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by LAVK-9 on 04 February 2010 - 17:02
I think I am going to start the new dog I have in tracking.When I take him for a walk in the dry part of the river bed there are some tracks in the sand that I can see and he has his nose plastered to the ground following them.Then they go on to rock and I can't see it but he still has his nose to the ground.I can hear him sniffing away and then we come to sand again where i can see the foot prints and he is right on track.I should have called him Hover with the nost he has!!
by Slamdunc on 04 February 2010 - 22:02
Moons,
walking or riding a bike would virtually the same effect on grass or even asphalt. On grass the tires disturb the vegetation and cause ground disturbance and the rider is shedding rafts or skin cells as he rides. So there will be a combination of the person's scent and a ground disturbance. There was a famous experiment done in Austria, I believe, many years ago. The experiment involved a track layer going to a chair lift on a mountain and riding the chair lift up the mountain. Attached to the lift was a wheel with "feet" or wood that hit the ground at the same interval as the track layers stride as the chair lift went up the mountain. The dogs followed that track as if the person had laid it. If I remember correctly the dogs had more difficulty following the chair lift when the wheel was removed and their was no ground disturbance. This experiment was 50 or 70 years ago, The dogs are amazing and it would not surprise me that they could track him.
Our training sessions often utilize urban and rural areas to track. We will often cross busy streets and highways and the dogs can do it pretty easily. The last track my dog walked up to the sidewalk of a 4 lane busy road and stopped and looked straight ahead. when traffic cleared he went directly across the road and up to the front door of a house the tack layer was in. I later found out he crossed at the exact point the track layer crossed.
It is fascinating to me.
Jim
walking or riding a bike would virtually the same effect on grass or even asphalt. On grass the tires disturb the vegetation and cause ground disturbance and the rider is shedding rafts or skin cells as he rides. So there will be a combination of the person's scent and a ground disturbance. There was a famous experiment done in Austria, I believe, many years ago. The experiment involved a track layer going to a chair lift on a mountain and riding the chair lift up the mountain. Attached to the lift was a wheel with "feet" or wood that hit the ground at the same interval as the track layers stride as the chair lift went up the mountain. The dogs followed that track as if the person had laid it. If I remember correctly the dogs had more difficulty following the chair lift when the wheel was removed and their was no ground disturbance. This experiment was 50 or 70 years ago, The dogs are amazing and it would not surprise me that they could track him.
Our training sessions often utilize urban and rural areas to track. We will often cross busy streets and highways and the dogs can do it pretty easily. The last track my dog walked up to the sidewalk of a 4 lane busy road and stopped and looked straight ahead. when traffic cleared he went directly across the road and up to the front door of a house the tack layer was in. I later found out he crossed at the exact point the track layer crossed.
It is fascinating to me.
Jim
by yoshy on 04 February 2010 - 23:02
well you have to also consider the rat of shed and the different scent/ pheromones a person in distress fleeing your simply running is going to give off vs local civilians.
jim-
i doubt i explained my self correctly in my original question or im mis interpreting your explanation one.
how are you teaching the dog to search the given area to find the designated scent. I am curious to various methods used to get a green dog to achieve "the hunt" for the odor/trail when not placed on the scent pad starting the trail. do you understand what i mean?
i know many people do this different ways. Just curious to if there are some on here i have not heard of or used.
basically- what specifically are you doing to gear up and train your dog to hunt for the designated scent in a given area?
would you seperate this with 2 commands? such as scent detection (find this scent), once the scent is found-down your dog and give his trailing/tracking command?
are you simply training for grid searching to find trail by slowly moving greater distances from the scent pad? or from track running through grid area in which your dog has to pick up?
just curious to you guys thoughts.
jim-
i doubt i explained my self correctly in my original question or im mis interpreting your explanation one.
how are you teaching the dog to search the given area to find the designated scent. I am curious to various methods used to get a green dog to achieve "the hunt" for the odor/trail when not placed on the scent pad starting the trail. do you understand what i mean?
i know many people do this different ways. Just curious to if there are some on here i have not heard of or used.
basically- what specifically are you doing to gear up and train your dog to hunt for the designated scent in a given area?
would you seperate this with 2 commands? such as scent detection (find this scent), once the scent is found-down your dog and give his trailing/tracking command?
are you simply training for grid searching to find trail by slowly moving greater distances from the scent pad? or from track running through grid area in which your dog has to pick up?
just curious to you guys thoughts.
by Davren on 04 February 2010 - 23:02
Jim
I had a dog that would "dive" for rocks that I threw into the river. It was about 2 -3 (?) feet deep. At first my husband did not believe it, so I marked the rock and sure enough, he would come up with that rock. That truly amazed me-how the heck they can discriminate a specific rock under water?
