Handling a trailing dog
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Line Handling
Casting. Casting is strategically navigating the dog through or around its environment to gain scent at the start of the trail, or to regain scent after the dog has given the handler a negative, or when the dog has scent but is having a problem establishing a direction of travel. During casting, the lead may be taut or loose. The dog has not committed to a direction or trail while casting; it is looking to do so.
Loose or taut? This is a highly debatable topic. In my experience I have not seen any handler maintain a constantly loose lead, or alternate from a loose lead to a taut lead, and be successful on the trail. Not to say that it cannot be done, but it poses some significant challenges. I believe that the best communication between handler and dog always occurs when the lead is consistently taut, and the dog is absorbing the same presentation from the handler. This makes for a true “line of communication.” And I try to keep the lead on the same side of my body as the hand holding it.
Asking the Question. There are several different methods to teaching a trailing dog to communicate with you. The method that I feel is best is asking the question— “ Are you on trail? Are you in scent of your subject?” What this system offers the handler is a way to simply communicate with the dog as to whether it is in scent or out of scent.
I prefer to be approximately 7-9 feet behind my dog while trailing, and will often give her the entire 15 feet of rope while casting. The handler should hold the lead as if holding a coffee mug — in front of you, with the lead entering your closed fist from the bottom up. To ask the dog the question: With a slow, steady inward torque on the lead you want to say your track command in a passive tone. The handler’s wrist should twist down, and in doing so, your pinky is moving toward your stomach or chest. The amount of additional tension created by asking the question will vary from dog to dog based on the “hardness” of the dog.
It is normal for the dog to stop trailing and look at you when you do this the first few times. Just encourage the dog to get back to work, and perhaps ask the question with a little less pressure.
Praise. There are only two times where I will give the dog verbal praise while trailing.
One is when we are on trail/ in scent when I ask the dog the question, and the dog digs in and surges forward into the trail. It should take about a full second or slightly longer to ask the question — pause with the additional tension on the lead for just one second to see how the dog responds. As the handler, you must release the additional tension on the lead in the same manner that you created the tension, saying “goood”— in a passive and positive tone. Obviously, to teach this correctly the trails must be completely known trails.
The other time is when the dog veers off trail and you ask the question — and the dog responds by giving you a negative. Once the dog gets this communication down, you should be able to rely on your dog telling you whether it is in scent or not when you ask.
Timing. I only ask my dog the question when she is committed and pulling into the harness for 15-30 feet. The timing of asking the dog the question is based on distance, depending on how long it takes her to regain scent from a troubleshooting area of the trail. In these situations, I usually wait a little longer because the dog is unsure until she really sorts out the scent picture more clearly. If the dog glues itself to the trail quickly and is confident, then I’ll ask sooner rather than later.
When to teach asking the question. This method is best taught on younger trails, such as 20-60 minute old trails. This is because most often we can guarantee that our target odor will be directly in the track of the subject. This enables the handler to read the dog more clearly — and communicate more clearly as well. Do make sure to try to do this on days that are not really windy, as wind will make this more difficult in the foundational stages.
When running these trails, if the dog gets a full lead length off the actual track you can ask the question. If the dog then continues to dig in and travels away from the track, you can ask it more assertively. But don’t change the amount of tension in the lead when asking the question. By asking in these situations, I can call the dog’s bluff — because I know where the track is and that there is scent available.
It is common for the dog to veer back towards the track after you ask more assertively. If the dog continues to surge away from the track after asking assertively several times, then you could give a verbal “Pfui” or whatever your equivalent “No” command would be. Do the best you can in these situations to not give line checks. The more I am around trailing dogs, the more I feel that lead corrections are often more harmful to the task than helpful. So I will give a line check for known distractions like animal remains, but not for too many other things. Usually if the dog stops and smells the same spot for more than few seconds, it is likely not the rafts of your subject.
Pace. As I follow the dog, I don’t slow down my pace when asking the question, even if veering off trail. This will cue the dog. I want the dog to give me a negative, at which time I give the dog praise: “goood” — in a more passive and positive tone. Then I cast the dog back from where we came in the direction of the track. Once the dog hits the track and drives into it, wait until it has taken the track 15 feet or more prior to asking the question.
Steering your dog. Steering occurs when the dog starts to drift to one side or the other on trail, and the handler does not stay behind their dog. So the dog will feel tension on its harness from the side the handler is on. On an unknown trail, the dog may possibly be steered off the trail. On a known trail, the handler is forcing the dog to go back to the track. But this is an incorrect method (and in this situation, unintentional).
This is a very common problem and handlers need to be doing almost as much side-to-side motion at times as forward motion.
Negatives. A negative is when your dog pops its head up or becomes noncommittal due to a loss or lack of scent. When the dog gives you a clear negative that you can read, you should immediately give the dog praise and cast the dog back from where you came. The handler will also get negatives when there are surface changes — but know that if there are gaps in the scent picture and / or a huge change in the scent picture, the dog will pop its head up as it enters this terrain change. Make sure to cast forward and wide in these situations.
Aged trails. Asking the dog the question evolves a bit as we enter the world of aged trails. This is because due to the potential for extensive scent movement, and the fact that there could likely be no odor in the actual track of the subject anymore, we give the dog much more flexibility in how true it is to the actual track.
When I ask the question, if the dog is in scent anywhere — and committing to a direction even if it’s a couple hundred of yards away from the track — I’ll still praise the dog and continue to follow it as if this were a blind trail. If the dog has been trained properly at the point where the dog runs out of scent entirely, or the dog can distinguish the difference between a higher and lower concentration of scent, it will give a negative — at which time I’ll look at my weather and terrain, and circle my dog back from where I came in wider and larger casts until I hit the trail again. As long as this happens, the handler should be in fairly good shape.
There are limitations as to what we can demand from the dog, especially since we don’t know exactly where scent is most available on an individual aged trail. Sometimes the dog will exhibit behavior that indicates to the handler that they are directly on top of the track and they are running many yards off of the actual track. This is because the dog has found the “fringe line,” and is riding on that definitive line between no scent and scent. The morphed scent picture between the actual track and the fringe line where the dog is was too difficult to continue to get a direction of travel, given how the rafts moved on that particular trail.
Inadvertent line checks, inconsistent tautness on the lead, and steering your dog are all good reasons why your best trailing dogs are usually going to be independent, confident and have willful personalities. In other words, they’ll look for that trail, regardless of the mess their handler might seem to be making.
Resting the dog. It is very important that you rest the dog periodically. Give it water, and let it re-focus and cool down. I prefer to rest my dog at problem-solving points. After we have been trying to sort it out for a couple minutes or so, I’ll give her the “break” command, which means to stop trailing and return to the handler for a rest. Very often, after taking a rest for 1-5 minutes, the dog, refreshed, will pick up the trail quickly. The other time that I will occasionally break the dog is while she is solid on trail and cruising along. If she has not been rested at all, I may feel that it would be good for her to rest in order to prevent her performance from deteriorating. I may also just have her take a break because she is overdue and just wants to keep going. The dog must be accustomed to stopping and going.
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