Gday guys, I'm a military working dog handler in the Australian Airforce. I have a black Timber sheperd...that is a german sheperd cross American timber wolf. Part of our criteria and quarterly assesments is being able to detect an intruder from 200 or more meters away using wind indication. My dog has no problems in doing this however the problem I have is this:
At the highest level our dogs are not only required to indicate at the above mentioned distance but be able to adopt an automatic down when they are approximately 100 meters from an intruder. So say for example my dog indicates and pursues a wind scent of an intruder from 400 meters away. he will follow it in on lead for three hundred meters. Then as stated above he is to adopt the down position approximately 100 meters from the intruder ( contact distance ). Considering different climatic conditions such as heat of the day/night, strength of the wind ect... all of which add to the bacteria breaking down the skin rafts, therefore giving a stronger scent, how would I train him to consistently adopt the down position at roughly 100 meters, give or take 50 meters.

Just a suggestion from the Search and Rescue point of view.

Can you try teaching him the down when he sees the person?

I know that in some SAR units they teach the dog to search relatively close to the handler by working them on a long line, or voice control. After awhile conditioning the dog this way they tend to start working like this with no control from the handler.
Maybe if you taught the down when the "suspect" is in sight it will condition the dog to down at a good distance.

How do your other handlers teach it?

Rip,
Would you provide a link or post a copy of that criteria? Because from a military working dog standpoint, that sounds impossible.

I know dogs can do amazing things but, being a range finder isnt one of them. This seems like an impossible task.

Holy crap!! I'd like to see that, 100m is impressive as hell.

The thread is closed. I also blocked Rip Snota from my board. We have a policy of using your correct name. I do not believe that he have done this.

I also do not believe that the Austrailian Government uses hybrids in their miliatry dog program.