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Evading tracking dogs

26K views 198 replies 107 participants last post by  OldBlackWater  
#1 ·
Anyone had to escape and evade from tracking dogs?
How did you do this?
 
#110 ·
^^^ This works best. Also beef jerkey will lead them off your trail.

If you are also near water, like a river or creek, then that will work best given that tracking dogs, especially blood hounds will lose your sent once you go into the water.

Just make sure that the water is high enough to cover your tracks. If they can see your muddy show prints then they won't need tracking dogs to follow you.
 
#20 ·
I was a K-9 handler for a Search and Rescue team during the late 80's and early 90's. This is from my experience.



This, people have tried every trick in the book but you can't fool a dogs nose.
Their sense of smell is incomprehensible to us as humans.

Myth busters tried every trick they could think of in an episode dedicated to that. They dropped distracting scents, showered, de-conned and wore odor absorbing clothes, ran across water... The dog always found him. Your only sure bet is to get in a car and drive away. Far away...
It was actually a couple of good episodes that you can probably catch on Netflix or Youtube to show all the tricks they tried to use to fool the dogs.
None of which worked BTW.

Kill the dogs faster than they can bring them in. That's the only way I can see to deal with a hound.
This might work but then you just bring in the black helicopters. ;)

I'd think finding a body of water would be your best bet. They can't smell too good in the water.
This is a bit of a myth, water displaces smells but it doesn't cover them up. We had a drowning case about 1990? that involved a victim the Multnomah County Sheriffs office was searching for downstream, we used the dogs and they eventually alerted on a spot probably a mile or two up river from where the search was going on. They sent in divers and found the body had snagged and hung up in that location. That one surprised even me as a handler, the dogs alerted on a drowning victim that was 15-20 feet underwater and alerted on the decomposition gas bubbles coming to the surface of the water.

I read somewhere - burnt coffee grounds?
Been tried, it's a myth, dogs can still distinguish odors through coffee.

Jump off a cliff with parachute and land in a moving convertible car like James Bond drive to Vegas and celebrate. Or do the transporter beam like on Star Trek. That's about the only sure way i can think of.
This may actually be one of your best bets. Get away! very far and very fast.
If you are on foot you are not likely to get away.

Someone once said the best way to beat a tracking dog is to disable the handler. Apparently the dog is trained to stay with the handler if they go down.

Using a vehicle, even a bicycle to move, will break your physical contact with the ground but your scent will still drift to nearby surfaces and stick.
Although I would not appreciate getting shot, downing the handler would stop the dog, at least that particular dog. Which just brings you back to post C - Black Helicopters. And keep in mind that for tougher man hunts they usually call in more dogs than just one. ;)

they also stated that they DIDN'T use cayenne because they didn't want to destroy the dogs sense of smell for up to 6 months they did try black pepper.
Yes, for the show, out of courtesy to the dogs they didn't use Cayenne.
It would have definitely been an irritant to the dogs but I doubt it would have stopped them from succeeding.

There are two documentaries on Dogs if you are interested that talk about the amazing sense of smell that dogs have, if you are interested in understanding more about this. One is by Nova - Dogs Decoded and the other by National Geographic - Science of Dogs. You can probably catch them on Netflix or Youtube by now.

In one of them they document some Russian trained bomb dogs used in their airports that were perportedly able to detect one scent particle per million.

Good luck with your E&E. :thumb:

Be Prepared, :)
OBW

.
 
#8 ·
Myth busters tried every trick they could think of in an episode dedicated to that. They dropped distracting scents, showered, de-conned and wore odor absorbing clothes, ran across water... The dog always found him. Your only sure bet is to get in a car and drive away. Far away...
Sure, but 6 months later and 3000 miles away the dog shows up at your front door.
 
#12 ·
One other way that depends on where you are. If you are in bear country you might be able to cook some bacon and attract enough bears into the area to force a bear/dog/handler confrontation. With luck the bear will eat the dogs and shred the handler.

My luck would be i would run into the hungry bear and he would chase me towards the dogs that would then bite the crapolia out of me. Then i would get tazed by the handler, and the cops would beat the heck out of me. All for not wanting to give up my firearms. Hate it when that happens!!:eek:
 
#67 ·
One other way that depends on where you are. If you are in bear country you might be able to cook some bacon and attract enough bears into the area to force a bear/dog/handler confrontation. With luck the bear will eat the dogs and shred the handler.
OldBlackWater didn't comment on this, so I have added my solar microwave to my BOB so I can do the bacon on the fly. Lack of comment is pretty good indication it might work! LOL. :cool:

As to black helicopters; I can't count the number that went down in Vietnam from a single rifle shot through hydraulic lines at the bottom center of the main rotor. I was, and still am flabbergasted that a 50 cent 30-30 round would do that. If they are lucky they can fly home, if not they can auto-rotate - but either way, they are done for the day. :taped:
 
#18 ·
I would think back tracking, walking in circles, and doubling back would be enough to throw off a dog. I mean think about it, the dog can ONLY go off of the sent you leave behind on your path. He can't smell you where you are at unless you are directly up wind from him, which is doubtful.

If your path stopped and goes back the same way it started, the dog would have to back track. Then you make all these "splintering" side tracks off of your main path. The dog has to choose which one to follow. If you keep back tracking then the dog has to back track and go back to another path and follow that one. Eventually, if you had enough tracks running about in a certain area, it might confuse the dog as he is only trained to follow a linear path of scent.

You can't mask your scent from a dog because it's nose is too powerful. But you can trick it's brain because it's brain is relatively weak.
 
