TRAINING YOUR DOG TO TRAIL
BY: PATRICK T. MERRITT
Let us
begin to explore the process of teaching a dog to follow the
trail of a man with an open mind; and to realize that there are
many theories as to how to train your dog. I would have to say
that I have seen many different theories presented to Handlers
over the years. Some are good and some were not good. If I
were to summarize a short synopsis of training a dog. I would
say, find the right dog, be patient and never lose your temper.
Tracking is
one of the most difficult lesson to teach a new Handler. The
process is really quite simple, but lengthy and must be done in
Increments, so that the dog learns his basic lessons properly.
SCENT SURE
DOG:
Through the
process explained in this article, our end result is a dog that
you can rely on to find an unknown trail in an open field and
consistently follow it with confidence. Including a heads up
indication when there is no trail available or when the dog has
over shot a 90 degree turn. A scent sure dog can be cast along
a roadway to locate or recover the trail of a suspect or lost
child.
I remember
in my early days as a Police Officer, when we use to say things
like, “Well, I am a City Police Officer, I don’t need to teach
my dog to track in the woods“. And the County Officer would
say, “Well, I am a County Officer, I don’t need to teach my dog
to track in the City”. I did not understand that city or hard
pavement tracking is the most difficult training. It is the
last place the doge goes in his training. A dog must learn to
trail in a straight line on grass before we go into turns.
I also
begin training in areas where there are few distractions, such
as, people or other animals. The dog will always want to
investigate animals or people either by the odor on the ground
or visual distractions of people, cars, etc. Noise is another
distraction that you want to say away from when teaching the dog
his first lessons. It’s hard to get a dog to follow a trail
when he’s more interested in the distractions.
A few
definitions are needed before we go too far into our training.
TRACK
- To follow a man footstep to footstep. According to
ground Disturbance, along with individual odors absorbed
by the ground.
TRAILING
- To follow a man according to scent that has fallen to
the ground according to the wind conditions.
NEGATIVE -
A noticeable change in the dog when he has come off the trail.
1. Head comes up
2. Leash goes slack
3. Tail change, etc.
QUARRY - Subject being hunted, prey.
There is a
lot of difference between the two definitions of tracking and
trailing. When a man walks over grass, he crushes it. Which in
turn causes the blades of grass to secrete a liquid, which after
a short time period causes an odor for the dog follow.
Individual odors, such as, shoe polish and other human odors,
are also absorbed by the ground from the man. The dog will be
far more exact on following the footsteps of man, they will also
be much slower.
A trailing
dog follows skin particles (called Rafts), which fall off the
man and into the air. They are continuous and too small to be
seen by man. They actually come from the outer layer of skin
called the Epidermis Skin Layer. It is the air current, which
determines where these small particles of skin fall to the
ground. If you have wind, the skin particles will land on the
ground some distance away from the actual footsteps.
I will not
go any deeper with scent in this tracking article. But I will
say this, every Handler must understand the fundamentals of
scent. If you have not been through a scent class, you will
lose a lot of bad guys, because you did not understand signals
or lack of signals from your dog, that you could learn in about
a two hour scent class.
When
starting the first tracking lesson, I first acquire a proper
fitting tracking harness. A tracking harness is important
because it distributes the weight and pull across the dog’s body
and not his neck. The dog’s head and neck need to be free to
move so he can sniff the ground freely to follow the trail or
track. Think about it. If a 200lb. Man has a line attached to
the dog’s neck, the dog is using his neck to pull. The dog
cannot sniff the ground. I recommend a good leather harness,
nylon is OK. I Do Not agree with tying the dog’s head down. My
friends, this is not the way to go. You cannot force a dog to
track. There are lessons the dog will not learn if his head is
tied down. The process of training a dog to track begins with
teaching him what great fun he can have. He should b rewarded
at the end of the track. The dog’s head must be free to move up
and down and side to side so that he can follow the scent.
MOTIVATORS:
This is a
term that I use to increase the desire for the dog to trail and
learn. It is a communicator that the dog understands. Not
every dog will begin to trail for the scent of man. But most
will follow the scent of food. I know this will probably blow
the mind of a few people and the first thing they will say is,
“I don’t want my dog to pick up food on the track”. But it is a
good motivator and the food will be removed from the trail in a
short time. Once he has learned to follow odor on the ground to
get his reward. I have communicated to him to sniff the ground
for scent, now I can simply replace the odor with human scent.
When I use food, such as a hot dog, I am always careful to have
the track layer (or Quarry), rub it onto his boot and not drop
pieces of the hot dog onto the ground. I just want the odor.
