# Mantracking



## Jose Alberto Reanto (Apr 6, 2006)

Hello List:

Has anyone here done mantracking tracking multiple tracklayers at any one time? 

Any inputs will be appreciated....


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## Marjolein van den Berg (Apr 11, 2006)

uhm, I'm not sure, you mean man tracking by footprint scent or mantraking in any way, by wind etc?

Or do you mean tracking and having a track of someone else crossing your track several times? :roll: 

I'm dutch...and blond...


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## Jose Alberto Reanto (Apr 6, 2006)

Marjolein van den Berg said:


> uhm, I'm not sure, you mean man tracking by footprint scent or mantraking in any way, by wind etc?
> 
> Or do you mean tracking and having a track of someone else crossing your track several times? :roll:
> 
> I'm dutch...and blond...



Hi Marjolein:

I'm sorry you will really find me very poor in terminologies. I suppose mantracking would mean tracking (or trailing?) the source of human scent, or humans themselves. 

Normally, tracking is done with a single tracklayer. I asked what if it were multiple tracklayers. Like let's say, four friends got lost in a forest or wilderness.


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## admin (Mar 27, 2006)

*On Behalf of Patrick Cheatham*

OK Patrick Cheatham replied to this post, but due to a technical glitch with this thread I had to delete his post.... since I can't post under his name, I'll quote the response he gave.... sorry about that!




Patrick Cheatham said:


> Can you explain a little more on what it is your wanting to do. I have experience in sport tracking as well as training, trailing and air scenting.


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## Jose Alberto Reanto (Apr 6, 2006)

Thanks Admin:

Hi Patrick:

The scenario is let's say, four friends got seperated and got lost in the woods. How would one track them all alone with a dog?


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## Edwin de Vries (Apr 4, 2006)

Jose Alberto Reanto said:


> Thanks Admin:
> 
> Hi Patrick:
> 
> The scenario is let's say, four friends got seperated and got lost in the woods. How would one track them all alone with a dog?


In this situation it's more convenient to do area search with the dog, but I think it's not the answer to the question.


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## Jose Alberto Reanto (Apr 6, 2006)

Edwin de Vries said:


> Jose Alberto Reanto said:
> 
> 
> > Thanks Admin:
> ...


What exactly is area search, Edwin? How does one start it?


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## Greg Long (Mar 27, 2006)

Now im not an expert.

If It were me and my best tracking dog,I would use an article if availible for each person and let the dog discriminate.

Or you could just let the dog follow the track he chooses first and then backtrack and pick up the other tracks by process of elimination?Im just coming up with ideas off the top of my head.Ive never tried to do this excercise yet.

I do believe in my dogs ability to do this though.

Greg


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## Patrick Cheatham (Apr 10, 2006)

*Man Tracking*

Jose Alberto Reanto wrote: 

The scenario is let's say, four friends got seperated and got lost in the woods. How would one track them all alone with a dog? 

Edwin de Vries wrote:

In this situation it's more convenient to do area search with the dog, but I think it's not the answer to the question. 

In this case an area search could be done using a dog trained in air scenting. He would not pickup on one trail but would work to find the human scent within a desired area. Most air scenting dogs are not scent discrement and the dog would work to the strongest human scent within its search area.
If your dog is trained to track or trail using an item from one of the victims, this dog should follow that persons trail. This works best when you know the last known point of the lost subject. We require our dogs to be scent discerment so my dog would only trail the scent of the article I presented her with. The ideal situation is to have both dogs so you can air scent the outer perimeter and the trailing dog work the place last seen. Hope this helps.


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## Edwin de Vries (Apr 4, 2006)

Area search is searching in woods or beach or so, with no lead on the dog. The dog doesn't follow a track but uses his nose in combination of the wind direction and this combination leads him to persons. The most common way is to send your dog to the left and to the right and you walk over a imaginary line through the area, so you know where the dog has searched. Our dogs are trained that when he smells a person or a corpse, he goes checking it and he let the handler know on a certain way he has found some one. It is a very short story about area search. More rescue search are:On disaster, in water, in snow.


