Mantrailing in history and the news
Mantrailing stories
This week I want to tell you about some famous or newsworthy mantrailing dogs. Whilst 1066 Mantrailing offers Mantrailing only for sport, the same wonderful scenting ability is used by operational dogs around the world.
Sauer the Doberman was born in 1917 in South Africa, where he was nearly deemed too nervous for police work. Paired with a patient human officer, he went on to perform some amazing trailing feats. One trail was 5½ days old when he successfully followed it. In 1925 he successfully followed a trail for 160km. You can read more about him here:
https://jockdogfood.co.za/the-legend-of-sauer/
Maverick the Labrador was a K-9 officer with the Union County Sherriff’s office in North Carolina. With his handler, he took scent from a blanket to follow the trail and find missing young person. When he’s not Mantrailing, Maverick is also a narcotics detection dog. More on this story:
Fred the Bloodhound was a K-9 officer with the Rutherford County Sherriff’s office in Tennessee. He is credited with finding a six-year-old girl, missing for a month, who had been taken by her father and hidden in an outbuilding. Fred was given an article belonging to the father to sniff, and took his handler to the outbuilding where the girl was being held. The story tells that Fred’s reward was some chicken and some pizza crust - I think he deserved the whole pizza! Read more here:-
Although we are trailing for fun, our dogs are doing exactly the same work as these amazing dogs - using their incredible scenting ability to follow the scent of a missing person, and working as a team with their handler.
I hope you’ve enjoyed these stories. If they have inspired you, get in touch to find out how you can get involved in Mantrailing!