#23 ·
Driving away in a car works -- police tracking dogs lose scent this way all the time. Assuming quick transport away or shooting the dog/handler was not an option, I can only think of two ways....one very painful to the dogs and another deadly, so I think I will keep them to myself. I can think of very few reasons, which are highly unlikely to occur, to legitimately be evading scent dogs.
 
#24 ·
As with so many things the answer to this post is, “It depends.”

What is the weather like? (Pray for rain and high winds.)

Is it day or night?

What is the terrain like? (The jungle favors the fugitive while open ground favors the trackers.)

How many trackers are there and how are they equipped? (One road deputy with his K-9 or ten SWAT teams, it makes a difference.)

Are the trackers motivated? (Is the fugitive a cop-killer or a shoplifter?)

Are the trackers military, police or contractors? (Different levels of risk tolerance combined with differing levels of training and discipline will affect the intensity of the manhunt.)

Do the trackers have air assets loitering and available? (FLIR equipped aircraft make the fugitive’s job more difficult. Once again the fugitive should pray for rain, low ceilings and high winds.)

Has lethal force been used? (Once blood has been drawn the intensity of the manhunt increases exponentially. If the incident has gone “kinetic” then rules change for both the hunters and the hunted.)

In a Manhunt most tracking dogs will be kept “on-leash” because there is too much risk to the dog if it closes with the fugitive absent its handler to protect it.
Operating “on-Leash” the tracker dog is limited to the pace of the handler. This works in favor of the fugitive because it becomes a cross country foot-race and test of stamina. (You’ll never physically outlast a dog.)

You can never beat the dog’s nose. As the fugitive your best bet is to work on beating the handler. By doubling back, creek walking, crawling through berry patches and fence jumping you’ll wear out the handler and possibly cause the handler to lose confidence in the dog.

Very often the role of the tracker dog team isn’t to apprehend the fugitive but rather to drive him into ambushes or force him to cross open areas where he can be spotted for closer pursuit or shot. The tracker dog team’s mission is to keep pressure on the fugitive, to wear him out physically and mentally in a hope that he’ll lose his resolve to escape and eventually surrender. This is often the outcome.
 
#25 ·
After many years owning hounds, Blueticks ,Black and tans, Walkers,english. Julys ,Bloodhounds And beagles.Nothing will cover ALL your scent.I had a walker bitch that would sight trail (in snow) until scent improved.I have seen 20 plus hr old tracks worked out.I have been on a track that crossed a river 6 times then crossed 3 diffrent streams to be treed almost where it started.Then the same dog backtracked to where he had crossed other tracks while trailing original track and treed them too.So im not a gonna agree with a dogs mind is a simple thing.I have seen dogs sprayed in the face by a skunk kill the skunk then hunt and tree game all night.For over 10 years i hunted over 200 days and nights a year.A well trained hound is a amazing creature.Man i miss those days.
 
#26 ·
Well it seems the only definite way would be to be much fitter and have more endurance than the handler, seems the handler is the weak link, he will be slower than the dog.
And then go hard and fast as you can, to outrun the handler, but not always in a straight line, as they might work out where you are heading too and put in a blocking force.
But then you would have to have a way to exit the area eventually, such as a bicycle stashed somewhere, even a trail bike, as if they really want you they might track you for days.
And just hope you don't get a handler who runs marathons on his days off just for fun.
Although is seems that the dog would first have to cross your scent for it to take off after you, maybe just hole up and hope it doesn't find your scent trail.
I mean if they know where you started from then they would have the scent trail pinpointed, but in the situation where they knew you were somewhere out in the woods but not where exactly then the dog would have to go hunting for your scent trail, and then I think the best thing may be to hole up so you don't leave any further scent trail.
And hope it suddenly starts raining like hell!
 
#28 ·
In college I volunteered to help train tracking dogs. A few of the people had it right - make it as hard as possible on the handler(dog doesn't care). Some tricks I picked up depend on the dog( skirting upwind side of a thicket or bog), others are almost as hard on you as the handler(rough terrain). One thing I was able to do pretty consistently was making a long button hook back on the downwind side of your trail when you pass an area with both good concealment and observation of your trail.Do the button hook,wait and watch for the dog to pass, cross back over your trail then change directions according to the wind. Of course this could also be used as an ambush site ( something we did occasionally with attack trained dogs). One last tip I can give is that your body position is important- squatting leaves a lot more scent than standing or leaning at the waist. You can use this both ways to avoid it as much as possible or use it as a funnel toward.........
 
#29 ·
I have been a SAR K9 handler for over 25 years. My dogs air scent. Don't matter where you have been, all I gotta do is get down wind of you.
Snow, rain, and water just make it easier for me. It holds the scent down closer to the ground.
We have tried lots of tricks to evade a dog, nothing consistantly works. Training gets very boring so we really try to mix things up:D:
Running down a creek makes an easy day. You are slow, wet and probably cold. My dogs walk the banks and can easily keep up. Leave the creek and you leave an easily found trail.
The only hope you got is a hot, humid, windless day. This is gonna take it's toll on you as well as the dogs and me, so it's a push.
If working a LE case, I will be armed. An attack on my dog is considered an attack on me ;)
 
#30 ·
The key to beating a dog is beating those who are handling him.

shy from killing the dog, which means one is close enough to do so, the only other hope I see is that the handler has had way too much linguini and simply cannot keep up with me.
 
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#31 ·
That's what I was getting at when I said a lot depends on the dog.Air scent dogs to me were a little easier to lead,but you had to be very carefull of the winds direction and where the dog was. Ground scent dogs were slower but sometimes harder to fool, and the handler had to know how to take up the slack when the trail was cold or just not there anymore.

My experience was just a few years running and in the bite sleeve,but from what I've seen you can slow them down some ,maybe lead them somewhere ,but to stop'em you gotta kill'em.