If you drop food pieces, the dog will sniff out and eat the
food. We do not want that. We just want him to follow the odor
to the man who will give him the piece of hot dog at the end of
the track. In a few lessons, the hot dog is going to be taken
out of the picture entirely. We have communicated to the dog,
with the aid of food, what we wanted him to do.
The
motivator is determined by the dog’s desire, or lack of
understanding of what I wish him to do. In essence, what will
it take to get him to work for me? A few things I call
motivators are:
Human Scent
Food
Ball
Praise
Bite at the end of track
TEMPER:
losing your temper at your dog will set you back weeks in your
training. So, do not get upset. You want your lessons to be
positive, positive, positive.
My first
lesson on tracking will be to find a field with grass anywhere
from 3” to 8” in height. The Handler places the harness on the
dog and holding the dog at close proximity to himself. The
Quarry usually holds the ball and gets his attention by talking
to him. Showing the dog the ball and walk backwards, laying a
short track by dragging his feet over the grass. I usually go
about 25 feet and lay the ball down, placing some grass over
the ball, so the dog cannot see the ball until he’s almost on
top of it. But it is important that the ball is somewhat
visible or the dog may start to search for it by circling at the
end of his first track, we do not want that. So do not make the
track too difficult in the beginning. Also, you want to be sure
that the dog cannot see the ball from where he is or he will
simply go straight to the ball without trailing. I like about 3
tracks per lesson and then quit. Remember not too hard and do
not try to advance to difficult tracks too fast. I add about
10’ to 15’ at a time to be sure he understands each lesson
before advancing to more difficult lessons. Always be sure to
lay your track with the wind going away from your dog. Never
train trailing or tracking into the wind. Your dog will learn
that with his head up, he can smell the scent of his Quarry much
easier than sniffing the ground. Once he learns that he can air
scent and find the man, it is almost impossible to get him to
put his nose back onto the ground. Or at the very least, it
will take a strong motivator on the ground to get him going
again. So lets do it right the first time. Remember that
terrain and height of grass is important. If you train in areas
of high vegetation, the scent of the Quarry will be high on the
vegetation. This will cause the dog to trail with a high nose.
Use lower cut grass for the initial training. Never correct
your dog with the leash while tracking. One day you will be in
a wooded area and the leash will get wrapped around a tree. The
dog will interpret this as a correction and he may come off the
track and away goes the bad guy. So absolutely, NO line
corrections. If you must correct your dog, simply command him
to “Leave It”.
CASTING:
Sometime
after the first few lessons of trailing. I will begin to have
the Handler cast the dog a few feet away from the trail. I will
do this to teach the dog to give a physical indicator that he
has found the scent. This simply means that the Handler can
tell when his dog has found the scent. You can see the dog pay
attention to the outgoing trail. Again, once you start this,
the Handler must know exactly where the beginning of the trail
is. We usually kick a straight line for a foot or two into the
grass. 1’ from the direction we cane and 1’ towards the new
direction. This does two things, it is a physical marker for
the Handler to see and second, it lays down a hot spot for the
dog to sniff. It makes it easier for the dog. The Handler
always casts his dog from left to right of the outgoing trail.
Starting lessons with just a foot or two away from the trail and
eventually working up to over twenty feet away from the trail.
Casting your dog in this manner will cause the dog to be “Scent
Sure”. Think about it, if you always cast your dog in the same
direction of the trail. What happens when the track is 20, 30
or 50 feet away from where you were told the trail started?
When you cast your dog into a field, you tell him to “Track”.
Most dogs are going to go strong in a straight line. They are
going to look for a trail, if there isn’t one right there, he is
going to find one. When I speak of the dog giving a negative.
I simply mean that there is a noticeable change in the dog’s
body movement. The problem is this, the Handler has never
learned to read a negative. And just as important, the dog was
never taught to give a negative. So the team goes a quarter
mile and then all of a sudden the dog stops. Because there
never was a trail. He was just trying to please his Master and
track or try to find a track. The Handler calls out on the
radio, “Well, I had a track but lost it”. In reality, he was
never on the track. Had he taught his dog to cast properly and
give an indication, he could have easily found the trail.
