# Training the Trailing Dog - use of food? runaways?



## Erica Boling (Jun 17, 2008)

I'm on another discussion forum, and we've been talking about trailing vs. tracking dogs and the training of trailing dogs. When initially starting the training for a young/novice trailing dog, some people use food drops and others don't. Some people are very adamant that you do not, never ever, use food on the trail when training a trailing dog. Wondering if anybody would like to share their thoughts about this? I'm new to SAR training, so I'm still learning and trying to figure all of this out. We are talking about food drops only at the very beginning of training. Once the dog figures out what he/she is supposed to do (i.e, there is a person to find at the end of the trail), then the dog, according to some, is weaned off of the food. 

Oh, and while I'm at it... It seems that some people believe you should start training by doing run aways. (This is for training the trailing dog.) There are some people, however, that do not believe a trailing dog should begin training by having a person go run and then hide out of sight. Any thoughts on this? I'm trying to develop my own beliefs, and I'd like to know the rationale behind these different viewpoints. I'm also interested in finding out which methods of training are the most common (and most successful). I imagine we don't know the most successful methods without actually doing a controlled experimental study... but I'm still wondering what works best.. and why.


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## Nancy Jocoy (Apr 19, 2006)

I have heard both arguments for years. I have never heard of starting a trailing dog with food drops though.

PREFACE - I do not have extensive experience training trailing dogs. I have been involved in K9 SAR for a number of years, though, am focusing all my energies on cadaver, but have observed trailing dog training.

I think there are many ways to skin a cat -- your tracking school without runaways is more like police tracking and wants the dog truer to track and the runaway folks often tend more towards an offlead area search dog. 

The Jeff Finlay tracking, no runaways school, feels the runaways throw the dog into prey drive and they should be started working in hunt drive. The runaway school [historical approach and originally used for airscent dogs but also for offlead trailing dogs] uses the prey drive approach and is still the predominant method. 

I think both approaches will work -and I know plenty of dogs started in runaways who have good work ethic for long periods of times and have made actual finds in the real world. I don't think his argument holds about having to start the dog in hunt. If you use backchaining ideas you start with the final behavior and that is the prey - chase - kill sequence. I think wild carnivores bring half dead critters home for the babies to chase and kill before they start going on long hunts with the parents, yes? no?

I don't have enough experience with trailing dogs to say one is better than the other. I would talk with the people you are training with because the approach they use will be the one that is supported by the team. I think for someone new, it is more important to find the right team and consistently follow the program the team uses than to try to reinvent the wheel. Discussion boards are dangerous in that way. Does your team have a succesful track record, a training approach, etc.? You also have to be warned that not everyone on a board with "qualify" their level of experience. There are a lot of internet experts out there with very little real world experience. 

I did feel, however, that forcing the dog to run really true to track may not have them working always in the strongest human scent. But some dogs really fringe if not learning to focus on the track and that can be a real hassle and make it harder to recover a lost track. Some folks would argue the strongest human scent really is closest to the track.

We have been working new dogs more onlead than offlead for several reasons --- the handler can see the dog if they are on lead and learn to read them much easier than if offlead, they can control the outcome and learn to cast for the start [biggest problem - if the dog can't find the start you are hosed] . The dog will need to be comfortable being worked onlead for suburban/urban scenarios. There is a knack to learning line handling.


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## Phil Dodson (Apr 4, 2006)

> Excellent reply!! However I train my PSDs to trail exclusively off the lead in the city, as speed is our best ally in catching crooks.

> I start initial training on lead with the quarry running away with a tug. I next go to blind trails, etc:

> Once the handler can read the dog and we have proofed him off of distractions for the most part we begin offlead tracking.

> Phil


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## David Frost (Mar 29, 2006)

Phil, I envy you. Our department would stroke if we did off lead tracks. Ours is: IF you have your target id'd, IF there is no chance of a mistake, IF, well you get the idea. Not a problem with buildings, but tracking is a different matter.

