Throwing Dogs Off Your Trail

[TRIGGERTIME]

I have been told that emptying the contents of a gas mask filter canister on your track will make dogs unable to track effectively. I asked a friend who recently attended USMC SEER training about this, but she knew nothing of it. She said their basic strategy was to outrun their pursuers. Does anyone know if this will work? Any other ideas?

[billy_56081]

I do know from experience that if you get a decent head start you can out walk police type leashed tracking dogs. Just keep walking and the the dogs will tire after several miles. The act of them pulling at the leash wears them out.

[Dee]

TRIGGERTIME, I was a Police K-9 Trainer-Handler-Supervisor, and no it will not. It may contaminate the immediate area but, will not cover the entire track. Distance is not an enemy of a good tracking dog either, as the track "warms up" as the K-9 closes distance. I have tracked in the desert with a cross wind, and the dog would track as far as 40 yards down wind from the actual track. The scent lays or moves on the ground much as does smoke from wet wood.
I have also had a dog when weather and soil conditions were right pick up scent 8 and 9 hours AFTER the track was made. I once used my K-9 that was also evidence search trained and certified, locate two buttons that were shot off a State Troopers shirt 3 hours after the trooper was shot and killed, and I had the same dog locate a Chief Deputies glasses that he lost while riding a horse 7 hours after they were lost. The real test on the glasses were, they were located without light, at near midnight, with about a 25 mile an hour wind, and the search area was a section (660 acres) of cow pasture with no real idea of when they were lost. I simply took the dog down wind and walked the dog along the perimeter. It took about 20 minutes until he scented them, and went straight to them about 85 yards from where I was walking. The Chief Deputy and a field Deputy walked with me and could not believe it. I got a lot more call from them, the Texas Dept. Of Public Safety, and The Texas Rangers after those to accidental demos.

[srussell]

+1dee   i used to work in a state prison and ran for the blood hounds alot i tried every thing go over cliffs put black pepper down i even went so far as swinging out in the middle of a creek. once they get on u you have had it

[tacklebury]

I've read somewhere that Ammonia capsules for waking up people from unconsciousness will mess with the mucus membranes of a dogs nose and throw them off.  I used to carry a squirtgun full of Ammonia when riding bike, because we had many heel nippers on our road.  I wasn't allowed to hurt them, so I would squirt them with Ammonia and they'd scream bloody murder and run off.  Usually they'd leave me alone for a while then. 

[bobg]

  There use to be a guy in my area that trained blood hounds. I think his name was Bill Tolhurst. Seems like he wrote a book on the subject. He had a dog by the name of Cleo that made a big name for herself. I worked with a guy that told me he knew all about Cleo. He said it was a wierd feeling to know you were being tracked by a blood hound and nothing he did could get her off his track.

[chefjeff]

My gr-gr- grandfather killed a revenuer that was trying to arrest him during prohibition. The story is recounted in the book "Our Southern Highlanders" by Horace Kephart. After Babe shot Mr. Rose, a .45 slug tore through his lower leg. Inside story was he dressed the wound at a neighbors house and filled his shoes with turpentine. That's as far as the dogs could track him. Don't know if that would cut it today, as we probably have better trained dogs.

[Dee]

To shed some light on this, a dog is not tracking the odor of your shoes. He is tracking the dead skin cells, and so forth you body constantly sheds, along with your other bodily odors. As I said earlier, I have had a dog track 30 to 40 YARDS DOWN WIND from where the person actually worked. What good would the turpentine have done there? None.
The turpentine trick makes for an interesting story, but it's mythical. It would not have mattered to me, if he had filled them with gasoline and set himself on fire. I would have tracked him with the dog anyway, and if he did not get into a car and leave, or incinerate, I would have eventually caught up to him, or the body.
When I gave seminars, I explained it like this concerning drug, and search dogs.
When a kid is looking for ONE PARTICULAR TOY IN THE TOY BOX, what does he do? Answer: He starts throwing out all the toys he doesn't want until he comes to the one he wants. SAME WITH A DOG. He ignores all the odors he isn't looking for, and zeros in on the one he IS LOOKING FOR. It's just that simple.
The trouble with understanding how a dog mentally operates, is folks try to reason things out in a HUMAN WAY. A dog does things HIS WAY. You have to learn to reason things out like he does. A dog is simple, and direct. A human is complicated, and confused.

