Dogs are often regarded as man’s best friend. Amongst other animals, they make a great companion. They have adorable licks, cuddly head turns, and quirks. The reverse is when they are trained for a specific act such as tracking dogs, watchdogs, and the likes, whereby they now pose a threat to someone that is not on their side.
Take, for instance, tracking dogs. It is often said that it is impossible to escape a team of trained tracking dogs because they will always find you and when they do, just surrender to repel more bites from them.
However, this begs the question of “how to evade and escape tracking dogs.” If you are a criminal trying to escape prison, for your own sake, just give up already because when these dogs find you, you are gone! But suppose you are looking to evade and escape tracking dogs probably because you are being pursued by hostile forces.
In that case, some bad guys you stumbled across, whatever the circumstances you found yourself in, this guide will teach you all you need to know for doing so.
Is it Possible to Evade Tracking Dogs?
The only way you can evade a dog is if it is poorly trained or there is a mix-up, a blunder between the dog and the handler. In most cases, the handler is more skilled than the dog, so there is a low chance a blunder can occur. Therefore, you will likely be caught.
Olfactory Receptors
Tracking dogs have a high olfactory bulb to brain ratio; the average dog has about 125 to 220 million olfactory receptors. This is about 40 times larger than that of humans. This is to say that you will be wasting your time if you are masking your scent because they will always track you no matter how you mask your scent.
When you are on the run, there are these microscopic dead cells that fall from the body. These are the things the tracking dogs look for when tracking you. You cannot help but leave your dead cells no matter how slow you move.
Dogs Used for Tracking
If you are quite familiar with dogs, you might have guessed right that a special breed of dog for tracking is the bloodhound. It was as if God created it just for this purpose. It is almost impossible to escape from them due to their genetic and phenotypic makeup.
They have about 300 million olfactory receptors, their ears’ structure, and shawl that improved trailing abilities. The ears help them in tracking. They could differentiate between smells and memorize them.
The shawl helps them to follow the memorized scent in the air. If this team of dogs is tracking you, there is no losing them!.
This might seem hopeless, and you might be thinking it is impossible to escape them. Still, there is a secret to escaping tracking dogs. Read on to discover the secret!
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How to Evade and Escape a Tracking Dog
Before you can escape a tracking dog, you need to evade or lose the dog. If you want to escape a tracking dog, you must have the following aims in mind
Make Your Pursuer Commit a Blunder
As stated earlier, the dog handler and the dog can make a blunder. They don’t fully understand themselves despite spending so much time together and sharing basic dogs lingo and gestures to give commands and coordination. They could misinterpret themselves when tracking and trailing you.
But all these have a low chance of happening. Blunders can also be committed by the dogs through a phenomenon called “extinction,” whereby there is a decline in the dog’s performance from changes to an environmental factor.
Whatever the blunder might be, use it to maximize your chances of escape.
Exhaust the Dog
Another factor in escaping a dog is to tire the tracking dog. This often depends on you because it requires you to be physically fit. While it might seem challenging to outrun the dog but you can definitely “outrun” it by outsmarting the dog as well as the handler.
Dogs are generally fast sprinters with low stamina, while humans are the superiors over longer distances. Therefore, exploit the superiority you have. Get yourself into decent shape and tire out the tracking dogs and the handler over a long distance.
They will want to retreat and send for backup, giving you more time to escape. Research has also shown that a panting dog will not be able to sniff well; this is slow the team down
Tips to Help Evade the Tracking Dogs
Here are some tips to help evade the tracking dogs and better your escape
Pass-Through Uphill Terrain and Rocky Areas
Passing these areas will tire out the dog. You have more stamina than the dog, so use it to your advantage. But you should also know that passing through these routes will also decrease your energy or lead to a waste of energy, especially if the trackers found a way around the hilly and rocky areas. You should try to avoid injuries and keep your eyes peeled
Peppers Are Useful but Only for a Short Time
Peppers can give you limited help. This is because when you spray your trail with pepper, you are only trying to overload the sense of smell of the dogs. They will recover after some time and start to track you after that. This is not entirely effective. If a bloodhound is tracking you, you might regret it.
You Will Be Wasting Your Time if You Are Masking Your Scent
Dogs can differentiate between scents. They are good at memorizing scents. If you are masking your scent, you will be escaping into their mouth!
Other tips include
- Crossing the streams won’t do much help
- Move through obstacles that could cause blunder for the handlers
- Move crosswind
Find more about dogs HERE.
Conclusion
Evading and escaping tracking dogs do not come with a manual. There is no sure way to do this. You need to rely on your skills, fitness, and most importantly, luck and hope you tire out the dog or make the dog handler and the dog commit blunders.
We recommend you try to stay fit by doing some workouts to increase your endurance level to make long distances and ultimately escape the clutches of death.
Thanks for reading!
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