Why some dogs struggle to take mantrailing into different environments

Something I find really interesting in mantrailing is how differently dogs cope when we ask them to do the same skill in a completely different environment.

Some dogs just get it. You can put them in a forest, on a housing estate, in a busy high street, in a car park, wherever, and they seem to understand straight away that the job is still the same: follow the scent and find the missing human.

Other dogs really struggle with this.

And that does not mean they are bad at mantrailing. It does not mean they are being difficult, stubborn, distracted or whatever else people like to call dogs when they do not instantly understand something. It often just means they have not generalised the skill yet.

A good human comparison would be driving in a different country.

My partner can get into pretty much any car, in any country, and just drive it. Left-hand drive, right-hand drive, driving on the left side of the road, driving on the right side of the road... it does not really seem to matter. He just works it out and cracks on.

I am the complete opposite.

I am from Austria, but after years of living in the UK, I actually struggled driving in Austria again. Even though I had not driven in the UK at that point, I had become so used to cars being on the left side of the road that, when I was driving back home, I repeatedly nearly went onto the wrong side of the road.

Now I drive in the UK, and honestly, I pretty much never want to drive in Austria again because I am fairly certain I would get it wrong.

Technically, the skill is the same. Driving is driving. But the picture around it has changed so much that suddenly it feels like a completely different thing to me.

And I think this is exactly what happens for some dogs in mantrailing.

A dog who has always trailed in rural environments, like forests, fields or parks with lots of vegetation, might feel really thrown when we first ask them to trail in an urban environment.

Suddenly there is pavement, roads, buildings, traffic, junctions, people, hard surfaces, less vegetation, different scent movement, more distractions, and the whole picture has changed.

Some dogs will instantly understand that it is still the same game. Others just will not.

And that is where we need to be fair to the dog and reduce the criteria.

That might mean making the trail shorter, making the start easier, using a quieter urban area first, using a familiar trail layer, or making the hide more straightforward.

This way we are helping the dog understand that the same rules still apply, even though the environment looks and feels completely different. Once they understand that, we can build it back up again.

And for some dogs, it can be the other way around. A dog who lives in Central London, for example, might be really confident sniffing on pavements, around buildings and in busy places, but then feel completely thrown when we take them into a forest.

I think past learning experience matters a lot here as well.

Where has the dog usually been allowed to follow their nose freely?

Where have they been allowed to sniff, investigate and make choices?

And where have they mostly been told to walk nicely, stay close, ignore things, focus on the handler and not pull?

Because if a dog has a lot of history of obedience training on pavements, they might not feel confident at first to suddenly put their nose down, pull into the line and take charge in that environment. They might have spent years learning that pavement means “walk nicely next to the human”.

So when we suddenly say, “Actually, now I want you to follow your nose and lead the way,” it can be confusing. That is why I think it is so important not to judge the dog too quickly.

Some dogs generalise skills really easily. Others need a bit more help. Our job is to set them up for success, not just throw them into a new environment and then act surprised when they struggle.