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I just took him up for a walk in the woods, and let him have his head.
I knew eventually he would get in the zone with all the scents he would find one he liked and follow it.
When he did I went the other direction.
Being trained to recall with tone I didn’t have to verbally signal so he had no help and went to he last saw me. was.
As for replication one just has to know their dog, well and find a place where no one will interfere.
Without the garmin I would have been afraid to let him run in case someone did come through and tried to pick him up.
I usually start when they are puppies in tall grass, brush etc so they don’t have to be so far away.
As for finding the owners/us I started one with the “find” command on different objects/scents then had my wife hide on the place, and held her shirt up, and told them to find. We would take turns.
Seems they learned by association to use their nose when they couldn’t see us due to doing so when they were young.
In the video one can see it stresses them out in when they are in a familiar environment, imagine if they are in unfamiliar territory and they lose their owner. Tourists lose dogs every weekend here do to that.
The lab is good. It uses its nose after a minute.
