Explaining Scent Related Dog Tests

[Ranger Matthews]

On the Down South Hunting podcast #14 there is a discussion about several dog tests were a Police dog is used to locate people using a variety of scent reduction methods. No effort at scent reduction, spray down / rubber boots and the full spectrum of scent reduction. The results of those test were the Police dogs found the person using the full spectrum of scent reduction first and the person who made no effort to control their odor last. It is my understanding that his was true for all the tests.

No amount of scent deduction will prevent a Police dog or deer from detecting some amount of human odor, but the results of the tests as they relate to deer hunting are misleading. First off you need to understand that a Police dog and a deer react to odor recognition completely different. A Police dog is trained to detect the smallest amount of odor, determine direction and follow it to its source. A deer detects odor, determines direction and then makes a distance calculation as to how far away the source of the odor is. Based on that distance the deer decides if it's in danger or not. The test measures how long it takes the Police dog to locate the source of the odor, something the deer is almost never going to do with a human.

No one believes a person that has more odor is going to be more difficult for a dog or deer to smell. So what happened in the test? A dog follows odor by detecting the smallest of changes in concentration. Almost like contour lines on a topographic map these changes in concentration essentially tell the dog what way is up and what way is down. If the levels of concentration have little change its more difficult for the dog to determine direction but this can have nothing to do with the amount of odor. Similar to us walking in an area where there is little change in elevation it can be difficult to tell what way is up or down.

A trained K9 will follow the difference in the amount of odor to the source. If there is a large amount of odor it can be difficult for the dog to detect the small variances to determine direction to the source of the odor. An example would be a narcotics detection dog and marijuana. If you bring that dog into a marijuana grow operation the dog will have a very difficult time locating the source of the odor. Due to the abundance of odor the dog will show odor recognition but may have a very difficult time following the odor to its source even though there is an abundance of odor every where. A smaller amount of detectable odor can be be easier for the dog to source because the area that contains odor is so much smaller so the dog doesn’t need to go far to detect if the odor is increasing or decreasing.

The dog experiments when interpreted as they relate to hunting would be. The dog is able to detect the person with no scent reduction but it takes the dog longer to work through the larger amount of odor to find the source. Conversely with scent reduction the dog was able to find the source of the odor quicker because the scent cone is smaller/tighter.

Dogs can tell us a lot about how deer recognize odor and how long odor persists in certain conditions. However any test that measures how long a dog takes to complete a task that would never be required of a deer will have misleading results if directly related to hunting.

[dan]

Its not about the dog finding the person a couple seconds faster, its the fact that no matter what degree of scent control the dog new immeadiatly exactly where the person was when walked down wind of the box containing the hunter. Simply put you cannot fool their nose no matter how much you try to justify the test results.

[Bowhunting Brian]

I think each individual deer reacts differently. From what I have seen while hunting and also learned from the beast, I will never waste any more of my money on another industry "scent killing" product.

[stash59]

Ranger thanx for the explanation. Very interesting. How a deer reacts I feel depends alot on their age and personality. I'm sure reducing human odors will cause some deer to not react to ones presence. But not all. In heavily hunted areas. The bucks that make it to true maturity. Are the flightiest, spookiest, most nervous animals when younger. If they hear, see or smell something they're not sure of. They leave that spot and go else where. They may settle down as they age. But they hardly ever take risks.

For me personally. Not using scent control has more to do with the cost and the fun factor. I'd rather use my money for gas to scout/hunt more places. Not worrying if I've maintained my scent reduction clothes properly is more relaxing/funner.

[Trout]

I think the thing I enjoy most about the freedom from scent control gimmicks is I'm not relying on pixie dust to see deer, I'm relying on woodsmanship. If I get winded, I dont get to blame the fact that I didnt shave my arm pits. Instead I get to figure out how my scent got to the deer and what I could have done differently to avoid that from happening the next time, even if it's in a different place or different conditions.

[dan]

I think the thing I enjoy most about the freedom from scent control gimmicks is I'm not relying on pixie dust to see deer, I'm relying on woodsmanship. If I get winded, I dont get to blame the fact that I didnt shave my arm pits. Instead I get to figure out how my scent got to the deer and what I could have done differently to avoid that from happening the next time, even if it's in a different place or different conditions.

Exactly... To me its more about outsmarting the deer on his own turf, than finding some way to make him defenseless. Personally I wouldn't use it if I did think it worked.

