Has anyone selection tested a green dog for tracking ability as a primary requirement? If so, how did you go about testing the dog? What type of track did you lay to best demonstrate the scenting ability of the dog? The dogs in quesion would be utility/narcotics cross trained.

Check out Kevin Shedahl's website, he has some great info on PSD selection testing. Also, Ed or Josh Lewis at NE K9 could point you in the right direction.

With policemen, structuring a question in this manner I bet you already know what you are looking for but would like to test your theory, well:

Police tracking has 3 components as far as my setup here is concerned

1) Patrol dog tracking –short tracks - where the dog rounds off at the end of the spoor in other words bites, and points articles on the spoor or not, fast tracking or slow tracking – done by any breed trained as PD
2) Bloodhound scent - that tracks long spoor, days old or fresh, does not round off – blood hound or DB cross.
3) Rescue dog – that tracks and does area search – mostly herding/ working dogs.

Which one did you have in mind?

In general we look for a dog that has very good prey drive, and gets his nose down naturally. In other words when he looks for his pray item he uses scent more than his visual ability, and is relentless at finding it.

The track is no longer than 20 meters laid / rolled out, out of sight of the dog in a straight line with a 1 meter bend to any side on cut grass with a tin of fresh dog food at the end, laid into the wind. We do not kick the trail open or mark it with anything for this test, - green dog