Kyle Warren Dogs

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Safety
The truth is you are in the wrong line of work if you are truly concerned for your safety. I’m joking here, but not entirely. Prior to going out into the field, be aware of any known environmental hazards.

Safety equipment. I know many people recommend wearing safety glasses, but most of them haven’t been behind a trailing dog — or I wonder what their secret is. Within 5 minutes, my safety glasses are so fogged up that I’m at more risk of running into trees and injuring myself at that point. So I do recommend that you protect yourself, but glasses pose problems for many handlers. I prefer to wear a ball cap, and as I go through heavy brush either use my free arm as a close head shield, or angle my head downward so I can just see my dog and where I’m walking while going through the eye-poking vegetation.
I do wear high visibility clothing if I’m trailing in an urban environment. And if in an urban environment, the handler should have at least one safety flanker for managing traffic.

Have the utmost control over your dog. In an urban environment, you may often need the dog to stop promptly at streets. In wilderness environments, you may need to let go of the lead at times when going down steep hills, on uneven terrain and through dense brush. In all of these cases, the dog needs to be able to stop on command and resume working when commanded to do so.  In these situations I have an actual command for this: “wait.” Once I the coast is clear or I have gathered up the lead then we immediately resume.  The wait command basically means to pause or freeze.

Water. Bring water for you and your dog.  Make your flankers lighten the load by carrying a bottle or two. We’ll go over resting your dog in a future section but in short, give the dog frequent water breaks, cool her off and moisten those nasal passages.

Radios. You and your flanker should both have two-way radios to communicate — so if distance starts to increase between the two of you, then you are covered.

Lights. Night trailing must always have at least three light sources.  This way if one goes dead, you are still covered. It is good to have a strong, long-range LED light, and a good quality headlamp. Make sure your flanker is close to you because they must keep you informed of any hazards that they might see on the GPS topo map that you may not be able to see.

First aid. Of course, always bring a first aid kit for both you and your 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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Conditioning. Both the handler and dog need to be in outstanding physical condition to perform well at trailing.  Unless, you have slow and methodical dogs, you will need to strengthen those legs and get that cardio improved.  Running, hiking, swimming, etc. are all great forms of exercise for the dog but there’s really only way one to get into shape for trailing — and that is simply to trail!

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The find and reward. Many people have their trailing dog give a trained indication upon finding the subject.  I certainly can see this being useful for law enforcement scenarios, where you don’t have any idea what the person looks like. But for search and rescue, it should not be a problem.  I personally don’t have a trained indication with my dog, but I do always wait to have the subject reward her until she intently stares at them or jumps on them.  I have the subject play with the dog for a good five minutes prior to me stepping in and playing with her.  If my subject is a terrific playmate, then they can play all the way back to the truck whether it’s 5 minutes or 30 minutes.  I then put the dog up in the truck with lots of praise, and that’s a wrap.  Dogs don’t work for free. So make sure they get paid!

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Handler Attitude. Most trailing people will agree that one of the key components to a successful trailing team is the attitude that the handler projects while trailing.  Confidence and enthusiasm has everything to do with it!  It is very difficult for handlers to get over that insecurity on blind trails, tests and searches.  As handlers, we have to embrace the fact that in these situations we must trust our dog and what they are telling us.  We have trained them the best we can — and this is a time to just trust what we have done. If they are going to mess up, there’s nothing we can do about it when we have no idea where the trail is or where it goes.  So take a deep breath, shake it off, and try to have fun.

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My introduction of teaching a trailing dog how to scent discriminate occurs in this exercise with true cross tracks.  All of my tracks are flagged.  Understand to do this cleanly, I feel that these tracks should be under an hour old in good trailing scent conditions so we can be confident that the demands that we are putting on a green dog are reasonable and clearly understood.  If done on older tracks in less than favorable scent conditions— the dog is not wrong for veering away from the track because there absolutely is scent away from the track and certainly may not be more present on the track if older.  On hot tracks I can ensure that in good scent conditions that the dog can acknowledge track odor present and follow it for the most part, so that’s where this is taught at first.  I like to run clean perpendicular cross tracks (even have my cross trackers double back if need be) this is because when my trailing dog hits that clear line of another person’s tracks (whose tracks are half the age of my subject’s tracks; therefore potentially more inviting to follow) the behavior change should be pronounced.  I can “ask my dog the question” after committing 5-15 feet down the contaminator’s track.  If and when the dog gives me a negative upon asking or on its own I’ll then cast the dog back from where we came into the subject’s track.  This will help pattern the dog to do this when in these situations. When the dog recommits to the subject’s track and appears confident then “ask the question” again and give praise as the dog digs into the track.  Merging and veering off contamination training is more advanced because by that time I want the dog to have tightened up its decision-making process on a cross track that just comes and goes rather than comes, stays, then goes.

My second exercise occurs at the start of the track.  I have three people all head in different directions, one of them being my subject.  I’ll then line handle and “ask the question” and follow through with those procedures as necessary.  This is a clean start, again— where the dog can continue on understanding a confusing job.

Practicing negative area starts are really important!  This makes your dog that much more reliable and can satisfy a lot of handler insecurity.  Set up a track with someone who is NOT your subject.  Your subject should not have been in this area for at least two weeks to be on the safe side. This exercise enables you to try to teach your dog NOT to jump trail and to “ask the question” when they go to take the bait track.  I would only do this for 5 minutes or so until the dog seems to ignore or pull itself off the bait tracks more easily and quickly.  Then you can increase the number of bait tracks and the time up to 10 minutes.  I really would not push the dog in this exercise any longer than that.  Once satisfied with that go make your dog happy by putting it up in the truck—driving down the road a mile and giving it an easy quarter mile straight let trail to do that’s no terribly old.

Scent discrimination can get real interesting with this exercise.  Start off with three people, one of them being your subject.  The subject leaves first, then 15-30 minutes after the subject leaves the contaminators go out on their routes.  After the first 100 yards— one contaminator continues to go straight, where the subject made a 90 degree turn.  The second contaminator makes a 90 degree turn where the subject did and on the second leg after 100 yards— the second contaminator makes another 90 degree turn, which will run parallel with the first contaminator’s track.  The subject’s trail should continue to go straight for at least a quarter mile to get into a real clean easy territory for a nice finish in mind.

This is an exercise that is natural in an urban environment but I believe that a wilderness environment creates a slightly different mentality in dogs when it comes to scent discriminating.  I feel that my dog hones in on her subject out of many human odors in an urban environment and just continues in that highly focused thinking mindset. Whereas I have seen many dogs besides my own take much more interest in another set of tracks in the wilderness because it is a hotter track.  I think the hot track is unanticipated and a pleasant surprise to many of them.  If they were in the wild they would be trailing deer and if they were on an hour old deer trail and came across a 15 minute old deer trail which one do you think the wolf would take?!  This is where tracking/trailing because artificial.  So remember that when teaching your dog.  All of these exercises must be laid out as cleanly as possible to get the foundational education in prior to a large variety within these exercises.  In this exercise the dog often will first look at anyone just to get the toy.  This is where some people like to teach an indication with their trailing dog.

I feel that this is one of the more challenging wilderness scent discrimination exercises.  When the dog is on trail of some old scent and working well and hard and then there is a lone person/contaminator standing near the track up wind of where the dog is— the dog usually will take interest due to hot human scent.  I would “ask the question” multiple times and sternly if needed to try to get the dog to recommit to trailing.  You’ll also get a visual distraction out of this once you get within sight of this person.  Just keep on working and stick to good handling practices.  Make sure that the dog trails about a one-third mile before and after the distraction.

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