Scent Test: Man vs Dog

[dan]

I would expect a well trained dog to find a hunter no matter how good his scent control is. It makes no sense to compare dogs to deer because they are trained/conditioned differently.

A dog is trained to follow even the most faint odor to its source.

A deer in farm country smells humans 24/7/365. He is conditioned to avoid close interactions with humans. Deer on one of my farms are going to smell human scent from the nearby houses all the time. What he is alert for is when that scent no longer seems to be "normal" in terms of intensity, distance, etc. When he feels the scent is encroaching on his territory, he will slink away. He could easily follow even the most minute scent to it's source, just like a dog does, but he is conditioned to do the opposite.

Now, if I can reduce my scent 10-fold, the deer may feel I am 10X further away than I really am. I cannot tell you how often they sense me, stare off past my stand into the distance, and then casually move on, thinking I am 200 yards away rather than 20 yards away.

Your right. A dog is not like a deer. A deer has to survive based on his nose. A dog just gets a treat if he does what he was trained to do... Deer smell much better than dogs and there survival depends on there nose. Nope, a deer probably can't be trained to track anybody, but if a dog can smell the scent to track someone down you can bet the farm a deer can smell it.

[Stanley]

This is an interesting article on a missing girl in our area. Dogs were brought in to find her. They left yesterday saying it was too cold. The dogs could only work for about a half hour and then needed to be brought into a vehicle to warm up. That was on the news last night. They did not find the girl. There is no way she could survive in this bitter cold -10 and 35 MPH winds. Very sad situation.

http://qctimes.com/news/local/canines-j ... a0694.html

[keb]

I've worked around some of theses so called human tracking dogs some good some I could track better with my nose. So I wonder if all deer smell equally, some better than others. A highly trained dog tracks better, so a highly pressured deer would be more in tune with his nose vs a deer that rarely encounters a person.

Not sure that makes sense.

[ Post made via iPad ]

[dan]

I've worked around some of theses so called human tracking dogs some good some I could track better with my nose. So I wonder if all deer smell equally, some better than others. A highly trained dog tracks better, so a highly pressured deer would be more in tune with his nose vs a deer that rarely encounters a person.

Not sure that makes sense.

[ Post made via iPad ]

I think with a dog, its all about training and if they are smart enough to take to the training. They all actually smell equally. But learning what the human wants them to do with the odor is the issue...

Deer too, they all smell our odor, how they react is what differs.

[dreaming bucks]

I've worked around some of theses so called human tracking dogs some good some I could track better with my nose. So I wonder if all deer smell equally, some better than others. A highly trained dog tracks better, so a highly pressured deer would be more in tune with his nose vs a deer that rarely encounters a person.

Not sure that makes sense.

[ Post made via iPad ]

It could be..... maybe that's why we sometime think some deer react differently than others to human scent, maybe some can't smell as well as others? You could be on to something.

[ Post made via Android ]

[JoeRE]

Cool article. Just more evidence that a deer right downwind of you will bust you regardless. I do wish we could train deer somehow so we could get an apples to apples comparison!

Its good that people at least are looking at this, but one thing I find frustrating with these tests is they just test the obvious. Its like asking a person with 20/20 vision to read a newspaper held 18" in front of their face, then asking them to read it wearing sunglasses - a piece of cake given the ability. The mythbusters episode falls into a similar category, as do everything else I have seen.

To confuse a dog (or deer) on a fresh track or right downwind of you, you need to massively decrease your scent - the scent gimmick industry may say you can but I know you cant unless there is literally an impermeable membrane between you (as has been previously discussed rubber and latex are not). I think you can only modestly impact your scent footprint best case scenario. What a scent test needs to look at is the threshold (the minimum level something can be detected), then see if there are differences depending on scent reduction strategies. Anybody found any studies that look at that?

Deer too, they all smell our odor, how they react is what differs.

Thats a good point...I am sure there are small variations in ability to smell but compared to lesser noses such as ours the differences are nothing. I am sure reactions differ just depending on the deer.

[WKPTodd]

Ozonic's work - straight up!!!!

[BigHunt]

Ozonic's work - straight up!!!!

..I just peed my self

[ Post made via Android ]

[DEERSLAYER]

Ozonic's work - straight up!!!!

Here is another quote from four days ago.

Wear what is most comfortable/ warm. They will smell human regardless of what you wear. I have been using nose jammer these last couple years - and it does work. Only one I've found that does, try it out and see for yourself.

[BigHunt]

Ozonic's work - straight up!!!!

Here is another quote from four days ago.

Wear what is most comfortable/ warm. They will smell human regardless of what you wear. I have been using nose jammer these last couple years - and it does work. Only one I've found that does, try it out and see for yourself.

[Southern Man]

Ozonic's work - straight up!!!!

..I just peed my self

[ Post made via Android ]

Me too.....