Trailing, Tracking, Following Blown Odorr

Air scent and real life tracks go hand in hand. As long as there is a body at the end of the track, there is usually an air scent problem associated with it. This is one of the main reasons for having an actual human at the end of a training trail is crucial. Dogs need to learn how to manage these problems through self discovery and repetition. It is important to understand the variety of air scent pictures the dogs might use and the corresponding behavior changes. Often times, subtle air scent issues can cause an impatient dog to “chase” odor vs working into it, resulting teams moving in the opposite direction until odor runs out. This distance may be hundreds of meters or more. If the dog or handler cannot get back to where the track was left, that might be the end of a hunt and everyone goes home empty handed. In this video we have a five month old police Bloodhound in training working such a problem on a double blind trail. Her solution once the odor was lost was to self back track about 100 meters to the area the air scent began and then pick up the trail once more. In this video I break down parts of this double blind trail as it happens using a map overlay as a reference.