Every week I am surprised and often saddened when I see professional K9 trainers advertise new tracking courses where handlers proudly walk their own tracks. Or when well-known detection dog trainers toss a Kong the moment their dog alerts, clearly revealing they already know where the odor is hidden. Dear trainers: if you don’t work double blind, you will never learn to trust your dog. You will create weak training protocols that look good on paper or social media, but collapse in real-world operations.
Clever Hans is still alive
Have they never heard the story of Clever Hans, the horse who appeared to solve math problems but was in fact responding to subtle, unconscious cues from his handler? Or the research of Lisa Lit and others, which proved that handler expectations directly influence detection dog performance? The evidence is overwhelming: dogs read us. A dog is not an ethical creature, it will take the shortest route to reinforcement. If watching the handler is a faster way to earn the ball, Kong, or food than using its nose, the dog will do that. And here lies the double-edged sword:
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The dog starts relying on the handler’s cues.
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The handler gains false confidence, thinking his knowledge of the track or hide location is helping the dog.
This is not building operational reliability. This is building fragile illusions.
The illusion of tracking success
When I started working with tracking dogs, I was shocked. Not a single so-called “professional” police dog could track on hard surfaces. The myth was: “Dogs just can’t do it.” So nobody trained for it. Reality check: in actual operations, 85% of tracks were on hard surfaces.
Here’s what happened on those deployments:
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Handlers unconsciously steered their dogs, by pulling or loosening the leash, nudging them left or right, based on their assumptions of where the suspect went.
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After a few hundred meters, the dog gave up, confused, with no article finds like in training.
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The handler turned to the officers following him and confidently said: “The suspect probably got into a car.”
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Everyone nodded. Another “successful” report was signed.
But nothing had been learned. Clever Hans was alive and well, just wearing a police badge. Most handlers didn’t even realize they were influencing their dogs. And that’s the tragedy: without double blind training, handlers never discovered how difficult a real, unknown track truly is.
The mentor who changed everything
I was lucky. My mentor refused to play the window-dressing game. Every Friday at 9:00, he gave me just one clue: the location of his parked car. That was my start.
From there, I had to track him with my dog:
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No idea where he had gone.
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No idea how long ago.
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No hints, no shortcuts.
Most times, we managed only 50 to 100 meters before losing the track. When I finally gave up, I had to call him. He would return, explain what he had done, and we stopped. We never retraced the track because once you know where it is, you’re just fooling yourself and your dog. That lesson was burned into me: tracking starts when you lose the track. That is when the dog learns. That is when the handler learns. That is when true confidence is built. And it requires perseverance, trust, and smart training design. Because let’s be honest: if you always use the same tracklayer, or always train in the same environment, your “success” is another illusion.
The same mistakes in detection
The same window dressing happens in detection: scent ID, narcotics, explosives, wildlife detection and many other detection disciplines. I’ve seen:
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Handlers boasting of 94% success rates in scent ID exercises, yet trembling when faced with a true double blind test. In court, DNA evidence proved the suspects never touched the objects the dogs “identified.” The entire program collapsed once handlers admitted they had known the position of the suspects odor in the test. They tried to convince the judge that they didn't gave the dog a cue but research proved it happens.
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Instructors smearing marijuana so heavily around a cupboard that even humans could smell it, just to ensure the dog would find the hidden half gram of heroin. That isn’t training. That’s theater.
These inflated results look great in training logs, but in the field they collapse. And collapse costs credibility, arrests, sometimes even lives.
Why trainers fall into the trap?
I’m not angry or frustrated about this. I understand it.
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Handlers want to score.
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Police want arrests.
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Trainers want smooth sessions without endless debates.
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Nobody enjoys failure.
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And there is still a gap between training and science.
But avoiding failure builds comfort zones, not resilience. Comfort zones create fragile teams. Fragile teams fail when it matters most. And when they fail, credibility is destroyed, substances are missed, or dogs and people will get hurt or die.
Double blind: the only way forward
Real training means:
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Testing yourself and your dog.
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Leaving your comfort zone.
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Building unshakable trust in each other.
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Gather and analyse data so you can proof the quality
And that is only possible with double blind training, combined with smart designed protocols which will instruct what sort of distractors you need to use, criteria about odor quality, scenario complexity and more.
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In tracking: neither handler nor dog knows if or where a track exists.
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In detection: the handler has no clue whether a target odor is present.
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all bystanders have no clue where the track is going or odor is hidden because besides the handler dogs can also easily 'read' the bystanders or instructor.
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Ideally, the scenario is set by someone who has never trained dogs,because even trainers and decoys leave patterns that dogs learn to read.
Double blind training strips away illusions. It prevents Clever Hans. It forces handler and dog to rely on one another, not on hidden knowledge.
The real reinforcement
Here’s the best part and often forgot! When you already know where the odor is hidden, reinforcement becomes mechanical. Toss the Kong, deliver the food, repeat. After fifty repetitions, the spark fades. But in double blind training, reinforcement becomes alive:
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The surprise of discovery.
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The handler’s body language exploding with joy.
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The shared celebration of teamwork.
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The energy between dog and handler is real
That is the real reinforcement. Not the object, but the process. Respect, trust, and enthusiasm, all at once. That is the magic of double blind.
Ready to step up?
If you are serious about preparing your K9 team for real operations, you must train double blind. Not later. Not “when the dog is ready.” From the very beginning.
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Want to learn more? Contact us, we’ll help you build true confidence between you and your dog.
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Visit our DetectionDogShop for equipment designed for double blind training, like the result tracker, NOTA, Direct Odor Imprint products, data systems and much more.
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Running a K9 unit? Hire us to review your training and testing protocols. We’ll help ensure your teams are genuinely ready for the operational challenges ahead.
Because in the end, there is only one path forward. The only real confidence builder is training double blind to empower your dogs and handlers!