[Ranger Matthews]

Its not about the dog finding the person a couple seconds faster, its the fact that no matter what degree of scent control the dog new immeadiatly exactly where the person was when walked down wind of the box containing the hunter. Simply put you cannot fool their nose no matter how much you try to justify the test results.

Dan-

I completely agree. I just thought the results of the tests were confusing and misunderstood as they relate to hunting. But as you said it is impossible for air to pass over your body and then those particles pass over the dogs nose without them detecting the odor. The only thing that can prevent this is the air current.

[Lockdown]

Many deer have lost their lives due to one scent related product.

DEEP WOODS OFF

The deer don’t like it but neither do the mosquitoes. I couldn’t hunt early season without it.

[greenhorndave]

Many deer have lost their lives due to one scent related product.

DEEP WOODS OFF

The deer don’t like it but neither do the mosquitoes. I couldn’t hunt early season without it.

Permetherin on the clothes is a game changer too.

[dan]

Its not about the dog finding the person a couple seconds faster, its the fact that no matter what degree of scent control the dog new immeadiatly exactly where the person was when walked down wind of the box containing the hunter. Simply put you cannot fool their nose no matter how much you try to justify the test results.

Dan-

I completely agree. I just thought the results of the tests were confusing and misunderstood as they relate to hunting. But as you said it is impossible for air to pass over your body and then those particles pass over the dogs nose without them detecting the odor. The only thing that can prevent this is the air current.

I agree with that... And respect your thoughts and observations. Always good to hear other perspectives.

[Huntress13]

Many deer have lost their lives due to one scent related product.

DEEP WOODS OFF

The deer don’t like it but neither do the mosquitoes. I couldn’t hunt early season without it.

A man at work today smelled like OFF and I wondered if he was doing yard work this morning or if that was some new fancy cologne that he paid $50 for. I almost asked him, and if he said cologne I woulda told him he could get some for $4 at Walgreens.

[Huntress13]

Dogs can tell us a lot about how deer recognize odor and how long odor persists in certain conditions. However any test that measures how long a dog takes to complete a task that would never be required of a deer will have misleading results if directly related to hunting.

This makes a lot of sense. Thanks.

[cspot]

On the Down South Hunting podcast #14 there is a discussion about several dog tests were a Police dog is used to locate people using a variety of scent reduction methods. No effort at scent reduction, spray down / rubber boots and the full spectrum of scent reduction. The results of those test were the Police dogs found the person using the full spectrum of scent reduction first and the person who made no effort to control their odor last. It is my understanding that his was true for all the tests.

No amount of scent deduction will prevent a Police dog or deer from detecting some amount of human odor, but the results of the tests as they relate to deer hunting are misleading. First off you need to understand that a Police dog and a deer react to odor recognition completely different. A Police dog is trained to detect the smallest amount of odor, determine direction and follow it to its source. A deer detects odor, determines direction and then makes a distance calculation as to how far away the source of the odor is. Based on that distance the deer decides if it's in danger or not. The test measures how long it takes the Police dog to locate the source of the odor, something the deer is almost never going to do with a human.

No one believes a person that has more odor is going to be more difficult for a dog or deer to smell. So what happened in the test? A dog follows odor by detecting the smallest of changes in concentration. Almost like contour lines on a topographic map these changes in concentration essentially tell the dog what way is up and what way is down. If the levels of concentration have little change its more difficult for the dog to determine direction but this can have nothing to do with the amount of odor. Similar to us walking in an area where there is little change in elevation it can be difficult to tell what way is up or down.

A trained K9 will follow the difference in the amount of odor to the source. If there is a large amount of odor it can be difficult for the dog to detect the small variances to determine direction to the source of the odor. An example would be a narcotics detection dog and marijuana. If you bring that dog into a marijuana grow operation the dog will have a very difficult time locating the source of the odor. Due to the abundance of odor the dog will show odor recognition but may have a very difficult time following the odor to its source even though there is an abundance of odor every where. A smaller amount of detectable odor can be be easier for the dog to source because the area that contains odor is so much smaller so the dog doesn’t need to go far to detect if the odor is increasing or decreasing.

The dog experiments when interpreted as they relate to hunting would be. The dog is able to detect the person with no scent reduction but it takes the dog longer to work through the larger amount of odor to find the source. Conversely with scent reduction the dog was able to find the source of the odor quicker because the scent cone is smaller/tighter.

