Mantrailing - Naturally Exhaust, Challenge and Encourage Your Dog

Dogs, on the other hand, not only smell better than humans – they also smell spatially. It is hardly surprising that about 10 per cent of their brain (one percent in humans) is occupied with processing olfactory information. Mantrailing is a dog sport that matches these olfactory abilities brilliantly, and that naturally exhausts, challenges and encourages the dog.

Mantrailing is a method originating from the USA to track missing or wanted persons (the “man” in question) with the help of sniffer dogs. It is based on the dog’s ability to follow a specific scent trail for kilometres. Mantrailing is primarily used by the police and rescue services and has its origins in these areas.

While in conventional tracking dogs follow a trail left by animals, people or objects on the ground, in mantrailing they are trained to become specialists. Here, the so-called mantrailers (people-tracking dogs) learn to smell a specific human scent out of all the other scents and to recognise its trail.

It is fascinating how mantrailers can sniff the scent mark in the air even days later. Some experts are convinced their mantrailers can follow a human scent trail even after the person they are looking for has driven away in the car.

Mantrailing is a natural exercise for any pet dog and is also a fascinating activity to do with your own dog. It is therefore no wonder that it is becoming increasingly popular as a dog sport in the private sector.

Every person has a unique individual odour, which is composed of breath, diverse body vapours and gases from the body’s own metabolic processes. This is augmented by shed hairs and bacteria that colonise the human body. In addition to this cocktail of scents, each person loses about 1 to 1.5 grams of tiny skin flakes per day, which leave a trail in themselves.

Dogs trained in mantrailing learn to “read” these distinctive scents, to distinguish them from other smells and to follow them specifically. Based on the individual bacteria that disintegrate our skin and hair cells in a biochemical process, mantrailers are even able to distinguish between new and old trails. A properly trained dog follows the fresh trail and ignores the old one. In addition, dogs are capable of so-called stereo smelling, or spatial smelling. They perceive the smells individually in each nostril and can assign the direction from which they come.

In mantrailing, the dog is calibrated to a single scent sample. On the trail, it then probes those scent particles in its environment that correspond to the scent and “interprets” them in terms of age, direction and intensity.

Whether a young puppy of nine months or a 13-year-old senior dog – mantrailing is suitable for almost every dog. For professional training, however, your dog should be trained as young as possible, which you can start as a game when still a puppy.

Before you start training with your dog, you have to go to school yourself. Mantrailing requires particularly close cooperation between owner and dog. Therefore, it is absolutely necessary that you correctly interpret all the signals that your dog shows on the trail. This includes the smallest changes in posture, expression of the tail, movement of the ears and flews. A good handler also needs to understand how dogs smell and process this information in the brain.

Visit several mantrailing schools before you decide on a trainer. Since the training to become a mantrail instructor is not subject to any special examination in Germany, the quality of the courses offered may differ greatly. Make sure that your dog is not overwhelmed or frustrated by the level of training.