I've recently spoken with two different K-9 handlers in two different departments who trained their dogs to track using hot dogs. Is this pretty standard? I was a little surprised because I would think that for poison proofing purposes they wouldn't do it that way. I'd appreciate any feedback. Thanks in advance.

I don't know of too many people that "poison proof" their K9s.


If you are starting to train a dog to foot step track, then food is a great way to do so. Besides, I think that if you did do food refusal training and the like, the dog could generalize that it is ok to eat food on a track when given the command.

Personally, I would stay away from food on the track for psd's. There are too many other ways to motivate the dog to track. Even if you don't poison proof the dog, food on the track can lead to other nasty habits. Food comes from the stainless steel dog bowl that I put before him. If you plan to catch anyone you eventually have to get beyond the sport dog type of foot step tracking. This where the idea of tracking through drive comes in. The last thing I want to do is be on a weenie hunt.

Baiting a track is a great start in training the dog to track. But to say that the dog is trained to track with hot dogs is quite wrong.
I often start dogs to track with food, in fact most of the time I do it this way. But, it is a beginning only. It is used to teach the dog to orient to the ground disturbance and to understand what the word to track means. When starting newbies out they have no clue what a tracking dog looks like and can't keep oriented to the track themselves so the hot dogs on the track also trains the handlers.
Once thei introduction is done I move the teams over to toys along the track. The number of toys is variable and depends on the dog, the length and complexity of the track as well as the terrain and climate and weather conditions and even age of the track.
I use humans at the end of the track only about 10% of the time.
Partly this is to be sure that a partner or partners aren't needed in tracking any more than necessary making training more convenient. Also, in the case of the patrol dog they seem to be often called out for S&R type work or for tracking misdemeanents and we don't want them to become frustrated and bite the suspect that is hiding in a bush without the proper legal warnings.
There are certainly other good appraoches to training tracking but this one has shown to be easy for handlers to apply and maintain with the least hassle and shows very good results in a variety of circumstances. At times I tweak the process for various temperments and deployment situations but generally the system has worked very well for most of the teams most of the time.

Kevin, thanks for the great explanation. That makes a lot of sense. If I may follow up with the poison proofing question again. For some reason I had the impression that K-9's were generally poison proofed because it is easy to teach, there are some sickos that might like to take out a K-9 and obviously there is a lot invested in them. What is the reality on this please? Thanks again.

I've been doing police dogs for 20+ years and have not seen any poison proofed.
They need to be well secured and monitored. They aren't or at least shouldn't be accessable to the genral public.

Thanks again Kevin.

The unfortunate thing, all you can do, is all you can do. We don't allow people to give them snacks, they are always fed in the same place each day. You try to stay on top of the dog, and not allow them to eat anything off the ground. That being said, we've had one poisoned and one, of all things, stolen. You can't cover every contingency.

DFrost

I like using BilJac food for tracking..... you can lay down the little pieces individually or big clumps in spots. Food is an outstanding way to teach your dog surface changes, lower the nose closer to the ground, and to increase focus while tracking.

I've never "poison proofed" my work dog. VC- I agree that the dog will learn when it's ok to eat and when it is not. I have never had an issue with my dog trying to "snack" while working a search, but he knows that there are goodies located on tracks at times.

I started my Malinois puppy with hotdogs just to get him into the game of tracking. After about the first three tracks he was not interested in the hotdogs, however checked each step until he got to the tug at the end. He runs the tracks now in the style the RCMP track and I believe he is going to be a fantastic tracker and police dog when he is older (6 mths now).