Hi all,

Well we are beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel for our winter season (not today though for any Ottawa members.. "A"? ) and that means tracking time!! In my excitement I am reviewing reference and resource material and have come across a term I am unfamiliar with. Can anyone tell me what "casting" refers to?

 Quote: bradley t. martin

Well we are beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel for our winter season (not today though for any Ottawa members.. "A"?

ARGHHGR!!! My pup was NOT happy being showered with ice pellets when he went outside this morning.

Neither was I - this stupid winter had better be over and SOON!

I want to get back to our normal walks and resume training (without having my dogs be miserable from the falling ice from the sky, or me slip-sliding everywhere on the ice, or sinking waist-deep into snow in the forest).

I also am eager to start teaching tracking to my pup. So far, I have miserably failed in my attemps to teach him deep snow tracking. As a result, my poor lost Orbee ball (which I was so attached to!!!!) that I threw for my pup a few days ago will be buried *somewhere* in the snow in the forest until everything melts away in the springtime.

I'm not that patient so I'll probably just order another Orbee from Leerburg (I'll ask for a dark-coloured one this time - the white one I had is too hard to spot in the snow) and hopefully will manage to not lose that one for the remainder of the winter season

Brad - I have no clue what casting is. However, if you have any tips and experience with finding LOST ORBEES IN DEEP SNOW please please please share your wisdom with me!!!
I'm losing my mind over this. I've spent HOURS (literally) searching for that damn ball every day for the past week and am about to pull my hair out.
I was happy to find out that my dogs are useless trackers BTW - they can find hidden family members in the forest, but not orbee balls in the snow!!

casting is when the dog is "searching" for the scent and not exactly on it. For instance, with Schh or "footstep" tracking - the scent is in the footstep, or directly around it (crushed vegetation, sometimes slightly off because of wind, dry conditions etc). The dog who is "on" the track will (ideally) be sticking his nose in every footstep, where the scent is. A dog who "casts" is moving his nose back and forth over the track, from left side of the track (off-scent), back across the scent to the right side (again off-scent) and then back again - essentially he is still tracking, but instead of being "right on the money" he is casting. In sport tracking, points can definately be taken away for dogs that are casting, especially on corners - he can also potentially miss an article if he happens to be casting off the track at the point that the article is dropped. That probably isn't a good explanation so hopefully someone else can give a better one.

molly

Molly, how is a dog trained to search in real life scenarios like looking for a missing person or a perp - do they cast or sniff each footstep? If they cast then why does SchH make the dog do it differently (if real life calls for casting)?

And what about sniffing the air, does that ever come into play in real life searches, or is it just not a good way to find someone?

Thanks Molly, that is a very good explanation. Now I am wondering, what (and how can a person/judge tell) is the diferance between a dog that is sweeping back and forth from print-to-print and a dog that is casting over the track? Perhaps I will know it when I see it, so to speak, but are there any "give aways" that I could be looking for?

Yuko... good luck! If your dog is ball crazy it's fairly easy to get back lost balls. Either wait it out and direct the dog in the general area where the ball landed or wait until spring and bring the dog back to search for it. I have used the snow to my advantage in that respect. Over time increaseing the distance that I throw the ball and now even throwing the ball when the dog is behind an object and then turning my back while it is in the air so that neither of us know where it is. This is working for me to increase her search endurance (thanks Sefi! ) and drive to search. If your dog has difficulty in the snow, or is not a bal maniac, then I just wouldn't throw it so far.

Nice explanation Molly, that was very interesting. I'm eager to start out this footsteps tracking in the spring!


Brad - that's a cool way to teach your dog to find the ball! I'll try it out too. The thing is that my pup IS a ball maniac (especially for that Orbee!) and is usually quick at finding the ball when it's buried in deep fresh snow.

Problem is, the area where I threw the ball has deep snow but has also been walked around in a lot (people, dogs, squirrels etc.). Footsteps everywhere!

I've been digging around, turning the snow over and over again with my pup searching with me. I can tell that he's getting confused because of all the footsteps and the disturbed snow (he keeps going back and sniffing in the hundreds of indentations in the snow). He eventually gave up and lost interest after about a half hour's search on the first day.
Now when I take him back to the area, he just doens't seem to understand what I'm asking of him (understandable, since I haven't taught him to track yet!)

Now, because I've gone over the area so many times and moved the snow around so much, it's just about mission impossible

I'm not sure what to do at this point (besides waiting for the snow to melt and hoping that another dog doesn't dig up and take off with the orbee in the meantime). Oh well, thanks for the help!
I'll start teaching him using your method with another toy - I'll try to put a strong scent on this one to make it easier on him. Oh and to throw it in undisturbed snow

 Quote: Sandy Moore

Molly, how is a dog trained to search in real life scenarios like looking for a missing person or a perp - do they cast or sniff each footstep? If they cast then why does SchH make the dog do it differently (if real life calls for casting)?

And what about sniffing the air, does that ever come into play in real life searches, or is it just not a good way to find someone?

SchH Tracking- Footstep, for competition purposes.
SAR/LE Trailing-Casting melded with Footstep. Some, but limited air-scenting. Usually scent-specific, sometimes most recent passage. Good for establishing a Direction of Travel, or for Urban & Sub-Urban missing person searches.
Air-Scenting/Area-Searching- Used a lot in SAR for wilderness missing persons incidents. A very good method for covering a lot of ground quickly. Sometimes trained as scent-specific, but usually just generalized to any human scent.

You can train SchH-style tracking and move on to any of the other disciplines afterward, but it can be difficult to do the others first the go back to SchH-style tracking.

Yuko,

I have prints and animal scent all around too. It doesn't really matter as long as the dog wants the ball. When she gets more intersted in a distracting odor or looks up to see if I'm still around I'll tell her "get to work" to continue her search before she loses too much interest. Check out some of the recent stuff in Bomb Training, I asked a question about how temp affects the movement of scent along the ground and got some good advise. I was finding that my dog would be nearly on top of the ball but then dig like craxzy in a near by depression in the snow thinking the ball was in it. What was happening is that the scent was collecting in the depression and creating a false target.

I have also noticed that the scent seems to travel along the ground under the snow. Anyone have experience to back this theory up for me?

 Quote: John Haudenshield

SchH Tracking- Footstep, for competition purposes.
SAR/LE Trailing-Casting melded with Footstep. Some, but limited air-scenting. Usually scent-specific, sometimes most recent passage. Good for establishing a Direction of Travel, or for Urban & Sub-Urban missing person searches.
Air-Scenting/Area-Searching- Used a lot in SAR for wilderness missing persons incidents. A very good method for covering a lot of ground quickly. Sometimes trained as scent-specific, but usually just generalized to any human scent.

You can train SchH-style tracking and move on to any of the other disciplines afterward, but it can be difficult to do the others first the go back to SchH-style tracking.

Thanks John. Though air scenting is pretty natural for a dog, I hadn't read much of it's use for actual searches. Thanks for breaking it all down for me. I'm printing out your post.