SAR tracking and NOT watching the tracklayer - Page 1

So far my guy has done great with tracking. His training before last he did three sets of tracks. Each set consisted of a 160 yd, 320 yd, and 400 yd track. Scent article and treats at the end of the first two legs and tracklayer with treats at the last leg. The track was aged ten minutes and he watched as the tracklayer started out. Then he was turned away for harnessing so he wouldn't go by sight. He kept his nose down for all of these and was at a very fast trot the entire way and on track.

Now, the problem. The last training we did three short legs of tracks in the same manner but he did not see the tracklayer leave.  He was fairly aimless on the track.  Like it had not "clicked" that he was doing the same game but without seeing the tracklayer leave.

I know that this is a bigger challenge and that it's his first issue where his natural talent isn't sufficient. I'm looking for input on ways to help this "click" for him.

Would you go back to letting him see the tracklayer for a little longer to imprint it or would you see that as enabling the confusion?

also, the short tracks don't seem to agree with him either.  He get's almost irritated when he gets to the scent article and I try to pull him up and praise/deharness. He pulls to continue the track by following the tracklayers steps to the beginning point (always offset about thirty or forty yards) to the next set of tracks. I'm torn between wanting to give him the motivational reward of a quick easy "win"  and not wanting to dampen his enthusiasm by stopping him when he's eager to keep going.

Input greatly appreciated. PMs are fine.

thanks

Question - do you want a tracking dog or a trailing dog?  It sounds like you are just trying to do tracking.  If you are doing tracking he does not need to see the tracklayer leave.  Are you training with a SAR team?

 For SAR it is fine to start a dog in sport tracking to develop line handling technique etc. but it has little real application (tracking does have application for police work where the majority of tracks are 1-3 hours - but very few people use tracking dogs for SAR -where you may be out 12-48 hours. Jeff FInlay is one of them, but you have mixed opinions on that in the real world)

For SAR, trailing is more practical because you are going to have to use a scent article and cast the dog around the last known point fo find the start of the trail - particularly since you won't have a clue where the "track" starts.   The "track" will be long covered with contaminating scent by the time you get to it.  You should be introducing the scent article during the runaway phase.

Now, it sounds like you are changing too many variables at once.  If you are increasing time, only increase time - long straight track. If you are doing turns, don't add time, etc.  One way you can increase time from runaways is to crate the dog at the start of the track and increase time.  Actually any track should be aging AT LEAST 20 minutes or you are going to introduce problems as the scent has not settled to the ground.

For trailing I have NEVER heard of using a scent article and food on the turns - - -read this article about negative indications and reading the dog!    http://www.uspcak9.com/training/trailingNegative.pdf

Good for him for wanting to find the tracklayer!  Rely on your groundpounders to find the articles - you may be off the "track" by a good bit when you are actually looking for someone who has been gone awhile.

Ok, I'll try to hit all the answers. First, yes I'm with a SAR team and the way we train is to use the Glen Johnson method of tracking but after the first few months it is modified to a more trailing application. Johnson lays out a very specific method and series of tracks to lay for each day of each week that you train.  There is a total of nine actual tracks per training day. These are three sets of three. So, when I do the first set of three my tracklayer will lay one track. Scent article and treat at the end. (in the very beginning of the program the tracklayer is actually at the end of every track but we've gone past that point). After the first track is laid the tracklayer will move around thirty-forty yards right or left (depending on wind direction) and lay the second track. Beginning with a stomp pad and ending with scent article and treat. Another forty or so yards to the side and lay the third track. Beinning with stomp pad. Ending with the tracklayer himself at the end.

The dog is not supposed to be "tracking" these forty yard offsets between tracks. Ideally he should stop, recieve rewards/praise deharness, drink.  Then handler takes the dog to the next track via a different route than the tracklayer's. Which he does well on the prescribed long tracks. Such as the 160, 320, 400 sets. The problem is with the shorter sets of tracks. On these he does not want to stop at the end of the tracks. He pulls to go on and follow the tracklayers footsteps in between the two sets of tracks thereby blending the two tracks into one.

