Credit for just about all of this goes to Donn Yarnall. It's from a chapter of a book he's writing about K9's in police work. It's not the entire chapter, but it's enough to get you started.

It's controversial but only among those who read it and don't try it. I'd suggest using food drops (hereafter referred to as FD's)to slow a dog down. I know that it can lead to such problems as feeding off the ground but once the dog has the idea and is working slowly you can correct him for that.

Most of the tracking that we do in police work comes from what civilians do in competition tracking. While that works it causes problems for us. It makes it virtually impossible for us to use any kind of tactics.

I'd suggest that you start your tracking training over from the very beginning. The fact that he knows how to follow disturbed ground scent will make it go much easier.

I'd do all the training at night so there were few distractions and it would also make it harder for the dog to see the FD's.

You can start this from off leash if you like or if you're not sure of yourself, there's nothing wrong with starting on leash. In this training the dog always starts by crossing the track at right angles. There's no scent pad used. The very idea is foreign to police work. I don't think it's necessary for give a dog "more" scent. No wild animal gives a wolf a scent pad and a human shouldn't have to either. You're going to start the track "near" but not at the beginning. This is going to be easy. Go to a park where you know the wind currents and terrain.

There's only going to be one human track on the entire field that has hot dogs on it so it will be easy for the dog to hit it once you lead him to it. this makes use of self discovery, the dog will find the start of the track by himself, and self motivation, he wants to eat the hot dogs.

It's probably best if you lay the tracks for your own dog so that you will know exactly where it went. There won't be any setbacks from assistants who try to play games on you. Lay the track across the wind. If you head into the wind the dog will scent the next FD and will hurry to it, defeating your purpose. If you lay the track with the wind the dog may try and backtrack to an FD that he missed.

DON'T lay a straight track with 90 degree turns. It will just cause problems later. Instead, make the track with rounded turns, so it looks like a snake, a series of connected "S" curves.

Put a 30 foot line on the dog and let it drag on the ground as you hold onto it about 5' from the dog. Let him wander with you into the wind towards the track. He'll bump into the hot dog scent and will pull you to it. DON'T give him any commands. This, as most superior training is about the dog and the scent. Don't impose yourself into the picture; you'll just screw it up. When the dog finds the treats allow him to savor each one.

DON'T point to the track or the FD unless the dog overlooks it or becomes distracted. If you have to do this make it as subtle as possible. Sorta lead him in a circle and let him find the scent again.

Here's a tricky part. As you near the end of the track, about the last 5-10 paces, when the dog is fully focused on a treat, gently and quietly ease him away from it. Hold the leash below waist level. Don't jerk the lead, give any commands or even speak so that the dog think that he's being corrected. Just EASE him off the track 1'-2'. Then let the dog pull you back to the track. Do this a couple of times as he's nearing an FD. As he pulls you back to the track/FD praise him. Not so much that he loses focus, just enough to let him know that he did the right thing.

The third time that you do this continue to pull him away from the track. Break into a run when you are about 10-15' from the track and break into a play session. Stop the play and put him up w/o any OB commands.

An important part of this is the spacing of the FD's. It's a seven day program with three tracks done on each day.

DAY 1
1st Track 10 paces - food drop on each step
2nd Track 20 paces - food drop on each step
3rd Track 40 paces – starting random food drops

Day 2
1st Track 20 paces - food drop on each step
2nd Track 40 paces – starting random food drops
3rd Track 80 paces – random food drops

Day 3
1st Track 40 paces – random food drops
2nd Track 80 paces – random food drops
3rd Track 160 paces – random food drops

Day 4
1st Track 80 paces – random food drops
2nd Track 160 paces – random food drops
3rd Track 320 paces – random food drops

Day 5
1st Track 80 paces – random food drops
2nd Track 160 paces – random food drops
3rd Track 320 paces – random food drops

Day 6
1st Track 80 paces – random food drops
2nd Track 320 paces – random food drops
3rd Track 80 paces – random food drops

Day 7
1st Track 80 paces – random food drops
2nd Track 640 paces – random food drops
3rd Track 40 paces – random food drops

This training them turns practical with decoys and bites at the end of them but this is too long already. Again this is from Donn Yarnall. I've used it a few times and it works great, but it's his idea and his FD schedule.

