Discipline: Trailing

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 Urban Trailing

The Trailing Lead is Linda Binkley. There are 3 K9s who are either certified, pre-certified, a team in training or a prospect in trailing. 

Trailing is one of three disiplines that SCVSAR K9 can provide when someone goes missing. Trailing and tracking are often used interchangably but the team prefers "trailing" since tracking is used to follow someone's direct footfall whereas trailing is following the path of scent the missing person left behind. Trailing dogs are deployed the most often, mainly after missing dementia or alzheimer's patients and kids who walked away from their family. These dogs are not used to find the person at the end of the trail. They are primarily used to determine a Direction of Travel (DOT) in urban, woodsy and suburban areas. Traililng K9s follow a specific someone's path they took while working on a leash of 15-20 feet. 

Urban trailing K9s work with their nose down following a specific scent. It is up to the handler to arrive on scene and obtain an uncontaminated scent article. This is done by placing cotton gauze pads into something that only the missing person uses (examples: shoes, a pillowcase, jacket, or hat) then placing it into a ziplock plastic bag as to not let scent escape. This is the only disipline that allows/requires a scent article. 

In order to certify, the trailing team needs to search for an unknown person to the dog. The trail laid is between 1-1.5 miles long in a wandering pattern (4-6 decision points) that is 18-24 hours old covering a variety of surface changes (grass, concrete, woodsy areas). The team must complete their search by displaying searching behavior and not deviating far from the actual trail in 1 hour and 15 minutes. Snohomish County does not require the trailing dog to have a Final Trained Indication. 

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