The same dog also taught me a valuable lesson. I had my husband and son go off into the woods on our one farm and told them to find a spot and wait for about 20 minutes. I took some of their dirty socks, let him smell them, and gave the command to "such" and off we went. We came to a creek with a clear path going up the other side. To the right and left, there was thick brush. My dog wanted to go to the right and up this semi-dry creek. I was sooo certain that my husband would have taken the trail. I forced the dog to come with me. He kept trying to pull me the other way and finally I gave up and turned him lose, thinking, "whatever"! In a matter of a 5 - 10 minutes I heard him barking and my son laughing. He knew better than me. I learned to trust my dog after that adventure.
I had a dog that would "dive" for rocks that I threw into the river. It was about 2 -3 (?) feet deep. At first my husband did not believe it, so I marked the rock and sure enough, he would come up with that rock. That truly amazed me-how the heck they can discriminate a specific rock under water?
The same dog also taught me a valuable lesson. I had my husband and son go off into the woods on our one farm and told them to find a spot and wait for about 20 minutes. I took some of their dirty socks, let him smell them, and gave the command to "such" and off we went. We came to a creek with a clear path going up the other side. To the right and left, there was thick brush. My dog wanted to go to the right and up this semi-dry creek. I was sooo certain that my husband would have taken the trail. I forced the dog to come with me. He kept trying to pull me the other way and finally I gave up and turned him lose, thinking, "whatever"! In a matter of a 5 - 10 minutes I heard him barking and my son laughing. He knew better than me. I learned to trust my dog after that adventure.
by Slamdunc on 05 February 2010 - 03:02
Yoshy,
how are you teaching the dog to search the given area to find the designated scent. I am curious to various methods used to get a green dog to achieve "the hunt" for the odor/trail when not placed on the scent pad starting the trail. do you understand what i mean?
Ok, I see what you mean. we start the Police dogs that have a basis or foundation in tracking this way for scent discrimination tracking. Bernhard Flinks started us on this in 2008 and it has been hugely successful for our PD.
To start; each track layer has a Tshirt that they have worn the previous day with their scent, not washed. The track layer agitates the dog and gives a bite on lead to the dog. The scent registers with the dog from the "jacobs" gland (sp) in the mouth directly to the brain. The handler hides the dog and the track layer runs away. We wait a short time and give the dog the track command. Remember the dog is in drive from being agitated and wants to go. Initially we do this in a wooded area with some paved roads. We have access to a 5,000 acre hunt club with 12 miles of paved gravel roads. After a couple of days of this we move to shopping centers and repeat the procedure with the bite and the decoy running and the handler hiding the dog. Then we progress to the track layer leaving a scent article at the starting point and laying a track starting in a shopping center and crossing parking lots and streets to finding the hidden decoy / track layer. We do not start from a scent pad in the beginning to train this. The track layer agitates the dog and runs the dog is hidden from view and then sent to find the decoy. The dogs pick it up very quickly.
As the dogs progress they will track through crowds of people ignoring everyone looking for the particular person. The end result is no scent article and tracking from pavement with no set starting point. As you mentioned the dogs can tell the fear and adrenaline scent given off by a bad guy running from a crime. Especially the proven dogs that have had street bites, they recognize that fear / adrenaline scent immediately.
We also teach our dogs to area search and do patrol routes. The area search has no track and no scent article. We will send the dogs off lead into the woods to engage a hidden bad guy. This is all air scenting and the dogs will pick up the human odor from a fair distance and follow that odor straight to the decoy or bad guy and engage that person.
So, when you take a dog with a foundation in tracking and area searching and can air scent well; teaching scent discrimination tracking is easy. The dog can easily find the track or pick up the airborne scent quickly. Like a hunting dog the K9 will seek out the individual human scent and follow it easily.
We also do the "hide and seek" game with the handler, but mainly when getting the dog used to area searching in a muzzle.
