I am working very hard with our 2 dept K9s' and am using the training techniques from your videos. We have had days that are better then others but thats why we do this! Question is does it become a problem when the same person is laying the tracks everytime? Also wondering if footwear is a factor while laying the tracks also. I've been laying them in full leather duty boots and was wondering if that is reducing the amount of scent left behind. Just some things that have come up.

Thanks much in advance.

Steve… You don’t want the same person to lay tracks ALL the time. Unfortunately it’s hard to find good track layers that will help you work on specific aspects of tracking…. So we tend to use the same people.

I would mix up your footwear as much as possible. Bad guys tend to not wear duty boots. They wear sneakers….. dress shoes…. Flip flops… bare feet…. I would not want to risk my dog becoming dependant on footwear. I would hate for my dog to become dependant on say…shoe polish odor to complete a track.

I'm not quite as anal a Matt ha ha, just joking, I certainly agree you should use as many different track layers as possible.

DFrost

Well,
More important than numbers of people placing the tracks is the skill of the tracklayer. The tracklayer must, be able to understand the extent of problems to be entered in the track, what the dog/handler team can resolve without distressing the animal. The tracklayer must be a functional coach for the team. This is difficult to find.

I would rather use one person rather than have a bunch of failed tracks that confuse the dog and make the handler loose confidence. I often place my own tracks particularly when I am pushing the envelope on te training. Then use a good tracklayer, then use anyone on very simple tracks.

As for footwear?? Good question since there is a body of information about substances such as butric acid seeping into the footwear and leaking though the shoes in amounts easily picked up by dogs olfactory system. It seems it only takes a few hours of wear for these to make into the track "picture". So, varying footwear may have an effect of this portion of the track as well as things like the amount of crush/disturbance created. A pair of my size 13 Danners makes a good disturbance, they also have a lot of hours of wear and lots of wax and polish and footpowder to spread along a track. So i make a point of placing tracks with sports shoes and even in stocking feet occasionally.

Mod note:

Douglas, I moved your post to its own thread here:

http://leerburg.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=304450&page=0#Post304450



Edited by Connie Sutherland (11/24/2010 08:02 PM)
Edit reason: fix hijack