[powderman]

DEE. I'm really impressed. I had no idea the k9s were that good. POWDERMAN. 

[hillbill]

if yu ever seen a coon dog get a face full of skunk stink and then go on to tree a coon............yu will know how good a dogs nose is.

[Dee]

I have seen that several times hillbill. Once the dog know what he is supposed to be looking for, very few things short of death will get him off track. It can be done, but most times it's just "the blind luck of the draw" that causes a dog to lose the trail.

[scootrd]

The dogs that amaze me are the avalanche rescue dogs. I am amazed every time I here they have rescued a survivor in deep compacted snow after an avalanche has buried them. And how do they find someone whose scent they have never encountered before ?

Are they smelling dead skin cells?

[Old Syko]

if yu ever seen a coon dog get a face full of skunk stink and then go on to tree a coon............yu will know how good a dogs nose is.

 

Been there done that!  As soon as you get the coon, the dog wants to get close to you so you can tell him how good he did.  Like Dee has said, a dog with heart will have to be killed to stop him.

[Casull]

Had a golden retriever years ago.  I was at my parents' house one night and watched a possum walk along the fence, turn in front of the shed, then turn down the side of the shed and go through a hole in the fence.  The next night I brought my dog over, turned him loose and watched him follow the same trail right to the hole in the fence.  This was about 24 hours later and my "dog" was all of TEN WEEKS OLD.  Yep, pretty damn good nose.

[Catfish]

Dee, I`ll take your word on everything upto when you said you could fill your boots with gas and set your self on fire and the dog could still track you. I once watch a guy tru to smoke a coon out of a tree. Well he ended up setting the coon on fire. The coon bailed out of the tree but none of the dogs could track it. So I think you really could keep a dog from smelling you by setting yourself on fire. But I think I would reather have the dog find me.

[Dee]

Does sound less painful doesn't it?

[TRIGGERTIME]

So, self-conflagration is the key, eh?

[GRIMJIM]

This is hearsay and I cannot confirm it but a guy I used to work with 20 years ago or so said he would throw drug dogs off (said he carried marijuana through an airport) by rubbing burnt dog hair on himself. According to him the dogs didn't want anything to do with him.

Don't know if I believe that or not.

[Cornbelt]

Dogs are an interesting paradox. God gave 'em a sense of smell 4000 times greater than ours, and a sense of discretion about 4000 times less. It's a good thing, otherwise they'd quit after the first vanilla candle.

[charles p]

Knew a fellow that was a K-9 handler in Viet Nam.  He said his dog could detect the smell of fresh grass where its leaves had be broken.  I suppose riding a bicycle through grass would break some grass blades and leave a different scent.

My friend was in the Army but assigned to the marines.

[JBlk]

I trained dogs while in the Army and later became the supervisor of the handlers in my battery.Dogs are just like people in their ability, some are much better than others.Alot depends on how good the handler reads his dog,During my tenure as a police officer I supervised the handlers of the police dogs which was a different type of training than the Army used and I always felt that the Army had better trained animals.Some Army scout dogs have alerted up to a mile away.A dogs sense of smell is around seven to ten times better than yours and I am sure that some are much better.There are substances that will throw a dog off the track just like you feel with a nose full of fresh horseradish.I don't feel this is the proper venue to discuss those methods.The dog is by far much more efficent than his human handler and a asset in many situations.

[JeffG]

Years back, I had a buddy who used tracking bloodhounds.  With me as the "runner", We intentionally set out to foil the dog, in repeated trials, using ammonia, pepper spray, fox urine, going through water and using extreme distances,(6-15 miles) you name it. The dog wasn't deterred in the least, and seem to gain distance on me very easily.  It seemed that most of the dogs gained momentum after long distances, when they were closer to the pursued. (me)

[charles p]

Had a mixed basset hound that we could turn out of our back door and it would go to whatever home our young son was visiting. 
We started playing a game with the dog.  We would put the dog in the house and our son would run a broken trail and finally hide.  The dog would run the trail right to him.
When my son entered kindergarten, a girl's mom brought a kitten to show and tell on Frday.  The next Friday I had to take the basset mix.  All the kids came out to the playground and we let the dog out of the car.  My son was so proud.  The teacher and students were not very impressed.  The teacher asked my son if my dog could do any tricks.  He said "no".  At that point I remembered the hide and seek game.  I put the dog back into the back seat of the car and held her in the floor board area.  My kid ran all over the school yard and hid behind a distant object.  I released the dog and she ran a perfect duplicate of his route.

