As a counterintelligence agent serving in Turkey for two years, I sometimes had to operate in some pretty dangerous places. This was during the first Iraqi war, and I did a lot of work on the Turkish/Iraqi border. I would go out for 30 days at a time on missions, and I had a few very harrowing situations during that time.

One of the things that concerned me was being tracked by the enemy, so in this article, I want to talk about tracking and counter tracking. If you learn proper tracking skills, it will also give you the ability to know what to look, listen, smell and feel for from a counter tracking perspective. You will understand what to do when being tracked and how to avoid it.

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If you are in a situation where you don’t want to be tracked one thing that can help you is learning to use what we called “Cat’s PAWS.” Cat’s PAWS are basically soles made from some type of material like felt, burlap, cloth, or even natural materials that you wear over your shoes or boots to radically reduce the number of signs you leave when operating in various terrains. You can wear socks over your boots to improvise these to some degree. Just place the socks over your boots and add a little padding.

Often when someone is tracking you, they will likely use tracking dogs – I am going to talk about that. These techniques can be used for human trackers too. There are basically two types of tracking dogs: those that use the air to track your scent and those that track your scent on the ground. Regardless of the type, a good tracking dog is hard to defeat once they are on to your scent. The distinguishing limitation is the ability of the handler to keep up with the dogs. It is inaccurate that you can simply enter some water to lose a dog that is tracking you. That’s for the movies. The truth is that entering water can actually make your scent even stronger to the dogs if the body of water is small and slow moving.

If you do decide to use water to help you, your best bet is to either jump into a fast-moving river with a flotation device you either have or have improvised (even a large branch of driftwood will do). You have to put as much distance between yourself and your trackers as you can before you touch land again. You can also swim into a large body of water towards the center and then button hook to a random angle on the shore.

Other ways to throw off dogs are chemicals on the ground or even using pepper to cover your trail. Be aware that if the tracking team is well trained, they will be able to avoid tricks like these. The bottom line is that if you are being chased by a professional dog team it’s a worst-case scenario and while you will most likely not be able to get them off your trail, you may be able to delay them you long enough to get away.

Here are a few tips to help you defeat or at least delay a dog tracking team and trackers in general:

• Even the most highly trained tracking dogs can lose focus and become distracted. This will become a factor as the dogs become hungry and fatigued as the search continues. You can hasten this process by putting as much distance across the most challenging terrain you can speedily cover between yourself and the tracker team. This will exhaust the dogs which will make them more prone to losing their focus and drive.
• Scent plumes form as the wind disperses odor molecules from their source. The plume as a whole wanders, apparently randomly, over a wide area and may tend to vary greatly depending on the temperature, terrain, and weather conditions. The best time to lose a dog that is tracking you is on uneven rocky terrain when the sun is at its hottest, and it will also help if there is little to no humidity to hold your scent plume.
• Another thing you can do is to retard your scent. I have a friend who was in my Army CID unit. He was a trained sniper, and he told me that he was taught to use different chemicals to hide his scent when on sensitive sniper or reconnaissance missions. Some of these products are now available commercially. I am not saying they will make you invisible to a good tracking dog, but they will definitely make your trail harder to pick up and follow.
• The absolute best way to defeat a tracker is to get in a car and drive away. This should be your #1 objective if you are being tracked by a determined tracker or tracking team (by the way, I wrote an article on how to hotwire a car in an emergency.)
• Don’t leave items of clothing or even soiled toilet paper or used tampons or bandages in a place that a tracking dog can use to program in on your scent. If the dog doesn’t know what you smell like and they start searching for you in an area highly trafficked by other humans, then it is unlikely they will be able to pick up your scent or tracks without a solid starting point.

If you ever find yourself being tracked, these five tips will help you to get away from dogs or humans effectively. The next time you are out camping with your family or friend try these techniques out. The more you practice them, the better you will be.

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