Tracking dogs commonly work for police or hunter and dog lovers, various dog competitions are usually held by Schutzhund clubs.
Just for fun, you can also train your dog in tracking at home.
Dogs are gifted by nature with an amazing ability to smell, they can find hidden things easily other than humans but some training and motivation are required.
Some dog tracking training games and tricks will help your canine to learn things with fun. You just need to read this article fully to know the process and some tips.
Search Dog Training
The most important step to train your dog in search training proper selection of breed.
The golden rule here always chooses a large nose breed, the nose is an important part of a dog’s ability to scent in general.
Now, in training, you should first go with socialization training in simple words your dog have to explore thing as much as possible.
To familiar with other dogs, trees, roads, and other human beings with their smell.
The second method is the object method there you need is your dog’s favorite toy, smell your dog that toy and hide somewhere in your house.
Now, give command your dog to find that once your dog finds that reward him like his favorite food.
Again, hide that toy somewhere else and give a command to find that then follow the same action. After some time, your dog will search for anything you want.
Scent Tracking Dog training
Scent tracking training you can start with your dog in a park or other open field with no distractions.
All you need is your dog’s favorite food or toy, place food in a straight line on every foot. Do not forget to place a jackpot of food at the end of that straight line.
Now give your dog the command to “find it” or “track it” and walk behind your dog to get into the track.
If your dog lost track you need to gently guide your dog to the next treat in the line if working finds then remain silently behind until your dog finds the jackpot of treat.
Whenever your dog giving you a positive response increase the distance of treating food.
Dog Tracking Training For Beginners
Good news for beginners who want to teach their puppy or adult dog tracking like a professional trainer, dogs have God gifted power of sniffing.
Since they were born when their eyes were not opened yet, they track their mother with this sniffing power. You just need to follow the below-given checklist:
- Select a backyard or open place at your home or outside field without any distraction (loud noise or any other pet).
- Before performing any training session warm-up your dog with some toy fetching exercise. It will make your dog excited to perform the next task.
- Sniff your dog some food or his favorite toy and hide somewhere in your home or any other place but not so far in the beginning. Now ask your dog to find that.
- Dog leash training will help your dog to learn faster, put leash clip-in dog’s collar stand with your dog from the beginning point of tracking and ask your dog to track toy or food.
- Most important do not be aggressive with your dog while training, take a break and start again with a fresh mood.
Blood Tracking Dog Training
As we already mentioned in our article Search and rescue dog training.
The sense of smell of a dog is 100,000,000 times more powerful than humans and a dog can sniff a drop of blood in 55 gallons of water.
Training your dog in blood tracking does not mean you spray some blood drops and expect your dog to find the target.
First scent your dog his favorite treat on any track and run behind him with a long leash (15 to 25 feet long because you cannot run as fast as they run) until he finds the target.
Do this training session for 2 – 3 weeks 1 or 2 hours each day to following the correct scent trail. The animal or human scent is involved in the blood, scent is the only thing you should focus on while training.
Many of us unfairly believe that dogs scent blood but that is not true my friend.
Deer Tracking Dog Training
As you already know the dog has a sensitive nose on the planet.
Their nose lock deer scent inside and your dog won’t take rest until he finds the deer. First, make sure deer hunting is legal in your state before shooting any deer.
Some hunter wants their dog on a leash while tracking wounded deer some other wants run free to track.
Create a short straight line with beef liver (easily available in the market), just drag the liver to make that straight line.
Now, scent liver five to six times to fix the smell in your dog’s mind. Now, let your dog run on the straight line to find the liver, and when your dog completes the target give him a treat at the end of the line.
When your dog is master in tracking straight line scent, move the target a bit (in number 90 degree) and make a difficult task for your dog.
After some time, your dog will be master and you can replace beef liver with deer blood.
How to Give Tracking Training at Home
You do not need to leave your house for dog tracking training, you can teach your dog at your home with some games.
Here are some games, you will require some food like a hot dog or something and hide it in your house in two to three places.
When your dog finds one, he will start finding other hidden food with scent. For the second game, you will require 4 glass and put some tasty treat under anyone of them.
Now call your dog near you and give him the command to “find it” once your dog finds the treat praise him by saying “good find it”.
The third game could be “find dinner” in this game you hide your dog’s dinner and some parts you can offer to your dog.
When your dog won’t get enough dinner as always, he gets, he will start finding that, and once he finds the dinner. The next day change the place of dinner.
These are three games you can play with your dog for fun and teach him to track at home.
How Do You Start a Dog Scent Training?
Professional dog trainer uses the same method which you are going to learn in the article. So, you can buy birch essential oil, easily available in the nearby market.
Apply some drops of oil on a cotton ball and also apply some drops on a towel or other cloth.
Now, hide the cotton ball and show the scent of oil which you applied on the towel and give command your dog to “find that” and once your dog finds the cotton ball always remember to give some treat.
You can use your leather keychain with keys throw it when your dog watching you and give the command to find it.
When your dog finds that reward him with food or his favorite toy.
What Do Tracking Dogs Do?
Tracking dogs are used to track the missing people and police also use these dogs to collect the evidence.
In any natural disaster in the environment like the collapse of a building, earthquake dogs are used to find the injured and missing people.
For hunters dog tracking training means track the animal which is shot by them.
There are many ways to train your dog as a tracking dog at home, you can buy any book or from the internet, you can train your dog.
From birth when dogs don’t open their eyes, sniffing power they get naturally and that makes dogs strong animal in tracking people and animals.
Police Dog Tracking Training
German Shepard is the breed that is used in dog tracking training in the police department. If you see the history German Shepard serves military and other law enforcement agencies.
Nowadays it is possible to train any dog as a police dog. The most common uses for police dogs guard their handler and track down the criminal with sniffing skills.
At the airport, you will find the trained dogs with police personnel to detect drugs in the luggage.
Police dogs are trained by the handler with a specific command like they playing a game but they are at work.
These dogs are trained not to bite the target but they do not release the target until the handler gives the command.
Some dogs are trained to give bark alerts to their handler when they find the suspect’s current location.
Most police dogs live with police officers and spend lots of time interacting with dogs. This bond helps both police officers and dogs work together as a team and they can trust each other.
A dog needs good training to work properly and a police officer can take all control over the dog.
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