Did anybody else see the story on National Geographic last week about the capability of Bloodhounds? The Bloodhound featured was used by a LEA on the West Coast. They set up a scenerio where a robber discharged a firearm which discharged a spent cartridge case. The perp ran across a parking lot and then got in a car and drove away. The dog handler was called in and he let the dog whiff around on the casing for a while then began to track across the parking lot and down the street. From that point the perp was tracked onto a highway and was trailed for some distance until the handler decided the dog was getting tired so he and the dog got in a vehicle and continued to track while riding inside. They tracked the veh to where it had been abandoned, then tracked the bad guy on foot until they located him on a sandy beach. I have always liked the programs on NGC and assummed they did their homework before presenting the material. After seeing this I will not be swallowing their info hook, line, and sinker as I did before. I am a hound man through and through and have a considerable amount of experience catching folks with them; however, I cant believe anybody would get on T.V. in front of the world and tell such a bunch of poppycock as if it were the truth. I wrote this just to let you lovers of pointy eared dogs know that all us floppy eared dog lovers are not whacked out. Also, I had the opportunity to train a couple of pups that were half Bloodhound, half Red-bone. These were trained alongside six pups that were Blue-tick,Blk/Tan,Red-bone crosses. The half bloodhounds didnt belong in the same county as the other pups by the time they were a year old. At no time during the training did they indicate that their whiffers were superior to the other pups.

Hey, it's T.V., what'd you expect?

At least maybe it'll make some of the hommies in Long Beach think twice about bustin' a cap in somebody's butt.
Or maybe they'll just clean up after themselves.

Mike

What was the poppycock part? Tracking the suspect from the smell on a bullet casing? Or tracking the car after the guy got in and drove away? I don't know about the bullet casing part, although it seems probable, but in thinking about the dog tracking the car, isn't it possible that the dog was tracking the exhaust left by the car? I'm assuming not all exhaust smells the same - to a dog.

Sandy,

I think it was the impression that the dog was continuing to track the perp from inside the moving car, while driving down the highway with the handler. From the OP's post, that's what I understood to be bogus.

I think I saw a similar program, years ago. In the show I saw, They put the bloodhound in a car and stopped at every exit, got the dog out and checked if it "alerted". It didn't alert at the first 3 exits, so they skipped one and went to the next one. They then went back to the one they skipped, and the dog immediately "picked up the scent" and started off down the exit ramp.

I don't remember too much else except that after a "few hours" they did pull the dog off the track to avoid overheating or exhaustion. They talked about how difficult it was for the dog because he wanted to finish the track.

They did find the car on the side of a road and a DB off in the woods.

Do you mean to say the dog cant follow someone in a car? Because all these years I believed that story/documentary/whatever.

Angela, the incident you are talking about, I believe, involved a small child that was abducted and transported by veh to a point where her body was found. As I remember the dog was brought in almost a week after the abduction. Much of the info you see about the abilities of tracking dogs is just not true. The Bloodhound folks seem to get carried away more than most. If dogs could really be trained to routinely and consistantly accomplish feats such as these, there would be a Bloodhound in every police cruiser and crime would be permanantly stamped from the face of the earth. Heck,we could just send one over to sniff Osamas baby crib then have the dog track him down while flying over Afganistan in a Spooky.

Carol will know if this is a stretch or not so I hope she chimes in.

 Quote: terry holstine

The Bloodhound folks seem to get carried away more than most. If dogs could really be trained to routinely and consistantly accomplish feats such as these, there would be a Bloodhound in every police cruiser and crime would be permanantly stamped from the face of the earth.

Weeelllll, I was kind of staying away from this thread since "car trailing" hounds are just ridiculous. I am not your average hound handler....I do not believe in half of what other hound people say they can do.

Hounds are naturals at trailing, and that is what they LOVE to do so we have shaped that into a great asset.

The whole "car trail" thing, IMHO, is not feasible.....Maybe, if the car was on a damp two track road with all window down and traveling at a VERY slow speed......maybe.

I have trailed people that left on a four-wheeler, bicycle, horseback, dirtbikes.....but not cars. I leave that for the "good ole boys" that think they can do anything.

I will say though, when Max and I trailed that 747 three days after it left the airport.....he was dead on trail and never wavered a bit......

There was a big thing about a car trail going around on a couple other boards and basically it was Terry Fleck challenging someone to step up and prove it could be done.....one lady said she would do it and then something happened and she backed out.....hmmmmmm...wonder why?????

I wonder if David Frost has heard any more on that? I have not heard if someone else stepped up or not?

Looks like a job for mythbusters. Anyone want to provide the dog?

Looks like a job for mythbusters. Anyone want to provide the dog?