“Show you?” Pettis looked puzzled. “I reckon he’d be glad to, but how you gonna get him to do it?”
She smiled. “That’s where we’d like to ask a favor of you, Mr. Pettis. Would you be willing for us to put a tracking collar on him, see where he goes for a few days? Maybe he’ll bring back another bone, and we can backtrack. See where he got it.” She’d latched onto the idea when I mentioned the Vermont case that Joe Mullins had told me about. Vickery had endorsed giving the technology a try, given that there seemed to be nothing to lose. So while Vickery had headed off to interview local old-timers about the North Florida Boys’ Reformatory, Angie and I had returned to Pettis’s cabin in hope of conducting a field study of canine carrion foraging.
Pettis rubbed the back of his neck, then rubbed the stubble on his chin. “You’re not talking about one of them shock collars, are you? I wouldn’t feel right about putting a shock collar on Jasper.”
“No, sir,” Angie assured him. “I’m talking about a GPS tracking collar. Hunters use ’em to keep track of where their bird dogs or coonhounds are. I’ve got one right here in the truck, if you’d like to see it.” Without waiting for an answer, she returned to the truck and grabbed the collar and receiver from the backseat. The collar itself was a black nylon band, about an inch wide, with the word Garmin in white letters on one side. A black plastic housing, about twice the thickness of a shotgun shell, was attached to the lower part of the collar, and a six-inch flexible black antenna stuck up from the top. Pettis eyed the rig doubtfully. “See, there’s a GPS receiver in the collar,” Angie explained. “It pinpoints the dog’s position by comparing signals from a network of satellites up in the sky.” She paused, giving him a chance to ask questions, but he didn’t. “There’s also a transmitter in the collar that sends us a signal every few seconds, telling us where he is,” she went on. She showed Pettis the handheld receiver, which was about twice the size of my cell phone. “This display screen shows us where he is.” She held out the screen for his inspection. “The black triangle in the middle of the map is the location of this receiver. See that little picture of the dog, beside it? That shows us he’s right here.”
Pettis looked at her dubiously. “I know he’s right here, Miss Angie. I’m lookin’ at him. And I know that receiver’s right here. I’m lookin’ at it, too.”
Angie laughed good-naturedly. “Okay, this isn’t a very good demonstration. You willing for us to put it on Jasper, so you can get a better idea how it works?” Pettis frowned. “It’ll just take a minute,” she cajoled.
“And you’re sure it won’t hurt him?”
“It won’t hurt him a bit. I promise.”
“Well. All right, then. If he’s willing. Jasper, you willing to try that thing on?”
Angie handed the collar to Pettis. “Jasper, set on down,” he said. The dog sat, and Pettis strapped it on, frowning and shaking his head. “I sure wouldn’t want to wear it,” he said. “Jasper, you sure about this?” The dog cocked his head, and Pettis laughed. “Well, if you don’t care, I reckon I shouldn’t care.”
Angie said, “So, does he like to chase sticks?”
“Who, Jasper?” Pettis guffawed. “Jasper likes to take naps. You want to track him takin’ a nap?”
She smiled. “You particular about what he eats?”
“Well, I don’t much like it when he brings skulls into the bed,” Pettis said. “Besides that, I don’t much care. He’s a dog, you know?”
Angie opened the back door of the truck again and leaned in. When she emerged, she had a hamburger patty in her hand, which we’d procured at McDonald’s on our way. “Hey, Jasper,” she cooed, waving the burger near him. The dog’s head snapped around and his nostrils flared. “Want a treat?” She made another quick pass with the burger near his nose, too quick for him to make a grab. “Want it? Huh, Jasper, you want it?” She waved the burger back and forth as she said it. The dog’s eyes were locked on the burger like a fighter plane’s targeting radar, and his head swiveled in perfect sync with the movement of the patty. “You ready, Jasper?” She cocked her arm back. “Go get it, Jasper!” With that, she flung the burger across the clearing and into the brush. The dog tore after it. “See,” she said, pointing to the screen. She’d zoomed it in as close as it would go. The small dog icon, which had been superimposed on the triangle, suddenly flashed to a new position, halfway across the screen. As Jasper snuffled his way through the bushes, the icon moved every five seconds. Then, after a brief pause that was punctuated by loud smacking noises in the underbrush, the icon made its way back to the triangle, arriving shortly after Jasper did.