The changes in the length of tracks following the train of thought that each day of training the dog follows a shorter, medium and longer track. And does that sequence three times.  The reason we went from the 160/310/400yds to the 40/60/80yd shorter sets is because the harder lesson of not seeing the tracklayer was added into the mix. The idea being to make it as easy as possible for the dog to grasp this new concept.

We always use straight tracks at this stage of training and the scent articles are not left out until the end. And we also never use food/articles on turns. I agree there is disagreement on the tracking then trailing method of training but it is what this group has used for fourteen or so years but I think it is a little different mindset than many in HOW to do that transition from tracking to trailing. We only do actual tracting for around the initial 3-5 months, depending on the dog.

The reason we age the track for ten minutes at his level of training is because we are in the desert. The lack of humidity and the ground/vegetation make it very difficult for a young to do a twenty minute or more aged track.  He will move up to that in a couple of months but not yet.

Up until now it has basically been runaways. The problem now is getting him to understand that the "game" is the same whether he sees the tracklayer leave or not. He has great focus and will whine to go for the full ten minute wait when he watches the stomp pad being laid.  I'm just trying to get that transition from seeing the source of the track along with stomp pad and getting the source of the track with the stomp pad alone.

Hopefully this will help describe what I mean about the offsets between tracks:

Beginning stomp pad  

X

.

.                   160 yard track

.

.

X end article/treats

........offset to lay new track...........X beginning stomp pad

                                                           .

                                                           .

                                                           .          320 yard track

                                                           .

                                                           X end article/treats

                                                                  ....................offset to lay new track.........X beginning stomp pad

                                                                                                                                       .

                                                                    &

It is definitely a very different approach but there are many ways to skin a cat.

I would think that since they have been doing this for so long they would have the solution to the problem for you because surely it has come up before.

IIt sounds to me  like your dog is doing what he is supposed to be doing by gapping the tracks to find the tracklayer ........wouldn't pulling him off confuse him?  It is sure confusing me.  ZERO experience with the desert either so I am sure that changes things greatly

Ah well, many of us have done tracking before SAR training but just did the basic AKC style tracking for a short while .... hot dogs, set our own tracks, not too concerned about casting on the corners, etc to get the dog used to pulling into a harness and following scent on the ground.....................Then started SAR with runaways -and casting for the start of the trail pretty much right away by crossing the track then expanding on it.

He's definately not the only one confused at this point, LOL!  Yeah, this pretty much does start as the AKC style tracking.  And you've hit the nail on the head and I think it would have confused him to pull him off the track if he was tracking those gaps. He's REALLY driven in the track. I actually just got a return call from my training director who said that the reason for the short tracks with rests in between is more for the dogs that need more reinforcement. and not to sweat it.

She said it was bothering me so much because he hasn't connected the dots of seeing the tracklayer and tracking and not seeing the tracklayer and tracking because it has all come easily to him up until now.  I guess I'm to relax and give him time to figure it out.

Thanks for taking the time to give input.  I told her it would make things a lot less difficult if the tracklayer could just levitate between tracks so the dog wouldn't blend them. She didn't seem to hold out much hope of this happening.

Given this is tracking why did he ever see the tracklayer?  You have a scent pad to start with - you are introducing the scent article.  Runaways - typically just a motivational thing where the dog learns it has to use its nose to find someone.

I still don't "get it" for the approach - but I am sure there is some kind of logic.

In the desert - are you mainly going to be using them as tracking dogs? (I see you transition to trailing but scent/hot arid enviroment/boy what a challenge) - I can see where a trailing dog would be at a real handicap.  How do you deal with a tracking dog when the weight of the tracklayer changes say, when he decides to offload his pack (as so many do when they get scared - the one thing that has stuff that could save them)

I would think air scent dogs would be the primary way to go in the desert - we use trailing dogs in an urban enviroment which is not as condusive to working air scent, but the scent does wilder things when it doesnt nicely drop to moist earth and cling to vegetation  And we use a mix of trailing and air scent (we do scent specific air scent) dogs on wilderness.

