinguish cat tracks from dog tracks. On the cat track, you can see that the heel pad in general is a much larger feature in proportion to the whole track than in the canine where the heel pad is a much smaller feature in proportion to the hull. In general also the outline of the track is different. The feline track is generally sideways or round. It gives a general roundness. The coyote track or the dog track on the other hand is oriented front to back. So when you quickly glance at these, the first impression is this track is and this track is round or even slightly wider than it is long. Other important features are the toes. The toes on the feline track actually point in a slightly different direction than the heel seems to be pointing. This gives it a certain asymmetry which is characteristic of cat tracks. In the dog track however, the coyote track, the toes and the heel point in the same direction so it is symmetrical. An other feature is the negative space between the heel pad and the toes. On the feline track, that negative space makes a c-shape. In the dog track however, what is left in the middle the negative space is the pyramid with an x through it. The x is a very good diagnostic key to a wild dog track. "