We have 1 command to track or search and is usually followed by "packen" when off lead.
Renee,
The dog is like a compass, you always follow the dog. The dog knows where to go. That's a good dog.
Jim
how are you teaching the dog to search the given area to find the designated scent. I am curious to various methods used to get a green dog to achieve "the hunt" for the odor/trail when not placed on the scent pad starting the trail. do you understand what i mean?
Ok, I see what you mean. we start the Police dogs that have a basis or foundation in tracking this way for scent discrimination tracking. Bernhard Flinks started us on this in 2008 and it has been hugely successful for our PD.
To start; each track layer has a Tshirt that they have worn the previous day with their scent, not washed. The track layer agitates the dog and gives a bite on lead to the dog. The scent registers with the dog from the "jacobs" gland (sp) in the mouth directly to the brain. The handler hides the dog and the track layer runs away. We wait a short time and give the dog the track command. Remember the dog is in drive from being agitated and wants to go. Initially we do this in a wooded area with some paved roads. We have access to a 5,000 acre hunt club with 12 miles of paved gravel roads. After a couple of days of this we move to shopping centers and repeat the procedure with the bite and the decoy running and the handler hiding the dog. Then we progress to the track layer leaving a scent article at the starting point and laying a track starting in a shopping center and crossing parking lots and streets to finding the hidden decoy / track layer. We do not start from a scent pad in the beginning to train this. The track layer agitates the dog and runs the dog is hidden from view and then sent to find the decoy. The dogs pick it up very quickly.
As the dogs progress they will track through crowds of people ignoring everyone looking for the particular person. The end result is no scent article and tracking from pavement with no set starting point. As you mentioned the dogs can tell the fear and adrenaline scent given off by a bad guy running from a crime. Especially the proven dogs that have had street bites, they recognize that fear / adrenaline scent immediately.
We also teach our dogs to area search and do patrol routes. The area search has no track and no scent article. We will send the dogs off lead into the woods to engage a hidden bad guy. This is all air scenting and the dogs will pick up the human odor from a fair distance and follow that odor straight to the decoy or bad guy and engage that person.
So, when you take a dog with a foundation in tracking and area searching and can air scent well; teaching scent discrimination tracking is easy. The dog can easily find the track or pick up the airborne scent quickly. Like a hunting dog the K9 will seek out the individual human scent and follow it easily.
We also do the "hide and seek" game with the handler, but mainly when getting the dog used to area searching in a muzzle.
We have 1 command to track or search and is usually followed by "packen" when off lead.
Renee,
The dog is like a compass, you always follow the dog. The dog knows where to go. That's a good dog.
Jim
by Prager on 05 February 2010 - 03:02
It is unnatural for dog to track backwards. Most dogs can distinguish in which way the person went instantly. Sometimes it may take the dog some doing, but dog always wants instingtually to track in "forward" direction. In Czech some dogs were trained to track backwards to the source. That was done mainly for criminal purposes. It is not easy to convince the dog to go "back" on the track.
Yoshi, all the tracking, in my book, is based on motivation. And the motivation is what ? What will happen on the end of the track
Motivation could be food , bite or prey toy play. If you motivate the dog he/she will know how to get the reward through tracking. Also it depends on what you are training your dog for(S&R, unfriendly tracking, sport or detection) and what motivates your dog the most.
I am assuming that you are not tracking for SchH title. I personally do not care how the dog finds the person as long as he finds it and is using all his senses to do it. Dogs tend to use 1. site, 2. hearing, 3.smell in that order of preference. Thus most important is to teach the dog not to be lazy and not to omit to use the nose. The sight and hearing is usually not necessary to teach.
You need to teach/ motivate the dog how to respond to an odor by rewarding him properly by what ever motivates him and is appropriate for the type of training . For example you do not want to reward the dog with bite if he is going to be a S&R dog.
You'r mentioning building search. In order to motivate your dog to do building search you need to reward the dog with bite if he recognizes the odor of the bad guy. For example good training situation is a hall way with bunch of offices or cubicles or alley of trees in the narrow street. Put a decoy in such location. At first, you walk the dog freely as if going for walk and just watch to dog. Learn to read the dog. At one point when the dog smells the decoy, the dog is going to lift the head and inhale - exhale differently than normally. Do not guide him in any way at this point of training. Trust him to do what he supposed to do. He will. If it is where the decoy is say "good boy" which is a signal for the decoy to pop out and agitate the dog and give him a bite. You do this for a week and then start adding a command to search - attack (what ever you use). and then you start adding different more complicated elements and techniques. And then you call me and I tell you more,.....or I can write a book here.
