Proximity Alerts May Be The Last Scent You Have on a Trail! This was a four hour old training trail we ran yesterday and it exemplified how incredibly difficult age trails with a equally aged ending/ scent pool can be. I have written for years that that this is one of the biggest reasons why trailing dogs miss the subject at the end of a trail. The problem is related to early proximity alerts and extremely large scent pools. Handlers must learn how to read their dogs accordingly and have a superior level of geographical awareness to defeat this problem. Sequence of events: The K9 alerts very early due to the extra large 3.5 hour old scent pool. Initially, the trail and scent pool are worked simultaneously. Once the dog is in close, it alerts very strongly and begins to circle the pool in an attempt to locate the scent cone. The aged trail is abandoned for the fresher pool scent. As the scent pool is circled to the weak side, the dog also encounters the old track it followed in. Out of frustration and due to loss of air scent, the dog then follows the track backwards, (from where we cam we from), until a fresh distraction trail is encountered and followed. Ultimately, we stopped the distraction trail and hustled back to the last proximity alert to finish the trail. Thanks to Missy Carter for allowing me to post this training trail for others to learn from. Video to follow. Many will say that a dog should not do what it did if it was working properly. I beg to differ. I have found almost all dogs can and will do this in similar circumstances. So, what is the training solution and why would a dog make this mistake in the first place?
Posted on: Sat, 11 Oct 2014 11:46:22 +0000
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