When creating a detection exercise, PACKTRACK enables you to specify target odors (drugs, currency, explosives, etc.) as well as any proofing odors (typically packaging or distractor odors such as cardboard, plastic wrap, paper, etc.) that may be used. Your dog should alert to the target odors and ignore the proofing odors. This works great if all of the dogs at an event are of the same detection odor type.

However, if different detection dog types, such as a drug dog and a currency dog, are in an exercise that uses both drug and currency odors then things get more complicated. In this case, we want the drug dog to use drugs as the target odor and currency as the proofing odor. The currency dog would use currency as the target odor and drugs as the proofing odor. In the past, adding this type of training required you to create 2 separate exercise records in PACKTRACK – one for each dog. Each exercise would specify different target and proofing odors.

With this release we’ve made the process much simpler. Now you only have to create one exercise no matter how many different detection dogs may attend the event. PACKTRACK will automatically categorize each odor in the exercise as target or proofing based on your dog’s detection odor type configuration.

In the screenshots below, two K9s completed the same drug detection exercise. However, the drug odor was categorized as a target odor for drug dog ‘Max’ (top screenshot) and a proofing odor for currency dog ‘Gore’ (bottom screenshot). UPDATE: Note that the screenshots below are out of date and the interface looks different now.

How does this work in practice? For simple exercises nothing should change. Record your target odors in the exercise and you’re set. If you’re running an exercise that only contains proofing odors then make sure to set the Blank / Controlled Negative checkbox when you create the exercise. This ensures that all detection dogs have to complete it.

If the exercise contains both target and proofing odors or there are different types of detection dogs at the event then these changes should make things easier for you. As in the past, when creating the exercise you should explicitly specify the proofing odors which you want all detection dogs to ignore (towels, cardboard, etc.). Next, enter all of the odors that will be target odors for at least some of the dogs. That’s it – PACKTRACK should take care of categorizing the odors as target or proofing for each of your dogs based on their attributes.

For example, you might add drug and currency odors to an exercise. Now, when a drug dog completes this exercise they will have the drug odor categorized as the target and the currency odor categorized as proofing. A currency dog completing the same exercise will have the currency odor categorized as the target and the drug odor categorized as proofing. Of course, both dogs will continue to see any explicitly added proofing odors (dog toy, cardboard, etc.) categorized as proofing.

Information about how the exercise odors are categorized is displayed when you complete your training record to help you write an accurate narrative (see previous screenshots). The odor category is also shown in your exercise report. The report screenshot below shows that drugs were categorized as a proofing odor for currency dog ‘Gore’.