WHY TRAIN
THE CORNER: The process of training the 90 degree turn is
also a main lesson acquiring a scent sure dog. It is through
the process of teaching the dog to make a 360 degree circle when
he overshoots his turn or runs out of the odor so to speak, that
causes him to go into the circling process looking for the
odor. The Handler learns the body language of his dog when he
overshoots a turn and is no longer following scent. Most dogs
with time and practice will simply raise their head, the leash
will go slack and the Handler begins to circle the dog slowly
backwards until he has recovered the out going trail. When the
dog sniffs the trail, his head goes down, the leash gets tight
from the pull of the dog and away you go.
TRAINING
THE CORNER:
I use a
large field for the beginning of corner work. The Handler can
see exactly where the trail is laid, and so can I. This ensures
that the scent is on the ground. Remember grass no higher than
6” to 8”. We want the dogs nose down.
We start
with 30 degree angles, right or left, from the straight trail.
The angled trail does not need to go far, maybe 20’ to 30’.
Because on short trails, I will usually leave a ball at the end
of the trail. Have the Quarry lay the trail and then return by
walking back the incoming trail. A man would be easily seen in
the field by the dog and he will go to him by sight versus using
his nose to trail. When the dog proficiently makes the angled
turn, then increase to a 45 degree turn. I use flags to mark
the corners, the Handler must know where each corner is. As the
dog follows the straight trail, he may pass the corner, he is
allowed to go past the corner but the Handler will not. He will
stop on the corner and begin to recast the dog in a circling
effect over the corner. When the dog passes over the turn, he
should go with the trail. Be sure to give him a short praise
for making the turn.
Sometimes
the initial circling is not pretty and the Handler will have to
guide the dog in a circle because the dog has never circled and
does not know what you expect. This corner work takes time, the
dog does not learn this quickly. I have taken weeks to get a
dog proficient at corner work.
REMOVING
THE KNOWN TRAIL FROM HANDLER SIGHT:
I usually
do corner work with a box type trail. Making 2 or 3, 90 degree
turns. With each leg of the track 50’ or so. You can arrange
the box with left or right turns. It does not always have to be
a square. The Handler must be confident in his dog prior to
removing the flags out of the corners. Then I will make him
attempt only 1 unknown corner per trail. So out of 3 turns,
only 1 turn will not be marked. Usually the first turn is not
marked. This gives the Handler time to get comfortable with
reading his dog. As the team gets proficient, you can remove
flags off the corners and increase the distance of each leg of
the trail before adding turns.
GOING HOME
IN TRAINING:
I have a
saying in training, always return home with the dog in
training. This simply means that if there is a little
frustration from corner work, go back and lay some simple
straight leg trails for the team. Just as a team starts into
advanced tracking, I will occasionally go back into the field
and lay some box tracks for them. They are proficient at this
and it’s on a good surface. It reinforces their training and
its fun for them. So keep the fun in training.
LINE
HANDLING:
I use a 10’
leash in training, its not too long. The Handler doesn’t get
wrapped up in it and it puts a little distance between him and
the dog. The Handler must keep the distance of the leash
between him and the dog. If he gets too close to the dog, it
can cause him to get a little nervous and the dog may
prematurely speed up. Kind of like, you run and I run a little
faster game between the dog and Handler. The Handler has a
tendency to go left or right of the dog and can unknowingly
guide his dog off the trail. The Handler must align the dog’s
tail to the center of his body and stay there. If the dog goes
left or right, then the Handler adjusts his position, keeping
the dog’s tail aligned to the center of his body.
It is
important that the Handler not drag the dog too hard. This is a
nervous tension by the Handler to do this, he must allow the dog
to move freely from left to right to stay with the scent. As
time goes on the dog will get better and better at working the
scent.
Too many
times we have outsmarted ourselves by trying to restrict the
dog’s movement. We have done this because we were afraid our
dogs would lose the scent in training, this is a nervous
reaction by the Handler. In reality we have short changed our
dog’s training because we did not allow him to make mistakes.
If a dog
comes off the trail, then help him get back onto it and praise
him when he does. If the dog consistently loses the trail, then
back up your training to shorter, straight track. Remember one
step at a time. You want the dog to learn each step completely
before going on to the next.
TALKING:
Do Not talk
too much, this is a distraction to the dog. He cannot listen to
you and concentrate on following a trail. I recommend a “Good
Boy” when he casts off on the trail or after making a turn, but
otherwise I am quiet.
Eventually
as time goes on, I will expose the dog to longer trails with a
combination of turns in the trail. I will set the trails to
different types of terrain, such as hills, creeks, etc. The dog
still has to learn all these types of areas that he is going to
work in.
This is the
beginning of teaching your dog to trail. There is advanced
trailing that I will not go into in this article. If you have
any questions, feel free to call me and I will be glad to help
you.
