Hi SerioslySearching. There are different types of scent. Tracking has nothing to do with human or animal scent at all, actually. With tracking, the dog is detecting changes within the ground itself as a result of something disturbing the ground. Most believe the dog detects odors resulting from disturbances of the plant life and microorganisms within the ground's surface.
In Schutzhund, there is actual tracking(and advanced obedience and protection). However, when searching in a real case, tracking is rarely used. Instead, two other types of scenting are used--trailing or air scenting.
Bloodhounds trail, although most refer to it as tracking. These dogs are detecting the microscopic skin flake that fall to the ground and nearby tall grass, bushes, or other objects. Generally, the fresher the trail the easier it is for the dog to track. A light rain and/or high humidity will intensify the trail scent, heavy rain will eventually cause it to dissipate, and hot and/or dry air will make it more difficult for the dog to trail.
The other type of scenting used in real cases is air scenting. This is primarily what I do. It is the fastest, and no trail is needed. I train my dogs to track, trail, and air scent, however, tracking is always taught first because they don't generally want to learn to track after they have learned to trail and air scent.
Air scenting is a technique where the dog holds his head up high and moves left to right(or in large circles), while slowly moving forward to detect the actual scent of the person or article(of clothing, purse, etc..). Grids to search are set up by experienced handlers to search into the wind. Grids are determined by the probability of the person or evidence being in that area(a tip, point last seen, etc..). Specially trained cadaver dogs and water dogs can be trained to find remains and other dogs can and are trained to detect bodies under the water up to about 40 feet below. Air scenting dogs will resort to trailing or tracking whenever needed and go back to air scenting when the scent can again be detected.
A scent pool can occur for various reasons, for example if a person(or a body) has remained in one place for a longer period of time than in the rest of the path they took or were taken through. Or, environmental causes can result in a scent pool. At night, for example scent can pool low to the ground at its lowest point by a creek--even if the person/body is above on higher ground from the creek.
I thought if I post a very basic description of what search dogs do it might help everyone understand the process, thereby helping possibly with this case.
I have my WS settings to present 40 posts per page, and I don't know what the default is. So, I don't know what the actual page numbers are to read through. Is it possible for you to tell me the approximate post numbers to begin with? I would love to help more, but it will take days for me to read through all of the threads, and I would like to try and get a jump start. Thank you for your help.
Lion