Evading trackers

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/policy/army/fm/7-93/Appf.htm

There's a pretty nifty page I found on it, could offer you some ideas, such as scent dissipating quickly when it's hot.

Climb a tree and then move from tree to tree for a bit.

Speed is the best option, hands down. Anything else spends time you shouldn't be spending. If the dog is a good tracker (and people are much slower trackers than well-trained dogs) then climbing trees, tossing clothes, running circles, hopping, trying to mask the scent all wastes traveling time. You cannot outrun a dog but you may be able to outrun a tracker if you are fit enough.
Run!

Also, depends on the environment. Unless you are an elite backcountry runner, you cannot outrun my tracker in the woods. You can on the city streets.

Paula Boon said:

Hi,

If someone with a slight head start (say 15-30 minutes) wanted to escape the detection of a human and/or dog tracking them, what could they do? Unless they get lucky, or someone picks them up in a car, they're probably screwed. It also depends on how good is the tracker, whether dog or human. It also depends on how many resources the tracker can bring in.

They're in a forest, although there are fields, a river and possibly some roads nearby.

I'm thinking walk/swim in the river, walking a stream leaves tracks, that disappear slowly, depending on flow of stream. The tracks can easily last a day. Swimming and natural choice walking is to go downstream. Solution is to follow stream until they come out. throw some pieces of clothing in different directions, Probably slow down the person doing the throwing longer than the tracker. and possibly try to mask their scent by rubbing something strong-smelling on themselves Depends on how poorly trained the dog is. , but a) would these work, and b) are there more unusual/creative options?

Thanks!

Click to expand...

Climbing trees means you look for where they come down, and you leave tracks going up (and down) trees as you scrape the bark. A good tracker doesn't need a whole lot to work with. Your best bet if being tracked is to hope for a poor tracker.

Best of luck,

Jim Clark-Dawe

There was a Mythbusters about this. Dog Myths I think.

You can check their archive on the Discovery or TLC site (can't remember which).

I think that was just vague enough to be of no use, while seeming to be useful.

My work here is done.

Human ... head for rocks and hard ground where you won't leave marks and move fast. The tracker has to pay attention to a lot more than you do. If you are lucky, the human isn't very good.

Dog? Way back when I was a child, a friend of my dad's raised and trained bloodhounds. He used us for tracking tests because we weren't known to the dogs, we were active brats who knew the rural territory, and our parents didn't mind having us running our legs off with bloodhounds on our trail. We'd get an hour to a day or more head start, be dropped off at the designated point and then head for the designated end point, which could be home or a friend's farm or just a pickup point. We kept track of where we had gone and the trackers could tell how close the dogs had come to staying on our trail and if they had problems where we had done something special.

Sometimes we'd just wander around in the woods, pretending to be a lost kid. We would sometimes play "escaped convict" and do every trick we had ever read about: wading up or down streams, walking the railroad rails, fence-walking, even tree-to tree scrambling. The darned dogs found us almost all the time. My brother got away once by going across a bridge, continuing for almost a mile, running back to the bridge in the same path, then diving from the bridge and floating downstream nearly 10 miles to the friend's farm with just his head showing. By the time they checked both banks of the river, he was at the farm and "escaped".

The thing with a tracking dog/human team is that it's faster than the human tracker, but unless you can give it a good scent (worn clothing, a sleeping bag, etc.) it takes it a while to realize which scent you want it to follow. But if you are only half an hour in front of a dog, if it's not blisteringly hot and dry desert, a good hound will find you.

Circle back around behind the trackers and steal their car.

Water's always a good choice, though much depends on the skill of the people and animals tracking you. Pepper or pepper spray works well for throwing dogs off, although a good tracker will have them circle past the spray and try to pick your scent up again.