DFrost


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## Patrick Cheatham (Apr 10, 2006)

I like starting the dog the same as I would if I were training FST tracking. I got away from it and can see the problems of fringing in this dog vs the one I'm moving much slower with. Like Nancy said both will work, the food vs no food and runaways but runaways create problems that will need correcting later. Here are the steps that I have started and seem to be working better

1) Start with FST with food tracks short and sweet till dog knows the command and nose is hitting the ground on cue. helps when learning to locate the start later. And the dogs always go back to it when they have to.
2) Walk aways not runaways- dog in crate, victim plays or gives treats and walks away. put the dog out and you leave it, time can be added at this stage as well. when I'm ready I go to my dog dog is harnessed and away we go. Makes for a dog that trails at a nice pace. Taking a scent article can be added here as well by the victm dropping it as they leave. Dog sees it and often times will focus on it comes out the crate and knows thats who I want to see.
3) When they can do this I take away crates, food and ad corners, time and contamination. not all at once but you get the picture.

All my dogs are still trailing with good drive for long periods of time. But no jack rabbit starts that will cause you to miss turns, starts and other things that will have to be corrected later.


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## Erica Boling (Jun 17, 2008)

Nancy Jocoy said:


> I have heard both arguments for years. I have never heard of starting a trailing dog with food drops though... PREFACE - I do not have extensive experience training trailing dogs. I have been involved in K9 SAR for a number of years, though, am focusing all my energies on cadaver, but have observed trailing dog training... We have been working new dogs more onlead than offlead for several reasons --- the handler can see the dog if they are on lead and learn to read them much easier than if offlead, they can control the outcome and learn to cast for the start [biggest problem - if the dog can't find the start you are hosed] . The dog will need to be comfortable being worked onlead for suburban/urban scenarios. There is a knack to learning line handling.


Thanks! This is helpful. I see you are in South Carolina? I grew up in Sumter. 

By the way, if anybody knows of any good trailing books/articles, please let me know. I'd like to read more on the topic.


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## Erica Boling (Jun 17, 2008)

David Frost said:


> Phil, I envy you. Our department would stroke if we did off lead tracks. Ours is: IF you have your target id'd, IF there is no chance of a mistake, IF, well you get the idea. Not a problem with buildings, but tracking is a different matter.
> 
> DFrost


So do the police departments teach tracking, trailing, both? It appears that the police train dogs differently from SAR and are looking for different things? For example, I was told that police don't always know who the criminal is, so dogs don't necessarily start with a scent article. (When somebody leave the crime scene, they aren't always going to leave an article behind.)



With SAR, scent articles (to get started on the trail) could potentially be more important... I imagine. (Again, I'm just speaking from what one k9 officer was telling me.)


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## Phil Dodson (Apr 4, 2006)

> I am going to receive some criticism here but I start off trailing. From the very first trail I want the dog to know the quarry is his reward. If I had the time to teach FST first I would not hesitate to do so. 

> As I am working so many non vegetated surfaces and have but such little time to teach true tracking first, it is the easiest way to go for me. Also the majority of the training trails are primarily conducted on hard surfaces also to include crosstracks.

> One other thing I do is pull my teams off the street once a year for at least (3) days and we do all vegetated non distraction tracks mostly (downwind) to get their nose back down and to work out any problems that may have arisen during training and actual applications, the dogs and handlers seem to really enjoy this. In addition I run 1 in every 5 training tracks on the lead.

> David you are right, on a rare occasion the dog has started the wrong trail but fortunatly has never resulted in any damages.

> Phil


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## Bob Scott (Mar 30, 2006)

I started my dog with trailing first (runaways with kong) then air scent (Scouting, I think is what David calls it. Then FST. 
If I did it over again (from a sport point of view) I would do FST first. It was a real B!+CH keeping his "deep nose" for sport. Any mistakes and he would raise his head and air scent. If the article was up wind from him he'd be off like a rocket." EF the FSTand 90 degree corners. I I KNOW where it's at"!
I think stress can sometimes make the dog fall back on whatever foundation training it had.


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## David Frost (Mar 29, 2006)

Bob, I'm old, admittedly, ha ha. Air scenting to me is scouting. Tracking and trailing are pretty much interchangable words to me. 

To answer another question; more often than not, we don't have a scent article nor are we able to "prescent" the dog. Depending on the situation, you try to determine, through witnesses etc, direction of travel. Then the handler will try to "cut" the track by working across that general area. In some instances, such as an abandoned car, you may take the dog to the vehicle and see if he follows a particular path. While FST is pretty to watch it's not an efficient way to catch the bad guy. Working hard pavement however, you may well see a dog perform what might be considered an FST. Once the dog reaches vegatation again though, he's off and moving.

DFrost


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## Bob Scott (Mar 30, 2006)

Starting with no scent article in the real world has always amazed me . In particular in a high traffic area.
And yes! For the most part FST is useless other then aa a possible foundation for the rest.


