Sweep 6.5x55 when you lay a trail you leave behind the scent of blood, hoof, and your self. whether the scent of you has Dispersed or not do's not really matter. Your training the dog to follow a scent trail thats all. The fact that it smells a bit like a animal is so you can do the cross over to tracking deer.
Its just the same with training a spaniel or lab to retreive. Do the dummies you throw look or smell like a pheasant, partridge grouse? No a dummy smells of your scent. You are just training the dog to retrieve. You then have to do the cross over to game.
When you lay a trail you leave behind more than your foot scent. You leave a human trail
of many body scents, Sweat, skin cells clothing smells etc.
My dog was trained on cow blood and boar hooves but he will track every thing from roe to moose.
I lay my trails by dragging the hoof on a bit of string. This is because Swede's are tight and won't spend the money on a pair of tracking shoes .
I do have a pair on order from Germany to try to lay some very hard tracks for the dog over the winter and scent shoes are ideal for doing that.
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