I'm have zero experience in tracking but I would like to know if it is possible for a dog to track metal objects. Probably a stupid question but I thought I had lost my keys in a park yesterday while walking with my dog. Needless to say panic set in and for a moment I thought about trying to use my dog to find the keys. Problem was we had walked a huge area of the park. Thank God I had left them in my camper shell window and didn't need to try my dogs nose out!

So if this is possible how do you go about teaching a dog to sniff out keys? How do you teach the dog to know what to look for?

Thanks.........

I know several people who have used a set of keys as an article when training.

Its the smell of the person on the metal rather than the metal itself... also, its really an area search not "tracking" per se.

Actually it is an evidence/article search. The dog is looking for a foreign object, metal, wood, leather, plastic etc that just doesn't "fit." We teach a down on the find as I don't want a dog picking up or retrieving a knife, gun or destroying forensic evidence by chewing it on the way back to the handler.
It can be taught in stages. I normally have the handler hold the dog and toss an object...say keys. Let the dog se the toss and have the keys visible. Give the dog a command to search or whatever you want and let them go. When they go to the keys(object) and are just about to pick them up, give a down command. Not harsh, just enough to get the response. Once the dog downs, toss their reward. Simple. You then start to remove the dog seeing the toss. Lengthen the time in the search. Hide the object better. And so on. If you send the dog out in a large area to find your keys and they down on a old beer can in the weeds, it's not wrong so don't correct it. Just move on and start looking for the article you want to find. Hope this helps.

Do you have to teach/train the dog to search for each individual item. For instance, you tell him to search for a gun or keys? I am a little confused yet. I mean if you teach a dog to search for keys and he gets the hang of that then what keeps him from searching for keys instead of something else you want him to search for? For instance a ball or a jacket, etc. Josh I understand what you are saying but I don't want my dog downing 100 times for things were not looking for. Can you or someone go into a little more detail on different article searches? Thanks.

One more thing I have been hiding my dogs ball in the house and having him search for it. He is doing a great job and gets worked up and excited when hunting for it. I think he is depending more on his sight than his nose but I guess thats ok? Also I assume if I wanted to switch to having him search for his keys in the house I would just do what you said earlier and instead of showing him the ball before I hide it I would show him the keys? I'll bet because he's so conditioned to hunting for the ball he won't hunt for the keys. At least not my dog, what do you think?

I thought I was done but I forgot to add this. Because my dog is so fanatical for his ball I use a second ball as a reward when he finds the first one. I play and toss his second ball back and forth to him and he seems to like doing that as much as getting a treat. I thik I might use his ball as a reward for finding my keys too.

Dave thanks for you're input too.

Well I'll post my initial results before anyone replies to my second post. I just tried tossing my keys in front of my dog and gave him the search command. After about 10 to 15 searchs he is still confused as to what I want him to find. I shake the keys in front of him them toss them. I then help him go to the keys at which time I give him the down command, when we get to the keys. After each search I praised him and give him a hotdog treat. I don't expect him to understand what is going on or to be perfect right away but I can tell he is lost to this idea of finding my keys. If I toss them within his sight he just looks at me like I'm stupid. He's probably saying to himself "you know where the keys are" why do you want me to run 5 feet and find them for you?

For the last two years he has been conditioned to only searching for his ball. We used to play fetch alot in the park after dark or in the yard after dark. I would sometimes throw the ball before he had a chance to see where it was thrown. I would say "Where is it?" and he would take off and go find his ball each and every time. This could be in a large field and be pitch black outside. I thought he was amazing because he would really have to search a huge area before getting his ball back. He now thinks that this (THE BALL) is the only thing he is supposed to search for. Do I have a big problem or what? I have conditioned him to looking for his ball for so long that he only seems to know or care about finding his ball. Is this a lost cause?

Josh, I'm not sure how a dog would know what "fits" in an alley, field etc.

My agency teaches dogs to look for objects that have concentrated human scent on them. This could be almost anything that has been handled recently... including a beer can.

Hi Dave,
A few problems with it working only off human scent, or in the alley as you described.
1) If the alley has so much "junk" then it is going to be difficult for any dog to pick out evidence from junk, especially if here are numerous areas of human scent.
2) If the article you are looking for is metal, or a non-porous material, the chances of human scent remaining on it long enough for a accurate search are very small. If you have rain, snow, direct sun, high temperature, this will effect the deterioration of the human scent. If the dog is call even 20 minutes after to find something, there is a good chance the human scent is gone from a hard surface item (gun, knife, keys, etc)
3) What if the suspect wore gloves? No human scent is really going to wind up on the article, especially metal.
I don't have a problem w/ the dogs doing the search off human scent, but it is not always present for them to work. If you incorporate both methods, you will have better more rounded results, IMO. Normally in a very "contaminated" area alley, street etc. you are better off with a line of human searchers than a dog. Most dogs are not going to find a handgun that has been tossed into a dumpster. IMO this is best when conditions are more rural, suburban or in cleaner settings. JMO

Question1: If the dog is trained to look for something that does not fit?...how is this possiable in an area that has a lot of junk? Question 2: How does a dogs thought process work that enables it to decide that something does not belong there, in terms of the topic.

Josh, I enjoy reading you're thought on this topic but you did not comment on my last two posts. So can you tell me if I'm barking down the wrong tree?

Josh... your part 2 answered part 1. Since metal doesn't hold scent for very long, only the most recently touched items should key the dog.

Don't forget, its ultimately the officers job to locate the evidence... if the dog misses an obvious item... we pick it up.
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I'd like to hear more about your method. How does the dog know what "fits" in the environment and what is out of place?...

What is the dog trained to look for?