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## Phil Dodson (Apr 4, 2006)

> I have to use that method all the time Bob with the exception of being able to sniff the interior of a vehicle the perp bailed from.

> Phil


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## Erica Boling (Jun 17, 2008)

Phil Dodson said:


> > I have to use that method all the time Bob with the exception of being able to sniff the interior of a vehicle the perp bailed from.
> 
> > Phil


If you don't have a scent article, how do you get the dog started? How do the dogs know which scent to follow? (This is in regard to trailing and/or tracking. I know that some dogs will alert to any human scent in the area. I'm wondering about dogs that have to discriminate between scent.)


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## Bob Scott (Mar 30, 2006)

Phil Dodson said:


> > I have to use that method all the time Bob with the exception of being able to sniff the interior of a vehicle the perp bailed from.
> 
> > Phil


I can understand starting at a car seat. Without something on that order it has to be Adrenaline or something similar that gets the dog's attention at a scene, in particular with no direction of travel.
I've taught discression in trailing with articles of the person but that's got to be easy compaired to having nothing.


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## Nancy Jocoy (Apr 19, 2006)

Bob said something that made me want to go back.

Yes, I have never heard anyone say that FST before trailing would hurt a dog and that more often than not it could be a good thing and FST is done with food drops. My reference to food was when the dog was actively trailing a person. I could see where there may be a transition zone.

I believe police and SAR work have some real differences -- SAR pretty much has to expect a very highly contaminated starting point which often includes scent from family members and has "aged" for an inordinate amount of time before the team has been brought in. You also have to face the challenge of people telling you "where to start" which may not be the appropriate place 

Police pretty much have to expect getting shot at or taken on an ungodly chase over fences and obstables. 

So it is important learning realistic limits on when you can deploy the trailing dog in a given envirnoment and when the time has come to work the air scent dogs. Course the trailing dog can still be cast becuse as long as people are moving there are fresh trails. 

I still remember those folks on TV claiming to have trailed someone on a two week old track in downtown Charlotte, and the track "ended by the interstate". Shaking my head going "no wonder they don't call volunteers"


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## Phil Dodson (Apr 4, 2006)

> Believe it or not sometimes by a sxith sense. Other times just releasing him into the immediate area and just saying "where did he go"? If he darts out fast and begins to jog I have little doubt he has found it for me. I know it is questionable policy, but truthfully this has worked for me over a long period of time.

> If I see he is having problems locating a start, I will place him on the line and begin canvassing the immediate area in an attempt to locate the start also. We practice this a lot also.


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## Howard Knauf (May 10, 2008)

Hi Phil,

I think Erica was wanting to know how we do it without an article, and blindly. Through rigorous amounts of training the dog learns to take the freshest human odor available. As long as that is the constant, the rest is just proofing. Once the dog is competent in the tracking/trailing then cross tracks or merging and exiting distractor tracks are added to ensure the dog stays the course.
The dogs' natural ability to discriminate odors is something that is easily capitalized on given the right motivation. Just for kicks we did some really bizarre stuff in training in an attempt to fool the better dogs. For an example....my first dog, Ciro had a track started by one helper, he was then joined by four other helpers who walked with the first on asphalt and concrete for about 100 yards. As the track progressed across the parking lot, one helper would leave the group at a time until we were down to the original track layer. That damn dog nailed it perfectly! Which resulted in an "I told you so" by our trainer at the time. I guess I didn't have that much confidence in him.

Another thing...how many handlers out there watched as their dog tracked someone in a building to where they were hiding. The dog will naturally do whats easiest for him no matter the training. A dog that really enjoys the engaging of bad guys seem to be better than others from my experience. May be a fluke but I've seen it too many times to brush it off.

Howard


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## David Frost (Mar 29, 2006)

Howard Knauf said:


> Hi Phil,
> 
> I think Erica was wanting to know how we do it without an article, and blindly. Through rigorous amounts of training the dog learns to take the freshest human odor available. As long as that is the constant, the rest is just proofing. Once the dog is competent in the tracking/trailing then cross tracks or merging and exiting distractor tracks are added to ensure the dog stays the course.
> The dogs' natural ability to discriminate odors is something that is easily capitalized on given the right motivation. Just for kicks we did some really bizarre stuff in training in an attempt to fool the better dogs. For an example....my first dog, Ciro had a track started by one helper, he was then joined by four other helpers who walked with the first on asphalt and concrete for about 100 yards. As the track progressed across the parking lot, one helper would leave the group at a time until we were down to the original track layer. That damn dog nailed it perfectly! Which resulted in an "I told you so" by our trainer at the time. I guess I didn't have that much confidence in him.
> ...