Prager Hans
http://www.alpinek9.com
Yoshi, all the tracking, in my book, is based on motivation. And the motivation is what ? What will happen on the end of the track
Motivation could be food , bite or prey toy play. If you motivate the dog he/she will know how to get the reward through tracking. Also it depends on what you are training your dog for(S&R, unfriendly tracking, sport or detection) and what motivates your dog the most.
I am assuming that you are not tracking for SchH title. I personally do not care how the dog finds the person as long as he finds it and is using all his senses to do it. Dogs tend to use 1. site, 2. hearing, 3.smell in that order of preference. Thus most important is to teach the dog not to be lazy and not to omit to use the nose. The sight and hearing is usually not necessary to teach.
You need to teach/ motivate the dog how to respond to an odor by rewarding him properly by what ever motivates him and is appropriate for the type of training . For example you do not want to reward the dog with bite if he is going to be a S&R dog.
You'r mentioning building search. In order to motivate your dog to do building search you need to reward the dog with bite if he recognizes the odor of the bad guy. For example good training situation is a hall way with bunch of offices or cubicles or alley of trees in the narrow street. Put a decoy in such location. At first, you walk the dog freely as if going for walk and just watch to dog. Learn to read the dog. At one point when the dog smells the decoy, the dog is going to lift the head and inhale - exhale differently than normally. Do not guide him in any way at this point of training. Trust him to do what he supposed to do. He will. If it is where the decoy is say "good boy" which is a signal for the decoy to pop out and agitate the dog and give him a bite. You do this for a week and then start adding a command to search - attack (what ever you use). and then you start adding different more complicated elements and techniques. And then you call me and I tell you more,.....or I can write a book here.
Prager Hans
http://www.alpinek9.com
by Davren on 05 February 2010 - 12:02
WoW! Great information.What a wealth of information. Thank you for sharing. I vote Jim and Hans write that book! You both have a way of writing that is comprehensible. Your explanations are encouraging-making training more fun and yet challenging to change the routine.
by yoshy on 05 February 2010 - 14:02
Prager-
no not for schh!!!
as always your advice is welcomed and spot on. However I didnt mean it in the facet of doing a building search for apprehension. The vocabulary I used was a little off. I meant building/ training a dog to detect scent in a target area to find the initial trail for SAR(not traditional) type work.
Everything is motivation based- and gear towards building drive for the track/trail.
I sent a reply to your email the other day regarding the pup with a fairly indepth measure of the tracking/trailing work i do. So it would give some good insight the the relativity/ purpose of asking this question. As this is something I frequently work with our dogs and am curious to you guys opinions.
------------------------------------------------------------
Jim-
I start with basically the same technique you mention. Just to get the dog to engage there nose and make it fun. I would 1st have someone agitate the dog with ball or tug and then when he is starting to peak run and hide between houses in my neighbor hood and or in the woods behind my park. When found big party. Also building drive for the finding the end in the initial stages.
However where is the breach the gap between ramping the dog up and finding the person/ object and coming up on a cold
area and asking the dog to find specific odor? As he is seeing no fleeing victim and the setup is different. How is the dog making the equation to find target odor in the given area, coming staight out of the truck?
no not for schh!!!
as always your advice is welcomed and spot on. However I didnt mean it in the facet of doing a building search for apprehension. The vocabulary I used was a little off. I meant building/ training a dog to detect scent in a target area to find the initial trail for SAR(not traditional) type work.
Everything is motivation based- and gear towards building drive for the track/trail.
I sent a reply to your email the other day regarding the pup with a fairly indepth measure of the tracking/trailing work i do. So it would give some good insight the the relativity/ purpose of asking this question. As this is something I frequently work with our dogs and am curious to you guys opinions.
------------------------------------------------------------
Jim-
I start with basically the same technique you mention. Just to get the dog to engage there nose and make it fun. I would 1st have someone agitate the dog with ball or tug and then when he is starting to peak run and hide between houses in my neighbor hood and or in the woods behind my park. When found big party. Also building drive for the finding the end in the initial stages.
