Excellent example of how a dog can air scent a subject shortly after the start of the trail and why you need to pay attention to the body language. I almost did not go through with this air scent because I felt the trail could not end so near. This could have been a very bad error on my part if I would have let my mind override the K9. The trail layer had laid almost a 1/2 mile track and accidentally circled almost back to the start without knowing it. This is also a perfect example of what I believe to be very bad certification standards in some areas. I have seen numerous Trailing certifications where the dog will be disqualified if it air scents to the subject and cuts the track. In my opinion this is a cardinal sin. We are training the dogs to find people by scent. We cannot dictate what the dog defaults to when working scent. Sometimes it is a trail, sometimes it is ground disturbance, and sometimes it is air scent. Dogs go through all of them seamlessly and with little effort. It is how will Canids catch prey. If they were made only to follow the track or trail they would not survive. Consequently, the response to air scent is instinctual and cannot be turned off. Nor should attempts be made to turn it off. In doing so, we negate the dogs natural instinct to find by scent thereby reducing its effectiveness as a search tool. Shut down the air scent response too often and you will create a dog that simply follows your guiding regardless of whether it is good or bad. Generally speaking, it is the latter as we have no ability to detect what the dogs do and should not think that we can. If the dog defaults to air scent during a certification then it means that the trail probably was set up poorly. The map attached to the end of this video is an example of a poorly set up trail if trailing is what we wanted to do. However, it was double blind and that it its own right provided a learning experience for me that obviously needed reinforcing. Even after 20 years I still make mistakes. Jeff youtu.be/wQRPq2bW5sk
Posted on: Sun, 26 Oct 2014 16:04:02 +0000
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