Free consultation and order
warencorb My Cart 0 item(s) - £0.00
Your shopping cart is empty!

Mantrailing: not only for rescue dogs a good occupation

Mantrailing

Mantrailing is the search for people with the help of a dog. Mantrailing is an important part of the training of rescue dogs, but is also becoming more and more popular as a dog sport.


Below you will learn exactly how mantrailing works, why this type of activity is so suitable for dogs and what you should pay attention to during training. We will also explain how you can optimally support your mantrailer with the right nutrition.

What is Mantrailing?

Mantrailing is your dog's job to follow the individual scent of a person. For the four-legged friend's nose, this individual scent can be compared to a fingerprint. He can thus assign the smell to a specific person and follow the scent trail. Among other things, the trail consists of dead skin cells, of which we lose around 40,000 every day. But it can also contain metabolic breakdown products and the remains of cosmetics, for example. 


Which components of this individual smell the four-legged friend perceives during mantrailing is not yet completely clarified. In any case, an odour sample in the form of a worn garment or other object with which the person being searched has come into contact is sufficient to let the dog take up the scent.


After the scent sample has been given, the actual mantrailing begins. The dog is led by its owner on a long leash and supported in its search. The dog handler's main task in mantrailing is to correctly interpret the signals of the four-legged friend. If necessary, the handler must also support the dog if, for example, he has lost his lane or has to avoid other road users such as cyclists.

Which dogs are suitable for mantrailing?

Which dogs are suitable for mantrailing

Dogs belong to the so-called macrosmats. This means that their sense of smell plays a very important role and is therefore particularly well developed. Their nose is equipped with 250 million olfactory cells and they use about 10 percent of their brain exclusively to process the odours they pick up. 


By comparison, humans have only 25 million olfactory cells and use only one percent of their brain for the sense of smell.


This is true regardless of the exact breed, which is why basically any dog is suitable for mantrailing, as long as the respective animal enjoys searching and is able to concentrate sufficiently on its task.


Whether this is the case with your four-legged friend is best found out by trial and error. Depending on breed and age, you should adjust the length of the search accordingly, so as not to overtax your dog. Also keep in mind that mantrailing is very strenuous, both physically and mentally. Training with sick animals should therefore generally be avoided.

With mantrailing, you can give your dog the appropriate amount of exercise

The great thing about mantrailing is that this type of activity is in keeping with your dog's nature. After all, when looking for people, he can be completely dog and satisfy his hunting instinct with his sense of smell.


In addition, mantrailing promotes concentration and independence and, last but not least, strengthens the relationship between dog and owner.

Successful introduction to Mantrailing

Mantrailing is a particularly natural form of activity for dogs. Nevertheless, you must introduce your quadruped slowly to the subject. No dog is able to follow the scent of a person over several kilometres overnight.


First of all, your dog needs to learn to focus and not be distracted by environmental stimuli during his search. The next step is then to teach him to follow the individual scent of a person. At first, this only works over very short distances of perhaps 10 or 20 metres.


Depending on how easily your four-legged friend does this, the distance can then be extended over time and the difficulty of mantrailing can be increased in various ways, such as following a scent trail from the previous day. 

Mantrailing as therapy for scare dogs

Mantrailing is not only a great natural form of exercise, but is also ideal for frightened and insecure dogs. The main reason for this is that the four-legged friend concentrates exclusively on his scent trail while searching, has to fade out all other environmental stimuli and in the end can be happy about his sense of achievement.

Mantrailing with dogs of all ages

Mantrailing is not only suitable for adult dogs in their best years, but can basically be done with animals of any age. Already with a puppy you can playfully start to introduce him to the search work. 


Mantrailing is also very suitable for older dogs. Because it offers the possibility to keep your dog busy without putting too much strain on his joints. As long as you adjust duration and difficulty individually, mantrailing is a good choice for dogs of all ages.

Dog with snacks

The right equipment for mantrailing

If you would like to try mantrailing with your dog, we recommend that you look around for appropriate offers from dog schools in your area. Often you will even have the opportunity to participate in a trial day there. This way you can try it out without any obligation and see if your dog enjoys mantrailing.


The equipment you need for mantrailing is manageable. In principle, a long towing line with a length of about 5 to 10 metres and a dog harness are sufficient. Both should only be used for mantrailing. 


In addition, it may be useful to wear a safety vest during the search. For longer trails you should also carry enough water to drink.

Success in mantrailing should be rewarded

Of course you should reward your four-legged friend after a successful search. After all, he has earned a treat after all that work. To this end, we recommend that you rely on healthy dog snacks from Bellfor.

Mantrailing and nutrition

Many dog owners are convinced that despite regular dog sports it is sufficient to provide their four-legged friend with water and food. Both are of course important and a high-quality dog food can make a valuable contribution to the supply of nutrients.


However, due to the additional physical activities involved in dog sports, your four-legged friend has special nutritional needs that you should take into account when feeding. 

Proteins promote regeneration

A sufficient protein supply plays a special role in dogs that are active in sports. Among other things, proteins contribute to maintaining performance, support regeneration and protect the muscles and immune system.


In order to supply your active mantrailing dog with an optimal supply of protein, we recommend a dietary supplement with Fitness Powder from Bellfor. The natural preparation contains high-quality insect protein as a source of all essential amino acids as well as chia seeds and dried bananas as suppliers of vitamins and minerals.


Bellfor Fitness Powder is easily digestible, easy to dose and is ideal to supplement the daily diet of active dogs in a sensible way.

Additional nutrients during long periods of stress

With experienced mantrailers or animals used as professional rescue dogs, the search for people can take many hours and a long distance. 


If this is the case with your dog, you should make sure that your four-legged friend is given sufficient energy before mantrailing. You can do this particularly easily with our Fitness Bars


It contains the ideal mixture of carbohydrates and fats and provides your dog with all the nutrients he needs for a good endurance performance, even during long periods of stress.

Was this page helpful?

Write a review

Bad
Good
Dietician
My data
normal

Ribs can be felt beneath low fat cover, visible waist from above, visible elevation of the abdominal line in front of the pelvis from the side.

My weight
My activity
Dog food should not contain the following
VEGETABLES AND CEREALS
MEAT AND FISH
OTHER
Health problems
Special needs of your dog

Suggested Products

£18.64
£12.85
32.13 £ / 1 Kg
£20.14
£18.64
46.59 £ / 1 Kg
£16.40
£14.91
33.13 £ / 1 Kg
£25.13
£22.74
Unfortunately, this product is not available now.
£22.67
£20.51
31.54 £ / 1 Kg
£31.34
£28.33
35.42 £ / 1 Kg
watsapp-button-icon
bellfore motive