Dogs can tell us a lot about how deer recognize odor and how long odor persists in certain conditions. However any test that measures how long a dog takes to complete a task that would never be required of a deer will have misleading results if directly related to hunting.

Spent a lot of years training dogs and I do not completely agree with this. A single human in the woods would not result in a dog having scent overload. There isn't that much scent to cause such a happening. Let's look at something that I think is a good example. Let's take a rabbit and a rut crazed buck that stinks. I think we all would agree that the rut crazed buck emits a lot more scent. Heck we can smell them when entering a thicket. I don't think anyone has said that about a rabbit before. Take a beagle out that likes to run both and you will see that he can run that buck a whole lot faster than he can a rabbit.

Probably even a better example would be a coon hound. You can have identical tracks. 1 that is 3 hrs old and one that is 10 minutes old. The dog will run the one that is 10 minutes old a heck of a lot faster under the same scenting conditions than the one that is 3 hrs old. The reason being is that there is more scent to follow. A fresh track has a whole scent stream to follow. As it gets older or less scent then that stream isn't as big and from wind and other factors may have missing sections to it. On a "hot" track that has a lot of scent a lot of dogs aren't even exactly on the track of the animal. They will fluctuate from side to side as they are running the animal. On a cold track they can't do that as easily. Go out behind some coonhounds on some fresh snow and you will see it.

The dogs do follow variance in scent but that is there whether the track is 5 min old or 5 hours.

As far as your example of the marijuana grow operation. If the dog is in the middle of the grow, didn't he already find the source? Scent overload can happen but it would take a lot of scent for that to happen. It would take a lot of subjects in a small area. I don't see that happening in these tests.

Environmental conditions that affect scent have a far bigger impact on a dogs ability to follow a track or air scent an animal. An example of this would be a beagle running a rabbit in the brush. He can be tearing it up chasing the critter even though it is cutting and changing direction. The rabbit comes out of the brush and runs a straight line down a muddy cow path. The scent which was strong in the brush is now really weak on the muddy path. The beagle struggles the whole way down the cow path until he gets to where the rabbit cuts back into the brush.

[Ranger Matthews]

On the Down South Hunting podcast #14 there is a discussion about several dog tests were a Police dog is used to locate people using a variety of scent reduction methods. No effort at scent reduction, spray down / rubber boots and the full spectrum of scent reduction. The results of those test were the Police dogs found the person using the full spectrum of scent reduction first and the person who made no effort to control their odor last. It is my understanding that his was true for all the tests.

No amount of scent deduction will prevent a Police dog or deer from detecting some amount of human odor, but the results of the tests as they relate to deer hunting are misleading. First off you need to understand that a Police dog and a deer react to odor recognition completely different. A Police dog is trained to detect the smallest amount of odor, determine direction and follow it to its source. A deer detects odor, determines direction and then makes a distance calculation as to how far away the source of the odor is. Based on that distance the deer decides if it's in danger or not. The test measures how long it takes the Police dog to locate the source of the odor, something the deer is almost never going to do with a human.

No one believes a person that has more odor is going to be more difficult for a dog or deer to smell. So what happened in the test? A dog follows odor by detecting the smallest of changes in concentration. Almost like contour lines on a topographic map these changes in concentration essentially tell the dog what way is up and what way is down. If the levels of concentration have little change its more difficult for the dog to determine direction but this can have nothing to do with the amount of odor. Similar to us walking in an area where there is little change in elevation it can be difficult to tell what way is up or down.

A trained K9 will follow the difference in the amount of odor to the source. If there is a large amount of odor it can be difficult for the dog to detect the small variances to determine direction to the source of the odor. An example would be a narcotics detection dog and marijuana. If you bring that dog into a marijuana grow operation the dog will have a very difficult time locating the source of the odor. Due to the abundance of odor the dog will show odor recognition but may have a very difficult time following the odor to its source even though there is an abundance of odor every where. A smaller amount of detectable odor can be be easier for the dog to source because the area that contains odor is so much smaller so the dog doesn’t need to go far to detect if the odor is increasing or decreasing.

The dog experiments when interpreted as they relate to hunting would be. The dog is able to detect the person with no scent reduction but it takes the dog longer to work through the larger amount of odor to find the source. Conversely with scent reduction the dog was able to find the source of the odor quicker because the scent cone is smaller/tighter.

Dogs can tell us a lot about how deer recognize odor and how long odor persists in certain conditions. However any test that measures how long a dog takes to complete a task that would never be required of a deer will have misleading results if directly related to hunting.

