Scent work and tracking - Page 1

This topic covers something that your dog is good at
or not so good. It is not something he should have to be force to do.
Rather he has this trait, and needs to be trained properly.

The best tracking program hands down is the DMC out of
Germany.
 
The scent dogs that are used on amtrak and customs,
are the best here for scent work..

What is the difference between tracking and scent training?

Amtrak scent dogs are generally Labradors that go for
about 10 to 15000. They don't bite people and are very friendly.

Tracking can be very tiring on a dog and he must stay focused.

Genetics, genetics, genetics....some dogs are just exceptional trackers.

My question is for people who do alot of scent work or tracking.

How do you start a new dog? Do you buy a favorite bag of articles.

I always use dried liver for my tracking and than leather.
Dope dogs learn the scent of meth, pot, and opiate type drugs
with scented articles..

I am working now with explosive materals detection, and find they are very
idenifiable to canines.

What kind of dog do you choose, and why? How much training goes into these
dogs? Who is the most famous scent dog?....Don't say Rupert.

I  have had good luck with my corgi mix......:)

Our SAR team uses Labs for human remains detections (hrd) and blood hounds and coon dogs for trailing. The labs come from high drive GUN DOG STOCK and the bloodhounds and coondogs (redbone) come from working stock as well. It seems both the labs , coon dogs, and the blood hounds are very friendly dogs as a breed.

Tracking vs Scent training.

Tracking initially teaches a dog to smell the ground disturbance path. Scent training is more specific. that's why our search team teaches our dogs to trail instead of track. Trailing dogs detect the path of the dead skin cells that fall off your body not the ground disturbance.

For our hrd dogs we use a lot of pop box exercises in the begining. The dog believes the box gives the award not the handler. 

I have a young Golden male, and we are actively deployed in search & rescue. My first profile on him was live and now, I'm in the imprinting stages for a second profile of human remains detection. As someone else mentioned above much of SAR training is done using air-scenting. This isn't to say, that some in our group don't have formal tracking training as well. Most of the GSD's do. I don't with my Golden, but I have found that when he is out working he will use a combination of both.

Strangely enough in my training, I've stayed away from a food reward, and stuck with a toy reward. I use a bright orange squeek toy, and I have found that using it, garners a real motivation to work to the scent source (whether it be live or dead). I don't want the K9 to be too focused on food reward, since I don't want them to confuse food with hr evidence. Quite amazing what dogs find palatable.

Great post! A dog's nose should never be under-estimated.

I watched a movie last night where they were using Baying hounds for tracking.
Because it was a remote town, and the sheriff knew they were good trackers.
However the fugitive put mase on a piece of cloth and when the they sniffed it
 the dogs could not track after that. Is that true you think?. It makes me wonder
how many other ways you could throw dogs off your tracks.