>>906685You're gathering as much information as you can about the person you're looking for.
Depends on what you're doing as a member of your search party, you may be talking to the police and the family regarding the person's age, weight, shoe size, fitness level, any disabilities or mental health issues (big one).
Or you could be liaising with the local police/ search crews to get a general idea of the terrain of the area, sure it helps to have a map but local knowledge is still worth noting. If you can get a local to come along with you during the search, even better.
The last step (or you can delegate someone while you do the processes above, and catch up on this step later) is to just go out into the bush, away from the commotion and the noise and just sit and relax, tune in and listen. You're more productive if you're calm than if you have the pressure of an distressed family member, lights, sirens, radios etc.
The info gathering is important because you can start to get a picture of the person you're looking for, if they're old they're usually unaware they are lost, so they're less predictable, they generally don't travel very far and need rest often.
Same with children between 1-3 are unaware of the concept of being lost, while 4-6 understand the concept of being lost, but will often run away or hide from callers believing they're in trouble, especially police. So its bring a female caller to shout their name as they'll be more likely to respond.
but you still get pretty weird outliers
>>906738Make the handler lose confidence in his dog. Assuming you have time and energy, you can try to run in giant figure 8's leaving a large signs with scent trails, But then again, the tracker can sign cut.
or you can lose them in a river downstream, but you'll leave lots of sign when you get out, mudslides/wet rocks/ displaced rocks. Moving upstream means you move slower and kick up lots of mud and silt that move downstream.
Give/take really.
