When working with any police or search and rescue dog that trails or tracks, the handler should always be prepared to successfully prosecute their tracking/trailing cases in a court of law. As we all know, jury trials can always swing in either direction and juries can often be unpredictable. Therefore, I am not attempting to convey that all canine related cases can be successfully prosecuted in court. However, every handler should do all that they can to ensure that they have done everything that they can properly in order to make their testimony and evidence effective. With this being said you should understand that when dealing with any tracking or trailing case, there are two very important aspects that you should be prepared to prove.

The first thing that you should attempt to prove is that the trail indicates that the guilty party had been there. This facet of tracking cases can often be easy to prove. However, in other cases, it can be more difficult. This can be proven by actually locating a suspect and later obtaining a confession from them. It can often be done by matching footprints or finding other evidence along the trail that directly connects the suspect to the trail and the scene of the crime. The suspect may be later identified by eyewitnesses that were present during the crime. I have often linked suspects to tracks simply because they dropped their identification before jumping into a getaway car.

The second thing that must be proven in tracking/trailing related cases is that the trail was not stale or contaminated beyond the dogs competency. This aspect of trailing cases can often be difficult for handlers to prove. However, with some work and training, this can be proven relatively easily in most circumstances. In order to understand exactly what must be done to prove reliability in this area, we can break this aspect of our case down into two parts.

The first part is that the trail was not stale to beyond the dogs competency. This simply means that the trail was not aged or older than what the dog and handler have been capable of successfully navigating in previous training. Therefore, our training and subsequent training records should show that our dogs has been capable of working trails that are aged considerably. Handlers often run trails with the dog that are aged only 30 or 40 minutes for the sake of convenience. Trails are often shortened because a tracklayer doesn’t want to hide for more than 20 minutes, or because it’s too cold or hot to wait for longer. If our training routines only take 40 minutes to an hour and we are called to run a trail that is 6 hours old, then we will likely have problems demonstrating in court that our dog is capable of this type of work. With this said, trailing dog handlers should strive to gradually extend the age of the trails that they are having their dogs work. This will make them more efficient in their work and more credible in court.

The second part is that the trail should not be contaminated to beyond the dogs competecy. This simply means that the trail in question was not any more contaminated by persons, animals, etc. than trails that the dog had previously worked in training. In order to accomplish this we must first have a dog that is proficient in scent discrimination tracking/trailing “SDT”. Police and Search and Rescue dogs that are not capable of performing efficient scent discrimination work are virtually useless trailing dogs. Assuming that our dog is proficient in SDT, we must conduct training tracks with far more contamination than we would likely expect to encounter in the field. This will allow us to prove that they trail in question, at trial, was easily worked by the dog and handler. So the questions is often “How much contamination should I incorprate into my training scenarios?” The answer is simply this, you should train in environments that provide more contamination that you would likely encounter on the street. From my experience, this is often asking alot. Scenes are often contaminated by other officers, paramedics, bystanders, neighbors and general pedestrian traffic. A scene could quickly be contaminated by 50 or more people. Therefore, you should contaminate training trails with hundreds of people, if possible. Granted, you shouldn’t attempt trails of this difficulty without first conditioning your dog to do so. We often run trails in handler courses that are contaminated by hundreds of people at state and local parks, in downtown areas and other places where contaminated areas are easily found.

Establishing the foundation for prosecuting trailing cases successfully can be challenging work. However, it is possible with proper training and documentation. It is important to prepare for these incidents ahead of time. Highland Canine Training offers seminars and handler courses to assist handlers and trainers with teaching proper record keeping, Scent Discrimination Trailing, and tracking and trailing for police and search and rescue handlers. Please feel free to call or email us if you have any questions or if you are interested in our training programs.