SCENT IN A BOTTLE

          An interesting tracking method to teach your dog to track is called “Scent in a Bottle”.  Developed by Steve White, this method requires you to wear something sweaty, then put the article of clothing in a container with distilled water, and transfer the “scented” water to a bottle that you will spray along the track.  Used with food as a reward for following the dampened scent, this method is proposed to teach a dog to have a “deep nose”, or in other words, to keep its nose on the ground, whatever the surface. 

          Mr. White has a demonstration of this method on “You Tube” at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hOzkMMLHGHI  but has since renamed his method to Hydration Intensified Tracking Training or HITT for short.  He learned that it was not really the “sweaty” item in the water that worked, but the water, that acted like glue to teach the dog to follow the track.   More on his method can be found at this website http://www.bigmtnbelgians.com/trackingresources.html which is very good reading on how to engage your dog to accuracy in following the track. 

          Personally, I was amazed at the amount of tracking training videos available on “You Tube” which I had previously thought of as a site that just had weird videos of people doing unusual things.  I stand corrected to find that http://www.youtube.com has a search item and if you enter tracking dog, you will find lots of instructional clips.  Try it out for yourself!  You can also visit Steve White’s site at http://i2ik9.com/ to learn more about this interesting trainer and information on his instructional DVD.