Anyone who has worked with dogs on a human pursuit probably has many stories to tell. Many of the stories will reflect the skill of the handler and the determination of the dog to stay on the trail no matter how challenging the conditions. Hopefully they end with a successful find. Regardless of how many successes they have had, there may be a time or two when things did not go so well. Dogs are a tremendous asset on a search, but they are not infallible. Even when the search ends well one can always ask: could we have been faster, more efficient?

Utilizing Visual Trackers

Utilizing visual trackers with dog handlers can reduce time on trail, and create opportunities to stay on the trail when conditions are less than optimal. They also give the handler confidence and reassurance that they are in fact, on the correct trail.

The Limitations of Dogs as Trackers

A dog¹s tracking abilities are limited by several factors. One is the level of training the dog has undergone. A second is the sensitivity of the handler to the dog¹s tells ­ in other words, how well the dog and the handler work together. These two factors are completely controllable through proper training prior to a tracking situation.

The most significant factor in the success of a dog-tracking situation revolves around the conditions of the trail. Trail condition is probably the biggest uncontrollable factor in any tracking situation. The age of the trail, the amount of vegetation, the wind conditions all play heavily into how successful the track down will be.

A dog¹s ability to follow a scent trail will be limited by the age of the trail. The older the trail, the harder it will be for the dog to follow. Less than two hours old, and you have a pretty good chance of success. More than four hours old, and the chances of the dog staying on the trail to completion drops significantly.

Tracking dogs do better in heavily vegetated areas. The vegetation holds the scent close to the ground, and keeps it from being dispersed by wind or evaporated by heat. As the amount of vegetation decreases, so does the dog¹s ability to track. Dogs have a more difficult time on hard, dry surfaces that may be exposed to wind and sunlight than on surfaces covered with vegetation with high humidity.

Finally, wind is a big factor in the ability of the dog to stay on the trail. Certain areas are more prone to wind. These areas will be where the dog has the least chance of staying on the trail. Vegetation sometimes protects the scent from wind, allowing it to pool. However, wind can clear large sections of trail from scent particles or disperse them so far, that the dog has a very difficult time following.

In all of these situations, the alert dog handler has a repertoire of techniques to pick up the trail again. Casting for scent, running the dog on a spiral, and other techniques will eventually get the dog back on the scent. The problem is that they take time. And time is the enemy of a scent-tracking dog.

Having dog handlers trained as visual trackers or having additional trackers along with the dog handler can speed the process of pursuit. Whenever the dog comes to a place where conditions are less than ideal, the visual trackers can come up and take a look. The conditions that are bad for dogs are typically favorable for the trackers. Dry, dusty roads provide a good tracking medium for the visual tracker. The visual tracker can quickly verify that the quarry is still moving in a particular direction, and that can free the dog to vector the quarry, or seek him in a particular direction rather than having to search in a full 360š circle for the scent. Then the dog can resume the search, once the trail returns to favorable conditions for the dog.

A Typical Scenario

Imagine a scenario set in the deciduous woods of an eastern state. A child has gone missing. He was last seen in the area about three hours before. Your team has been called out to do the hasty search. As you arrive on the scene, you circle the PLS trying to pick up a scent. Finally you find a solid scent cone and begin following. The trail leads back into the forest. You follow for several hundred yards. The trail emerges onto a dirt road. As soon as the trail emerges onto the road, your dog signals that he has lost the trail. At this point you freeze everyone, and call the trackers up to do a quick check. They move onto the road and determine that the child turned left, walked down the road about a hundred yards, and then cut back into the woods across the road. Could your dog have determined the same information? Almost certainly. But it would have taken precious time. You would have had to work the dog in both directions on the vegetation along both sides of the road until the scent was found. If you are lucky, that would only take a few minutes. However, it could take much longer. The trackers were able to quickly pick up the trail and make rapid progress on the track. Once the track returns to vegetation, the trackers back off and the dog takes the trail again. By utilizing the strengths of both the dog and the visual trackers, you can save a considerable amount of time. My own research indicates that using dogs and trackers together resulted in a decrease of time on trail by 20 ­ 25%. Conditions always vary, but any increase in efficiency is always welcome.

Other Scenarios

There are other situations where having visual tracking skills will be of similar value. Many times, in the process of developing a working relationship with your dog, you may be unsure of whether he is responding to the actual scent of the quarry or phantom scent, perhaps made by an animal¹s passing. For the dog handler to be able to do a quick visual survey and determine by the tracks that the dog is actually on the trail is an invaluable tool to prevent the dog from being conditioned to follow phantom trails.

Learning Visual Tracking

It is not difficult for dog handlers to learn visual tracking.. It requires someone with expertise in the area of both dog tracking and visual tracking. It will likely require a few days formal training in visual tracking. With the basics under your belt, this type of training can be integrated as a regular part of your training routine. There are a number of schools that teach visual tracking. There are few that teach visual tracking specifically for dog handlers. While you will learn to track with the former, the obviously preferred recommendation is to go with someone who understands both.

Using dog handlers as visual trackers can both speed the dog tracking team down the trail and it can give the handler confidence in his dog. Using visual tracking to increase training effectiveness also means a faster time down the trail. As a wise dog tracker once told me, its not about tracking, its about finding. And in the shortest possible time. Any advantage you can gain will only help make that statement true. Using visual tracking along with dog tracking can be one such advantage.
Originally published in Blackwater Weekly