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## Jose Alberto Reanto (Apr 6, 2006)

*Re: Man Tracking*



Patrick Cheatham said:


> In this case an area search could be done using a dog trained in air scenting. He would not pickup on one trail but would work to find the human scent within a desired area. Most air scenting dogs are not scent discrement and the dog would work to the strongest human scent within its search area.
> 
> If your dog is trained to track or trail using an item from one of the victims, this dog should follow that persons trail. This works best when you know the last known point of the lost subject. We require our dogs to be scent discerment so my dog would only trail the scent of the article I presented her with. The ideal situation is to have both dogs so you can air scent the outer perimeter and the trailing dog work the place last seen. Hope this helps.


If I will use 2 dogs, how would I know when to switch from trailing to tracking? Having an article from one of the victims may lead to him alright but how about the others? What if the area was contaminated by scents of other people who have searched the area first? It is common for rural folks to start searching by themselves first before a search party will be called to assist.

Just curious...


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## Bob Scott (Mar 30, 2006)

Jose, when I was on a SAR team, we often had to go into an area after it had been compromised by locals. It the dog is trained on scent specific (trailing/tracking a known person after giving the dog a scent article) It's not a big problem with a good dog. 
Most of our live find work was air scent without a scent article. In those cases, ALL people not connected to the dog teams should leave the area or the dog will alert on ANY person in the search grid. 
I personelly have never heard of a dog working two different scents at the same time. That doesn't mean it can't be done. I've just never heard of it. 
We considered live and cadaver as two different scents, with two different commands. If one command was given, we expected the dog to ignore the other scent. It wasn't a problem with good dogs and good handlers. 
If given two different live scents, I suspect the dog will follow the first one it finds a track, but, never having done it, I'm just guessing.
I might add. Tracking, to me, means foot step to foot step. While a great foundation for the rest, I think most succesful dogs will trail, meaning it will use ALL available scent. Foot steps, scent on surrounding vegetation, and air scent. Foot step tracking, on it's own, is for competition only. JMHO!


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## Patrick Cheatham (Apr 10, 2006)

I would tend to agree with what Bob said, didn't mean to imply that one handler would work two dog's at the same time. Just that these are some of the types of dogs that may be used in the situation given.
IMO a good scent specific trailing dog will only follow the scent commanded to trail. We run our trailing dogs off lead using a refind alert from the dog once the victim is located.
Let me also add that even a very good tracking/trailing dog will at times air scent.


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## Jose Alberto Reanto (Apr 6, 2006)

Thank you for the insights, gentlemen. 

Actually, I was hoping we could compare notes as I've been working on this the past 2 weeks with dogs that has never been competed, nor could be classified as trailing or tracking dogs. The dogs started mantracking early as pups. The results have been very encouraging but more scenarios with more distractions have to applied. 

I do agree with you that come crunch time, some dogs do revert to what they really are, for they are simply at their best with what they naturally do.

Many thanks...


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## Bob Scott (Mar 30, 2006)

I think Patrick hit on something important. Is the dog going to be used on or off lead? If off lead, you need a good recall/refind because you would never be able to keep up with the dog. If on lead, you definately better be in shape to run a marathon. I have the RCMP video on mantracking. Those guys are always running when on a hot scent. When in the chase after a criminal, FST is WAY to slow. Their dogs use everything available to them.


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## Bob Scott (Mar 30, 2006)

As to more scenarios, you need to keep records of time of day, temp, wind direction, length and age of the track, surface the track is on, how the individual dog works, etc. Also keep a record of your failures. These can be a big help in learning. 
The same track layed in an open field will give the dog a totally different scent then one layed on a fresh mowed field. Dog use the scent of the disturbed ground as much as they use the scent of the human. ALL these subtle little changes need to be a part of your training program.


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## Jose Alberto Reanto (Apr 6, 2006)

Bob Scott said:


> I think Patrick hit on something important. Is the dog going to be used on or off lead? If off lead, you need a good recall/refind because you would never be able to keep up with the dog. If on lead, you definately better be in shape to run a marathon. I have the RCMP video on mantracking. Those guys are always running when on a hot scent. When in the chase after a criminal, FST is WAY to slow. Their dogs use everything available to them.