Is most of your training at night? Just curious since that is best time for searching even here. 

What about increasing time with SIAB?

Johnson says some strange things about the durability of human scent.

Beats the hell outta me! I seriously don't know that it's ever come up  when I was around. I'll ask. Keep in mind my dog is only on his, roughly10th scent training day.  Of course at eleven months I don't train on scent every day of the week. 

The dogs in our group (when fully trained) are scented off of an article and then are cast in as uncomprimised area as possible and they usually will begin with a short tracking spurt (usually a few hundred yards-this is on their own not coerced) and will settle into a trailing mode.  Winds shift unbelievably in the desert so we are big on letting him work his way out of a scent pool at his own speed and by his own method. Most circle but one will lace back in forth.  I've laid track that was supposed to be with the wind and had the wind shift three times in as many minutes.  I used to think deserts were flat but it is really rolling and many washes and ravines. Plus we have many mountain ranges here that affect it too. Even moreso in the high desert and the mountains themselves. Anyway, when the dog seems to be wearing down we leap frog a dog up on a quad or if it's very far by chopper and when it seems the trail is to dry or old we bring up the airscent dogs and work them leapfrog. When we reach the max on that, we are realistically probably looking for cadaver because of the conditions here. Particularly in summer.  Deteriation in the summer is incredibly quick here.

If it's winter (haha winter!) we train during the day. If it's really any other time of year  we try to train either at night, very early in the morning, or if it's really hot out we will train in the Catalina Mountains. There is about a twenty degree difference in temp up there. But the humidity is still just as low, which as you know, is a big problem too. We also do our water training in the hot weather.  Cadaver training doesn't really seem to be affected by the humidity. Sometimes our levels are single digit or teens for humidity. Except for monsoon season usually never above 30 percent.

As far as victims dropping things on the trail when they get disoriented you're right. It is a big problem here. Especially since it can be 110 out, get a hour monsoon and it will be forty degrees colder AND you're wet.  The fully trained dogs will scent the clothing or gear in the same way they do the trail and keep going. Same for the airscent dogs.

This environment is definately more conducive to air scenting as you said. Some of the dogs simply can't do the trailing/tracking here. Especially when you add in the cactus and snakes and terrain. Those dogs are moved to air scent training if their handlers and the trainers agree that the trailing simply is not going to work out.  I've been told that a dog that is trained anywhere else will usually just quit here because of the difficulties but the ones that are trained in this harsh an environment can work anywhere.  I can see that for the most part if you're talking about this country but certainly would question it if it were someplace like the mideast.

We don't use the SIAD or even synthetic cadaver. We have pretty stinky authentic cadaver so we don't use the other. I'm not sure why we don't use the SIAD type scent water mix.  I'll ask.

I think most folks doing SIAB just use a squrt bottle with distilled water and avoid the shirt thing altogether - all it does is catch some skin rafts and keep them hydrated - not real life but some folks use for training so the dog is still learning to work the human scent part of the picture.

We don'e use synthetic cadaver aids. Your heat is bad but when I was younger I went on a bicycle trip out west - a 106 day there was not any worse than an 85 day here, just had to drink a lot more water. 

Definitely interesting terrain, FWIW we have had some california dogs come here and they had trouble working - they were overwhelemed with all the other scents, breaking brush, crossing streams, etc. 

I can definately see that with the different environment being overwhelming. We're lucky to have the mountains fairly close by to train in. The Catalina's are wooded and only about an hour or so from here so we get more settings. But, the mountains around Phoenix are very barren and the dogs wouldn't get exposure to those things unless they went up toward the White Mountains, I'm assuming.

I'm sure it would take a LOT to get my dog used to working in an urban environment.

And I agree about the heat. For the most part it doesn't bother me anymore unless it's monsoon season.  I went back east to visit our grown kids this summer and it was in the low nineties but humid as all hell. I was DYING!  Don't miss that at all.

I'll ask about the SIAB. I'm just not sure how long it would be there without being suck up into the ground. Maybe something to try in high desert where there's more grasslands.