However where is the breach the gap between ramping the dog up and finding the person/ object and coming up on a cold
area and asking the dog to find specific odor? As he is seeing no fleeing victim and the setup is different. How is the dog making the equation to find target odor in the given area, coming staight out of the truck?
by Two Moons on 05 February 2010 - 17:02
yoshy,
are you asking how to offer the dog the scent coming out of the truck?
Showing the dog the particular scent you want it to search for?
Using an article with that particular scent such as a lost child's clothing?
Be clear young man....:)
Avoid contaminating the scent as much as possible for starters.
Moons.
are you asking how to offer the dog the scent coming out of the truck?
Showing the dog the particular scent you want it to search for?
Using an article with that particular scent such as a lost child's clothing?
Be clear young man....:)
Avoid contaminating the scent as much as possible for starters.
Moons.
by Slamdunc on 05 February 2010 - 17:02
Yoshy,
The work with the Tshirt is different than the work with a ball or tug. The Tshirt which has been worn by the track layer or decoy has that particular persons scent on it. There is a gland in the dog's mouth, the Jacobs gland (I may be spelling this incorrectly) which registers scent and sends it to the brain. When we give the dog a bite on this Tshirt the individual scent of the track layer gets registered in the dog's brain almost immediately. The track layer takes off when the dog is out of site. We will build the distance, length of time and difficulty as the dog progresses. We then go to a scent article laying on the side of a building and no agitation and command the dog to track. We then progress to more difficult tracks with no scent article, starting in the vicinity of where the track layer was last seen.
Our dogs are highly motivated to track, some tracks end with a brisk game with the handler; some end with an apprehension and bite. Some end with a muzzle fight. The reward for the dog is also varied so the drive and intensity is always high.
We each have a "ritual" we do before starting our dogs to track. Some handlers use a harness only for tracking, I sit my dog calmly and walk away looking for footprints or any sign of the track. I come back to my dog and pat his chest and tell him to "track" or "find him." I normally use a 30' lead for this and the dog knows immediately when he sees the lead he's going to work. I also give my dog a couple of minutes to acclimate his nose to the area and allow him to empty before we start.
Almost all of our tracks on the street start out cold with no fleeing suspect in sight and no exact point to start. We get the dog to start and let him work until he picks up the track. Once the dog understands the task getting him to start straight out of the truck and going to work is easy. Tracking requires a lot of work and training, but there is nothing like finding someone at the end of a real track. We use the same ritual or technique for missing people as well as fleeing fugitives. We just keep the dog on lead for missing people when we get close.
Does that make sense? Am I getting your question right?
Jim
The work with the Tshirt is different than the work with a ball or tug. The Tshirt which has been worn by the track layer or decoy has that particular persons scent on it. There is a gland in the dog's mouth, the Jacobs gland (I may be spelling this incorrectly) which registers scent and sends it to the brain. When we give the dog a bite on this Tshirt the individual scent of the track layer gets registered in the dog's brain almost immediately. The track layer takes off when the dog is out of site. We will build the distance, length of time and difficulty as the dog progresses. We then go to a scent article laying on the side of a building and no agitation and command the dog to track. We then progress to more difficult tracks with no scent article, starting in the vicinity of where the track layer was last seen.
Our dogs are highly motivated to track, some tracks end with a brisk game with the handler; some end with an apprehension and bite. Some end with a muzzle fight. The reward for the dog is also varied so the drive and intensity is always high.
We each have a "ritual" we do before starting our dogs to track. Some handlers use a harness only for tracking, I sit my dog calmly and walk away looking for footprints or any sign of the track. I come back to my dog and pat his chest and tell him to "track" or "find him." I normally use a 30' lead for this and the dog knows immediately when he sees the lead he's going to work. I also give my dog a couple of minutes to acclimate his nose to the area and allow him to empty before we start.
Almost all of our tracks on the street start out cold with no fleeing suspect in sight and no exact point to start. We get the dog to start and let him work until he picks up the track. Once the dog understands the task getting him to start straight out of the truck and going to work is easy. Tracking requires a lot of work and training, but there is nothing like finding someone at the end of a real track. We use the same ritual or technique for missing people as well as fleeing fugitives. We just keep the dog on lead for missing people when we get close.
Does that make sense? Am I getting your question right?
Jim
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