at the end-of-year training 2012 in the canine rescue squad:

The year’s last training days are usually set aside for the common good of the BRH Wesel rescue team. Pre-X-mas activities show how training units and public relations can be linked easily. While raising funds at the Essen Christmas Market we practiced an interesting trailing experiment. Objective: difficult starting and running conditions
Means: the “lost person” consumes a tasty “German bratwurst” at a market stall – leaving the very last bit behind. He walks across the X-mas market, turns his back on the crowd and moves to a side street to hide there. After 2 hours the mantrailer is called to the described food stall and handed that small piece of “bratwurst” as olfactory article that meanwhile had been kept in a closed bag.

For the 1st time all these demanding trailing elements were combined: ca 2 hours old trail/ challenging odor article/ start in a very crowded place and across a X-mas market traversed by several strong food smells/ change from mass/busy square to free area ending in side streets with slipstream effect. We expected the most vehement challenge to be the odor article itself, because a sausage is rather meant to be consumed, especially when literally held under nose; but both our bouvier ladies had brilliantly managed a test variety with a cheese sandwich lately.
Even this new astounding test run showed what we had experienced before: The harder we think the odor search may be, the higher the dog’s concentration to “screen” it and identify those human scent particles with a sureness beyond our comprehension! Similar recent trials – for example a hand-pealed clementine, a rum truffle bitten into, a cigarette end as well as the bitten cheese sandwich (all articles being preserved in a closed bag for at least 15 min)- showed permanently convincing working results and even “negatives”, meaning articles contaminated by further test persons, neither present now or at the previous starting position.

Conclusion: 2 years of steady training haven’t only obtained the basic requirements of the mantrailing job, but already a certainty lending wings for future ventures in this kind of work.