Yes, Bob. It is understood that dogs engaged in this kind of serious work must have proper foundation, must be calm and stable, possess extreme agility and obedience, willing to please its handler, handler-driven and has inherent working traits for the work. The dog can be directed off-leash in a debris and just about anywhere where obedience is crucial for the safety of the dog/man team. It's a thinking dog....

My opinion... Best regards...


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## Patrick Cheatham (Apr 10, 2006)

Bob pretty much hit the nail on the head! The only other things I would add is. I have found that its better not to try and train all the different things that go along with tracking/trailing in the same session. ie.. practice a recall seperate, don't move from one scenario to another untill the you and the dog have it down. I use a refind with my off lead dog because she ranges out of sight at times. So when she locates the victim she comes back and alerts me by jumping and placing her paws on my waist. At that time she will take me back to the victim, should I not be right there when she locates. This to is taught seperate from the tracking/trailing and worked in later.


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## Marjolein van den Berg (Apr 11, 2006)

mmh, forgot about this topic  And it's totally in my league... :lol: 

Right, so you want to find four lost kids that wondered off into the woods. We recently had a training in Germany to test our dogs for an actual disaster. We only got directions to where teh persons were lost seen. Some of them had been drinking (just a story ofcourse..) and got lost in the woods. What we do then is look at circumstances such as weather (wind, temperature, rain, snow etc.) From this we make our searchplan and decide which combinates handler/dog we will use.
In this test they used me with Dingo to go round the top of the hill, and another dog (lexi) to start in the middle. Why? Hot air always rises, so on top of a hill a dog will smell a lot, depending on weather.

We've trained our dogs in all disciplines, they may use tracks, air scenting, even eyesight. If the handler has a good plan for walking the area, you will find ALL humans. And so we did, Dingo went down the hill at one point and started barking 30 meters below me. Good boy! 8) 

We train our dogs for living, wounded persons, so any person walking will be ignored, so will dead people, unless there only are dead people and no more living.
So mantracking with several layers is no problem, after finding one person, the dog will continue to the next.

A common seen thing is "scent discrimination" We walk with the handler to watch, sometimes in training the dog will smell several human scents, but doesn't know which one is the "victim" The dog will than come back to the handler and people walking allong to pick up their smell and single out the missing one, that's the victim :wink: Very nice to see the dog work like that 8)


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## Nancy Jocoy (Apr 19, 2006)

Hey Bob, Hey Patrick

Now that I am not doing trailing right now, just thought I would say "hey" plus y'all have pretty much covered the ground in this thread and left plenty of sign. (In a good way).

Just to add that a well trained trailing dog can be given a scent article a considerable distance from the start of the trail and cast for scent to find the correct trail.


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## Jose Alberto Reanto (Apr 6, 2006)

Marjolein van den Berg said:


> mmh, forgot about this topic  And it's totally in my league... :lol:
> 
> Right, so you want to find four lost kids that wondered off into the woods. We recently had a training in Germany to test our dogs for an actual disaster. We only got directions to where teh persons were lost seen. Some of them had been drinking (just a story ofcourse..) and got lost in the woods. What we do then is look at circumstances such as weather (wind, temperature, rain, snow etc.) From this we make our searchplan and decide which combinates handler/dog we will use.
> In this test they used me with Dingo to go round the top of the hill, and another dog (lexi) to start in the middle. Why? Hot air always rises, so on top of a hill a dog will smell a lot, depending on weather.
> ...



Very nice post, Marjolein, and I found it out just that. The dogs developed the uncanny skill of searching concealed scent of humans, and not bothered by distractions like other humans (with dogs) present in the same area. It's uncanny and I'm lost of words to describe it. Unless one works it and let the dog be, one may never get to know it. Of course, in a real situation, you may get to use several dogs. But just to make sure each dog work and for purposes of personal education which in scentwork the dog can best provide, we let just one dog at a time pick up all the "lost" guys and observe. 

Best regards...


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