This isn't really about s&r or ttd, but I didn't know where else to put it.

How much air scent training does it take to screw up a dog from learning to track?

I have read on here before and in Ed's articles to do tracking first then air scent. I hadn't thought about blood tracking until recently and had already done some air scent training with my dog. I haven't done a ton of work with air scent, but have done enough for him to get the idea of it and look for what I wanted. I'm not sure of a way to describe how much we've done or how far along he is with it. This isn't a life or death problem, just looking for things to do with my dog and things for me to learn.

Track the dog n if he keeps lifting his head to look for the next footstep you know you'll have your hands full trying to fix it. but I know people who have successfully done it backwards... the biggest complaint I hear is that the dog reverts back to airscent when he gets confused on a real track without food, reverting back to the foundation training.

Thanks Mike. I haven't laid the first track yet, but was planning to start soon. Whenever he would wind the article he was searching for he would always put his head down to the ground and close the distance that way. I guess that could mean he'll take to tracking O.K. or it'll be hard as hell to tell if he is air scenting through problems. About the dogs you were talking about, did they go back to tracking after the problem in the track was solved? If he would go back to tracking, it wouldn't really be a problem for me as long as he found the deer.

A huge part of the success trainers see in training any tracking dog is the skill of the track layer. When people first get into training they simply don't know how important this is.

I did a training DVD on how to lay training tracks. http://leerburg.com/207.htm - I dis this DVD for new trainer and for experienced trainers to use in training their track layers.

If you want to do this work - get the TTD videos and do it right.

Myself and one other member of our Schutzhund club started out doing airscent, cadaver, waterwork, evidence recovery before we went in to Schutzhund with our dogs.
One dog never has a problem with FST. Mine still occasionally reverts to his foundation training.
I think getting a solid commitment to the beginning scent pad is the key but occasionally, if we hit a cross wind and he picks up the scent of a tracking article, he looks at me like WTF! I know right where it's at. Why the he(( should I keep walking straight if it's over there?
He'll also start quarting and circling wider then I'd like to see if he misses a corner.
I feel my problems are more created by my laziness to practice (FST is BOOOOORING) then the cross training created.

Ed, I'm not that experienced in this so I could be wrong. Isn't TTD done at a very fast pace? From what I've read you want a blood tracker to go slower so you can read the blood and other signs to tell what kind of a wound you are dealing with. The tracklaying video sounds good though. Don't think I'm arguing what you say. I would never argue with anyone on here that is helping me answer a question about a topic that I know so little about.

OEDBS, as far as tracking and then switching to air scent if we got downwind of wounded or dead game, fine with me. I would like him to be able to track, but in the end if he can get me to a deer that me or a hunter couldn't find then I'll be super happy. You've read the book by John Jeanney that I'm going by. I don't know if he'll ever be great at tracking or scenting, but its just fun to watch him when he gets close to what he is looking for. His head will whip around and that little bobbed tail starts wagging 100mph. It took longer to teach him a down command than it did to teach him to air scent a shed antler.

If your not worried about sport tracking (FST) then I wouldn't be concerned about it. What your looking for would be more on the order of trailing then tracking. Course that depends on who your talking with.
If I'm not mistaken, Ed has a book on blood trailing. If not Ed, I know I've seen it somewhere.

I already have the book that Ed sells on blood tracking. Great book, BTW. What is the difference between trailing and tracking? I lose so much in the translation of this stuff. Thanks guys for the help.

The difference between trailing and tracking can be nothing more then semantics.
To a PSD K9 it's all called tracking yet the dog will use airscent, footsteps, whatever it takes to catch the bad guy.
In Schutzhund, tracking is a sport and the dog never lifts his head off of the foot steps. Not very functional in the real world but can be a good foundation for the rest.

I guess it is more than semantics depending on which police you talk with - - - a number of police ONLY track the hottest TRACK and are not scent discriminatory for the specific person. I have met LE who don't believe a GSD or Malinois is even capable of scent discrimination.

Others DO use scent discrimination.

The trailing dog *should* only follow the scent trail of the suspect or victim.