Mantrailing - what is it?
In a nutshell, Mantrailing is teaching your dog to follow a specific human scent to find a missing person. We do this as a sport, which means at the end of the day, everybody goes home.
Why do it?
Mantrailing is a type of scentwork, which means we're tapping into our canine companions' strongest sense - the olfactory sense. In order to focus on one specific human scent, the dog has to filter out the multitude of other smells in any given area. This requires considerable effort and concentration. Mantrailing will give your dog a full mental workout and tire them in a way that no amount of physical exercise can. It's a great form of enrichment for our K9 companions.
What are the benefits?
Many and varied. To list a few:
🐾 Participating in mantrailing for hunting dogs or scenthounds such as beagles, bloodhounds and dachshunds is allowing them to do a task that they were bred and born to do. They love this sort of work.
🐾 For 'worky' dogs that you will never physically tire out (think collies, spaniels, malis) with exercise alone, the act of mantrailing helps them to focus, relax and take part in an activity that tires them mentally.
🐾 Dog-reactive dogs can be accommodated. Because the dogs are worked individually, dog-reactive dogs which may have been excluded from other sports or group classes can join in Mantrailing within their own comfort zone. As they progress, dogs learn the value of 'the game' and can even learn to trail past other dogs without needing to react.
🐾 Human-reactive dogs, or nervous dogs, can similarly be taught via high-value reward that following and finding humans is beneficial, and with careful management these dogs can even learn to accept being in close proximity to people.
🐾 Teamwork - mantrailing is an excellent way to develop the bond between dog and owner. Because mantrailing is a low-impact sport, it's suitable for dogs and handlers who may not be physically able to participate in more active, high-impact sports.
What else do I need to know?
🐶 Mantrailing is an outdoor sport. Sometimes you'll go home drenched but happy
🐶 The dogs are worked on a harness and long line. It doesn't matter if your pooch's recall is non-existent, because you and your dog will be trailing together as a team, and your dog will never be more than 10m away at the end of your long line
🐶 You'll train in the field. Dogs need to learn to trail in many different locations, so from week to week you'll never be at the same place twice. Your training venue is not a church hall or a local park, but the world itself. That will include private and public areas, in rural, urban and sub-urban locations. A good mantrailing instructor will take you to a wide variety of locations and give you an excellent experience at every one of them
🐶 Mantrailing is extremely addictive. You have been warned!
Now that I've been warned, how do I get involved?
Dog Ways Lancashire holds regular weekly trailing classes, along with introductory workshops for beginners, in and around East Lancashire. We also offer monthly or twice-monthly special events, for those who've undertaken an introduction already. You can find more information by visiting our page here: https://dogwayslancashire.com/mantrailing/
If you're outside of this area, don't despair - there are around a hundred Mantrailing UK instructors based in all areas of the UK. If you'd like more information on how to find your nearest Mantrailing Instructor, or if you'd like to learn about how to become a Mantrailing instructor yourself, you can visit the Mantrailing UK page here: https://www.mantrailinguk.com/instructors
We hope to see you all out there with your dogs in the near future! 🙂🐾
This blog was written by Laura Crompton of Dog Ways Lancashire
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