Sniffing Around Scent Work

Last fall I attended an introductory class on Mantrailing, given by  Mantrailing Global, an organization started in Germany which teaches Mantrailing as a sport. It was almost instantly addicting, Yeti “got it” immediately, as did many dogs that I saw that first weekend. I loved that the starting process taps into the natural love that most dogs have for chasing things, and most of this sport takes place outside, often in wooded areas. (Here is the link to the post I wrote about that first introduction seminar, complete with videos)

This past week, Mantrailing Global returned to Texas to give an Instructor Training course, for those who want to teach Mantrailing, and after a bit of trepidation, I signed up for it.

It was not being a held at a particularly convenient time, since I was committed to judge the weekend before, and it required me to take a full week of my precious Paid Time Off from the day job, BUT this is a European operation, and the opportunity for the instructor certification so close to me might not appear again.

So I packed our bags and found a nice little Airbnb place to stay, and loaded all three dogs into the car and drove down to Houston. I joined a group of eight other aspiring instructors gathered to learn the ins and outs of training this arcane art.

For those of you not familiar with Mantrailing, it is training the dog to find a particular person, using his nose. It is similar to tracking, but in tracking, you teach the dog to follow only the scent on the ground, and the ultimate goal is for the dog to find a dropped article. In trailing the dog uses whatever information he can find (in the air, on the ground, etc.) so it is much more natural for him, and the ultimate goal is to have the dog find a specific person—not just anyone, but the person who matches the scent article at the start of the trail.

We had lots of lecture and drilling in the starting stages of the process, and we will be expected to keep up with continuing education as we get to the more advanced levels.

The game starts with what is called an “intensity trail,” in which one person (the trail layer) shows the dog that she has food for him, gets him excited, then drops a scent article (usually an article of clothing, like a hat) runs away and hides. The dog is then encouraged to sniff the article and find the person. We gradually make the process more difficult by making the trail longer, putting in more turns, hiding the trail layer in different ways, etc. Eventually the dog will take scent from the article without seeing the trail layer, and at the higher levels of the game, the dog will have to distinguish the trail layer’s trail from one or more other people’s trails.

The training is generally lots of fun for the dogs, as they get to run after people, and get lots of food at the end of the trail (not just a few measly treats). A lot of dogs seem to intuitively understand the goal, although, like anything else, some will take longer than others to catch on.

In the class we also had drilling on problem solving different scenarios, and proper coaching techniques. In the last two days, we had to do five assessments of our teaching skills, and a two hour written exam consisting mostly of essay questions. It has been a very long time since I had to answer essay questions on any subject… I am happy to say that I passed with a fairly high score.

Now to organize myself so I can give some introduction classes and get some nice trailing sessions going for the summer. This is going to be a lot of fun!

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