I have always had an interest in SAR. If you haven't already, you should read Search Dog by Angela Locke and also Search Dogs And Me by Neil Powell.

Exactly. Tracking/trailing seems to be self-rewarding for her.

That's an excellent idea. Inki is a great advocate of ball plyaing at the track end, but it wouldn't work for us... Lorka apports things, even metal, but only when she has to

I will PM you the links

Thank you for the photos and the video. I have looked at all the photos. Lorka is beautiful and you can see how much she enjoys her job I have only had a chance to watch the first video clip so far, but will enjoy watching the rest later - thanks again.

Thanks

Looking forward to reading about your tracking experiences

This has been an interesting thread

What is the difference between tracking and trailling?

Nothing, apart from cosmetics and style.

This is what David Ryan says:

Tracking is following the scent deposited by a person (or other animal) on the ground after they have gone. The person does not have to be present – they could be gone hours before. The dog follows the scent track left by the person until it can do so no more, or until it bumps into the person.

Trailing is almost in between. The dog follows the scent left on the air when the person has gone. The person can be recently gone or gone long ago. The dog follows the trail until it can do so no more, or until it bumps into the person.

Is there a difference between tracking and trailing? Only in our minds. The dog is doing the same thing – finding the person. Many will switch depending on the availability of the scent. It only matters if it wins you points in a competition.

When a person passes by they leave a scent that comprises of a composite:

• Personal scent
• Additional scent
• Ground scent

Personal scent is the human part – every human smells different to a dog (although they find it hard to tell identical twins apart). It is the smell of you or of me. We are all human (the innate scent used when searching) but we are also individuals. You don’t the smell the same as me. Each of us is unique, additional scent is the extras that stick to us; the clothes we wear, what we ate last night, the soap we use, our occupation, hobby, our fear or our anger. Together with personal scent these make up our “individual” sent.

Ground scent is the disturbance we cause when walking. We crush vegetation and insects under out feet and we rush the earth, releasing pockets of gases.

Individual scent comprises of rafts of skin, hair and clothing that we constantly shed. Bacteriological action on these rafts gives off molecules of scent. It is at its most potent (strongest) immediately after the person has passed by, can move in the wind away from where it was left and fluctuate with environmental conditions.

For example: dogs were trained to identify a glass slide containing a single human fingerprint from four other blank slides In sterile laboratory conditions the dog were still reliable after three weeks and has some success better than chance at up to six weeks. But when the slides were exposed to weather on the roof of the building the dogs became unreliable within one to two weeks and failed completely after three weeks. The dogs failed to identify the fingerprint at any time if the slide was coated in a film of water (King et al 1964)

Ground scent comprises of the odour of crushed or disturbed substrate (vegetation, earth). It continues to rise from the footprint after the person has passed. The peak will depend on the volatility of the substrate – green grass will give off more for longer than bare concrete.

The composite scent picture will therefore change over time with personal scent being strongest at the start then fading, and ground scent increasing to a peak before fading at a different rate. This change in the scent picture is the reason what dogs need to adjust when going from one surface to another Because the composition of the scent changes, they will cast, check, reconfirm then continue.

That is a brilliant article on tracking/trailing by David Ryan.

When I first started to train Yogi to track with the help of a one-to-one trainer I thought he was purely tracking. However, what he was actually doing was a combination of tracking and trailing - which I believe most SAR dogs do in order to get to the "victim" in the fastest possible time, using both ground and air scent.

Fascinating stuff.

Thank you SB It is something my OH is getting very interested in!