InvisibleFlame9 wrote:I Gave command to search for rabbit and it walked in the opposite direction and then would stop after a short distance of walking. Not sure if there was an animal in those instances.
I have experienced this. My guess? When you gave the search command, the dog immediately detected a rabbit that was already behind you but running away towards it's burrows, it was just far enough that you couldn't hear or see it. It started to track it then the rabbit exited it's tracking range since it was already fleeing. I can't prove that, but I witnessed such a thing with my low level dog before. It seemed when a fleeing rabbit reached a certain distance, the dog would give up the track.
InvisibleFlame9 wrote:It seemed as though the pointer went into detection mode on it's own as I don't remember in that instance commanding him to find anything, but I might have forgotten that a previous command was still in effect.
The pointer will not go into detection on it's own, but there is an instance where it will stay in detection mode. If you command the dog to point, it points, and you walk within approximately 5m of the dog OR give the dog a treat, the dog will stop pointing (even if the target animal is still right there) and begin meandering.
BUT, if the dog points and you give the dog a wide berth when you walk past it, the dog will continue to point the animal indefinitely. If you shoot the animal, the pointer obviously stops pointing because the animal is now dead. But if you just spook the animal and it runs off, the dog will re-enter the slow walk mode and track the aninal down again to point it automatically. I honestly do not know if the dog gets additional experience for pointing the same animal multiple times without multiple commands. But this tip is exceptionally helpful later on if you use the dog to point big game such as deer or felines. I use it often puma and lynx hunting specifically. Dog detects animal, I visually confirm the animal he's tracking is a cat I'm after, and I take care to stay away from the dog. Even if I keep accidentally spooking the cat again and again, as long as I haven't gotten close to my dog while he's in the pointing mode he will continue to pursue the exact same animal across the map and never exit that track mode (even if another feline enters his tracking bubble as long as you don't call him off the first one, he'll stay after that first one.) This is a nice trick for bow hunting felines or if he points a rare/trophy animal and you spook ot before you get a shot. Just stay away from the dog, don't give any other commands and he will stay on that animal indefinitely.
Note: As I typed the response to the second quote, I realized it sounded contradictory to my response to the first quote. I think the issue with the dog losing the track is due to the low level and therefore small radius of an area it can detect animals in. The higher the dog level, the less that's a concern. With high level dogs that can track deer/felines, they're also likely to have (or are soon to have) the highest level tracking radius. Either that, or maybe the dog needs to actually point the animal at least one time for it to do the indefinite tracking trick. I'll have to experiment with that a bit to see.