Thanks Lou!

Would love to hear more. Perhaps we should open another thread??

Natalie
http://alikamalinois.tripod.com

Lou - as you say this method is controverial. I disagree with Donn's method. If the dog is worth his salt this is not going to work. The RCMP are masters of the art of tracking in woods.

Most police dogs can track off leash - thats easy - staying with the handler without loosing drive is another story. It take a special dog with the right balance to be able to "Down" or to be "Called back" to slow the dog down. I had one and it was great. It's a nice feeling to be running through the woods in the middle of the night (after you have left your back-up 1/2 mile back) and be able to call your dog back to you and then continue on.

I would be inclined to do a great deal of training in RANDOM DOWNS and RANDOM RECALLS (with an instant release) - this will have to be enforced with an e-collar - when the dog can do them in high drive situations then add them to short tracks. It has to become a normal part of every training track.

With all this said - I would tell the S&R folks to go out and try Donn's method. They have the time and it can be fun for their dogs. One thing is for sure - it will not hurt anything.

Ptlm. ,
I too work in an Urban environment that have many of the same hazards you do . I agree with others that off-lead tracking is the best in high risk tracks , but the right conditions for this are very rare in my area , for me it depends on the areas and possible hazards . Due to this the majority of my tracks are done on-lead .

The high risk tracks in thick woods are done with SWAT officers directly behind me for cover and a larger SWAT team further behind us . I will not go into the specific layout of our search team for obvious reasons other then it is a layered type of search team . We have 4 specially selected K9's (out of 21 K9's) that work with the SWAT Team and I am 1 of them . I do this on-lead (40')because the speed of these high risk tracks are very slow (a very slow walk would be too fast)so I doubt you could find many K9's that could track that slow without killing it's drive. We down our dogs or call them back to us alot during these tracks in order for the SWAT Team to keep up with us and maintain tactical movement. I like to use the pager mode on my e-collar for this for tactical reasons .

As for the Tracking Thru Drive and Food Drop discussion ,we start off TTD and some of these dogs have now gone on to using Food Drops . We don't use a regimented training schedule like the one Lou describes but almost everything else is the same . These K9's have turned into the best trackers we got , most notably on hardsurface . I have never seen a K9 trained in only Food Drops so I have no comment on that but for K9's originally trained in TTD it only improved what were already good tracking K9's in our unit.

For the average day to day tracks I've tracked both on and off-lead but once again due to the urban environment I work in , most tracks are done on-lead . My current K9 is well suited for off-lead tracking . Proper tracking speed and control . My first K9 was not the best for this . His ground tracking speed and control was good for this but he could quickly change to air scenting and take off if even out of sight for a few seconds (rounding corner of a building as an example). I could down him or call him back once he was in the scent cone but the speed in which he reacted was too fast (from nose to the ground to head up into a full speed run)and he could cover alot of ground once he was in it .

For those who have the proper K9 , time to train and environment for off-lead tracking it's the way to go. But in my opinion you need need to train alot for it and the proper dog to put up with the requirements of it .

Matt,
We used to have the synthetic longlines but currently are using the nylon with interwoven rubber along its entire length. These are great when it is wet outside or the hands are sweaty. Never thought of cutting the loop off though.
Lou, I was trying to slow the dog down by placing articles on the track. The problem I was having is that the dog felt he was finished after finding the article. We have done alot of article search training so he was getting confused. I was also having to constantly talk to him and give him down commands or somewhat of a "whoa" or "easy" command along with recalls. He was getting frustrated with the whole process and lost focus.
Its not very often I have the opportunity to track sans lead because our area has grown immensley in the last 15 years and wooded areas are hard to come by. The neighboring city and county area use me on an ocasional basis so it would be a nice trick to have in the bag.

Howard

Howard - when you talk about the lines with rubber in them - are you talking about these gripped lines?

