I do not permit dogs to trail back as once again they are not following the route of the footsteps, their footsteps and mine have gone over the route so to me it is pointless.

I do not see the point of double laying tracks (although I did when I started) as once again, the footprints are going both ways, and the odour must be very strong.

Police Dogs no longer retrieve articles on tracks, they are trained to indicate by lying down etc in order not to cross contaminate DNA etc etc

There is no one method used by the Home Office in training dogs for tracking, a great deal will depend on the individual force, their trainers and whether or not they are exposed and open to new ideas or "train by the book".

I have trained with a fair few Police Dog handlers in my time...............

ETA police dogs mainly TRAIL ie use a mixture of ground and air scent as speed is of the essence obviously.

Speed is NOT the essence in Working Trials or Schutzhund.

thanks for the info SB was hoping you would come along. will do some more with him over the weekend, unfortunately im working tonight and tomorrow and have to wait till the evening for me to use the field.

I also double lay when I track, and use a toy reward at the end (although I will probably use food for Jed since he isnt motivated by toys) but reading SB's post, I have to say that laying only a single track makes more sense since the dog is learning to follow the direction of the trail too (it's interesting to see my dogs work this out when they are tracking game).

When I did the John Rogerson course, the object of the track was to find articles along the way so where the articles were placed, there was a scent added there (in this case it was decomposed pork - simple enough to do at home in a jar with cotton buds in there).

When you did the CSI course, that was to quick start article location.

Competition dogs (in Schutzhund, Working Trials etc) just indicate any article that is "hot".

Again, a mixture of scent discrimination (ie dogs are trained to alert on drugs, explosives etc)

I don't let the dogs back track either.

The dog learns the track direction. If you think about it when the track is laid you press your heel on the ground harder than your toe, then there is a gap, then a strong heel depression followed by a lighter toe etc. I.e. the bacterial / crushed vegetation scent has an effective direction. If the dog back tracks I stand still and do not let the line out, as soon as the dog is back on the right direction I move forward. When your out in the field its' easy to get lost (well, I do anyway, I've said before that if someone gave me the track pattern before I started it wouldn't make much of a difference). When I start I throw the rest of my tracking line back so I have a trail behind me indicating where I have been.

The first two or three times I laid for Max / Lady I double laid but then very quickly moved on. Again, you want the dog to learn to follow the direction as well as corners.

Nothing useful to add - not anything I've seriously looked into, but the lodger once "Backtracked" me right out of the park.

Moral of this story is... don't get too far away if your dog is wary of strangers, the winds blowing the wrong way, you're wearing an unusual outfit, & have a frog in your throat.

He was coming towards me then just saw him do a

"That's not her - ****** - Where is she?"
A circle
A Nose to ground
Then he was off back to the Bin I'd stopped at (and he hadn't) then straight back out the gate.

Fortunately he presumably had second thoughts at the road (he does have a modicum of roadsense) or heard me yelling & reappeared.

Still wasn't entirely sure I was me initially