Spent a lot of years training dogs and I do not completely agree with this. A single human in the woods would not result in a dog having scent overload. There isn't that much scent to cause such a happening. Let's look at something that I think is a good example. Let's take a rabbit and a rut crazed buck that stinks. I think we all would agree that the rut crazed buck emits a lot more scent. Heck we can smell them when entering a thicket. I don't think anyone has said that about a rabbit before. Take a beagle out that likes to run both and you will see that he can run that buck a whole lot faster than he can a rabbit.

Probably even a better example would be a coon hound. You can have identical tracks. 1 that is 3 hrs old and one that is 10 minutes old. The dog will run the one that is 10 minutes old a heck of a lot faster under the same scenting conditions than the one that is 3 hrs old. The reason being is that there is more scent to follow. A fresh track has a whole scent stream to follow. As it gets older or less scent then that stream isn't as big and from wind and other factors may have missing sections to it. On a "hot" track that has a lot of scent a lot of dogs aren't even exactly on the track of the animal. They will fluctuate from side to side as they are running the animal. On a cold track they can't do that as easily. Go out behind some coonhounds on some fresh snow and you will see it.

The dogs do follow variance in scent but that is there whether the track is 5 min old or 5 hours.

As far as your example of the marijuana grow operation. If the dog is in the middle of the grow, didn't he already find the source? Scent overload can happen but it would take a lot of scent for that to happen. It would take a lot of subjects in a small area. I don't see that happening in these tests.

Environmental conditions that affect scent have a far bigger impact on a dogs ability to follow a track or air scent an animal. An example of this would be a beagle running a rabbit in the brush. He can be tearing it up chasing the critter even though it is cutting and changing direction. The rabbit comes out of the brush and runs a straight line down a muddy cow path. The scent which was strong in the brush is now really weak on the muddy path. The beagle struggles the whole way down the cow path until he gets to where the rabbit cuts back into the brush.

Cspot-

I cant say I disagree with any of the points you brought up but I will try to address some of your points. I don’t believe that the dogs have reached their saturation point but I was just trying to explain why the test can be misleading because the tests are timing how long it takes for a dog to complete a task and directly linking that amount of time to the amount of odor.

When you talked about dogs running hot tracks you bring this up. A dog running a hot track (lots of odor) will often bracket the track from side to side as they try to determine direction with a larger scent picture. A track that has been aged will have a tighter scent picture and the dog will normally not bracket as much and will actually cover less ground side to side on a track with a smaller amount of odor. When the dogs bracket the track they end up covering more ground and can actually take longer than they would on an aged track of the same distance to locate the quarry. My marijuanna example may have not been the best example but was used to illustrate that the dogs can have a difficult time determining direction when there is more odor and a larger scent picture because they have to travel a larger distance to find the fringes of the odor which they cant do in a house. The dogs are trained to final response (sit) at the source (or as close to the source as possible) so if they cant find the source they will either act confused or possibly guess.

In the end the results of the tests are what every one would think they would be. The stinky person has more odor than the not so stinky person and the dog has no trouble locating either.

[cspot]

When a dog is running a hot track they do not go side to side though or in other words they don't bracket the scent side to side. They tend to do that more on a cold track as they are trying to find the next scent or if they lose the trail. To illustrate this let's just assume that a dog tracks a raccoon 100'. At 0-10' the dog is directly on the track. At 10-30' of the track the dog veers on the left side of the track so that it is up to 10' to the left of the actual track. At 30-50' it may be directly back on the track. At 50-80' it may be 10' of the right of the track. Then at 80-100 it may be directly back on the track. The dog is always making forward progress on the track, but isn't always directly on it. The dog never leaves the scent trail as the scent trail on a hotter track will be wider than the actual trail the animal walked. At the 10-30' parts of the tract it doesn't go over to check out the scent trail on the right side of the track. The dog knows that direction the animal traveled and knows it doesn't need to be on the "hottest" part of the scent trail to keep on it.

If you timed a dog running a coon track 1/4 mile in the same conditions. You have one that is 5 minutes old vs 3 hrs old, the dog will run the 5 minute one a lot quicker than the 3 hr one. A 5 minute old track the dog is likely to be running near top speed. The 3 hr old one they may be down to a walk depending upon conditions. They may have to stop and search at various times for the next scent molecule.

I do agree with you that the point is the dog can find them no matter what they do for scent control.