The people who make the grippers sent me a tracking line. I really dont like this product - I dont like this fo Sch dogs much less police dogs. These lines catch on the dogs legs, on anything the line comes in contact with - and god forbid someone has ahold of it if the dog takes off.

Jim- good posts.

Ed,

Yes, these are the same. Ive never had a problem with the lines grabbing the dog but they do hang onto about everything they touch. They dont slide very good when the going is thick. Another bad thing about the one I have is that it is only about 5/8" wide, kinda hard to hang onto sometimes. I will admit that I have recieved less leash burns on my hands though.

I've found a length of rapel rope works great as a track line. It snakes through the brush and trees and does not get tangled. I'm with Mr Nash on the off-lead part of it. When our dogs are used with the tactical team, it's a very timed and orchastrated movement. For that reason, tracks are "on leash".

DFrost

Matt,

I am new to this chat group, and this is one of the more interesting questions that I have seen posted.......First of all our department trains to the same standards as the RCMP following the 3 levels throughout our training, the only difference is that we typically do more level 3 tracks prior to our young dogs validating as this is tyically the types of terrain that we work in......

What you described in a wooded area is exactly what we teach our handlers to do....... meaning drop the line and allow him to track, once clear of the bush however the line is picked up and we continue in the usual manner. This is done for the following reasons......1-If you continue to hold on to the line the dog gets caught up amongst the trees and as this continues, (the dog getting caught up and you trying to untangle him) the dog and the handler become more and more frustrated.........and 2-It will slow you down.

The only time that we will take a line off a dog while tracking is in training if we are working a young dog that has a weaker tracking drive and if/when the line gets caught up they take it as a correction from the handler......If we see this occurring, the line is taken off to complete the wooded portion of the track and we go back into open areas, to build up their tracking drive and slowly intoduce them back into wooded areas......Just to clarify when I say take the line off, we leave the harness on the dog and just unclip his 20ft line.

As for running with your dogs, I have had numerous discussions with people on this topic, and to me there is no right or wrong......For every point, there is a counterpoint......We track in the running method and the speed of the team is determined by the handler in level 1 training........In speaking from experience.......my first dog and I had over 300 tracking arrests, (not including search profiles and straight sends) a good 25% of these were caught without containment as we work a large geographical area and we have no helicopters to contain same.......If I had not ran with me dog, a large portion of these SUSPECTS would not have been caught for the following reason: They were ever evading.......meaning they weren't stopping/going to ground and it was too vast of an area to contain.....If a person has let's say even a 5-10 minute head start on you, (typically for us in a rural environment it turns out to be a 1/2-3/4 of an hour.)if they do not go to ground and you are walking and they are walking, you will never catch them as you aren't making up ground.....you will always be 5-10 minutes behind them.....So by rights walking in these instances is definitely more tactical as you will never have any contact with your SUSPECT. Your arrest record however will suffer.

By running however you are making up ground and now it becomes a matter of endurance. In our validations if it takes the quarry 25-30 minutes to lay a 2-3 mile track, whatever time it took him/her to lay it, the team has to complete the track in less time....If this does not occur, they do not pass even if the track is completed....

One can say, by running it is not tactically sound and there are numerous valid points for them saying this, however, have you ever tried shooting a running deer compared to a walking or standing deer. Realistically speaking if your SUSPECT has any tactical training, all they have to do is lay an down wind double back or an down wind button hook and no matter whether you are walking or running you will be shot at without any advance notice from your dog.


In our level 2 and 3's the dog teams do slow down both so corners are less likely to be overshot and liability on the street,(bad bites) but we still aren't down to a walk.....Line handling is of uptmost importance in these levels and the ability to read your dog.....being able to determine when the dog is switching from tracking to air scenting and how to tactically approach the SUSPECT when this occurs.

So whether you walk or run, drop the line or not, there are advantages and disadvantages to both. You have to decide yourself what style is better suited for the terrain that you work in and the dog that you are working......The running method works well for our department and our arrest record proves it.......Good luck out there and play safe......

David BESSASON Trainer/Handler
Winnipeg Police Service