Every kid in that school was wearing sneakers.  That school yard could have had millions of sneaker tracks.  The students nor the teacher were impressed with the trick our dog performed!  I still think it was amazing.

[zeke08]

I have worked as a K9 handler now for over 10years and as Dee stated the dogs are tracking dead skin cells. Part of the reason they start gaining on subjects is the scent is "hotter" ur body is 98.6 degrees and the closer you get the warmer the dead cells and true criminals have a different scent that we cant reproduce in training its called FEAR heart racing bp is up sweating. I tracked a guy that ran over a State Trooper at a road block 3/4 of a mile pavement hard surface into a bar out the back door across a gravel lot into a 3 acre field to his back door in a trailer park. When we got him all he could say was how did you know where I was hiding. As I work a Explosives Detection K9 I train very hard in nose work personally if a dog misses a lb of weed no big deal if I miss a lb of Explosives someone could die. 65% of what my K9 unit does is tracking and as long as regular patrol does there job on perimeter an keeps em from getting in a vehicle we find em probably 90% success rate. Hey Dee where did you handle a K9 at? Shepherd or Mal? I worked my shepherd for 8 years an my 2nd dog is a Mal.

[Dee]

I worked German bred Shepherds, but really liked and always intended to try a Belgium Malinois for their courage and high drive. I was a member of the United States Police K-9 Association, and certified and competed in Region 5 which is New Mexico, West Texas, Colorado, I believe western Oklahoma, and perhaps Kansas.
In 94 I was 4 points off of First Place in Colorado Springs, Co, at the Air Force Academy Stadium, and made the Nationals at Ft. Lauderdale, Fl. It was in Patrol Dogs, and mine was not only a tracker, but was cross trained in Narcotics. What we, and perhaps you called a "Dual Dog".
My dogs were trained by me from pups, I evaluated and with no prior training of any kind, as I wanted no bad habits to overcome. They were trained in evidence recovery, tracking, area search and apprehension, handler protection, criminal apprehension and I was very big on obedience. I have sent a dog after guys that would intentionally run thru crowds of folks trying to mix his scent. Never worked. The dog was never fooled.
My dogs and other handler trained everyday on something, and it always paid off when you needed it. On a bet with a CA, my patrol dog once found a dime on a well travelled Court House lawn. I told the CA to throw the dime, or the dog would track him to it. We weren't allowed of course to be there, when it was throw, and were told only the general area, which was which side of the Court House. Took about 3 to 5 minutes to find.
I was once called in by the Rangers to do a crime scene evidence search in a wheat field where a Texas Trooper was killed. My dog found two chrome buttons off the trooper's uniform shirt. I still have the news film footage of me and my dog going into the field looking for the perp. Him without his collar, and me with an M4, and some rather explicit encouragement.
My K-9s were the best partners I ever had. We could search a Wal-Mart super center together in about 20 minutes from start to finish. Him with his nose and courage, with no power to the building and me backing "him" with a gas operated shotgun. If the perp was there, he got bit if he didn't get up on something.

[zeke08]

Great work Dee, all of our dogs are Dual purpose dogs either narcotics or explosives. We are certified under NAPWDA, and the NNDDA. I think the Shepherd's are a hell of a lot smarter than the Malinios but I love the bite work of a Mal. lol I have trained all over the south and seen a lot of dogs and training methods. I always like having an outsider certify and watch my K9 just so I'm not being bias or not missing something. We work on something everyday an without a strong obedience foundation everything else is weak. I dont know of many Mal's that recall as well as mine lots of work but worth it.And yes by all means they are the best partners have ever had!

[Dee]

Don't ya just love it, when a good dog bites all the way to his ears?

[quickdtoo]

Watch the last episode of Mythbusters, they failed to defeat the dogs.

Tim

http://dsc.discovery.com/videos/mythbusters-hair-of-the-dog/

[Spirithawk]

Hmmmm, my first question would be, " Why are you wanting to try?" 

[TRIGGERTIME]

Does anyone know how a dog's sense of smell compares to that of a whitetail deer?

And how much of a dog's tracking ability is inherited vs. learned?