I quoted it because I couldn't have said it better myself. Yep, that's pretty much how it's done. Sometimes it even surprises us when we are working something.

DFrost


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## Erica Boling (Jun 17, 2008)

David Frost said:


> I quoted it because I couldn't have said it better myself. Yep, that's pretty much how it's done. Sometimes it even surprises us when we are working something.
> 
> DFrost


Thanks, everybody, for your explanations! No matter whether we have a scent article or not, it still amazes me what these dogs are capable of doing! Doing it WITHOUT a scent article is even that much more amazing. It also appears that you can successfully train a dog to trail with or without food drops. Either way, it looks like there are still issues that the trainer will eventually need to confront. I've had a few people tell me that some of their best trailing dogs are dogs that started out with schutzhund-type tracking. I've also had people look at me like I'm crazy when I tell them there are people using food drops to train trailing dogs. Either way, I always think it's good to hear the different perspectives and theories for various training methodologies.


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## Erica Boling (Jun 17, 2008)

Thanks for your detailed response, Howard!



Howard Knauf said:


> Hi Phil,
> 
> I think Erica was wanting to know how we do it without an article, and blindly. Through rigorous amounts of training the dog learns to take the freshest human odor available. As long as that is the constant, the rest is just proofing. Once the dog is competent in the tracking/trailing then cross tracks or merging and exiting distractor tracks are added to ensure the dog stays the course... Another thing...how many handlers out there watched as their dog tracked someone in a building to where they were hiding. The dog will naturally do whats easiest for him no matter the training. A dog that really enjoys the engaging of bad guys seem to be better than others from my experience. May be a fluke but I've seen it too many times to brush it off.
> 
> Howard


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## Bob Scott (Mar 30, 2006)

Nancy Jocoy said:


> Bob said something that made me want to go back.
> 
> Yes, I have never heard anyone say that FST before trailing would hurt a dog and that more often than not it could be a good thing and FST is done with food drops. My reference to food was when the dog was actively trailing a person. I could see where there may be a transition zone.
> 
> ...


Because I started out with SAR and did a lot of proofing off of food on the field I though it would create problems when I started FST with Schutzhund. 
For whatever reason I can't really explain, it didn't have any problem at all with the food. 
As I've said before, the only problems I had with FST was keeping his head down when he would loose the track or air scent the articles.


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## Justin Eimer (Oct 17, 2006)

Whenever possible, I like for the dogs to have the basic fundamentals of FST. This is just for the commitment to the odor (obviously disturbed dirt and crushed vegitation). This shows me the dog can work nose down when needed and understands command. I like to start trailing with a scent article (4x4 gauze with suspect scent). The motivation for the dog can be a bite after locating the suspect or a ball/kong/tug whatever. I start with agitation of the dog with the reward, suspect disappears, dog is scented, trail begins. Initially short fairly straight trails and then more complicated trails. As for jump and runs, the suspect almost always touches the gear shift. Throw on latex, grab sterile gauze pad, swipe gear shift and collect odor. Bag the odor, scent the dog and start trailing. ~Justin


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## Patrick Cheatham (Apr 10, 2006)

Howard :
Another thing...how many handlers out there watched as their dog tracked someone in a building to where they were hiding. The dog will naturally do whats easiest for him no matter the training. A dog that really enjoys the engaging of bad guys seem to be better than others from my experience. May be a fluke but I've seen it too many times to brush it off.

Yep the dog will do whats naturally easy for them.

Justin: 
Whenever possible, I like for the dogs to have the basic fundamentals of FST. This is just for the commitment to the odor (obviously disturbed dirt and crushed vegitation). This shows me the dog can work nose down when needed and understands command.

To me this is a must for the trailing SAR dog, it makes for a dog that an find contaminated starts better.

Justin: As for jump and runs, the suspect almost always touches the gear shift. Throw on latex, grab sterile gauze pad, swipe gear shift and collect odor. Bag the odor, scent the dog and start trailing

Anyone ever heard don't swipe but lay the pad on the object because swiping destroys the skin cells. And don't use latax gloves. I have no thoughts on it just wondered if any of you did.


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