What kind of dog and how smart is your kid. The mythbusters are quite intelligent and tried everything from masking their scent, backtracking, leaving food, and running through a river and, even with an over the top one where they did all that at once as well as a head to foot washdown and multiple layers of smell-proof clothing and cleanroom suits. Dog found him every time. The problem is that you don't have to just confuse the dog, you also have to confuse their master, which is less easy to do. In the show, the dog was momentarily distracted by food, but went right back on the trail when his master scolded him. The dog also lost the track when Jaime backtracked a few times, but the officer did a spiral from the last known position until the dog found the scent again. The only thing they did that even slowed the dog down was walking through a crowded city street, though the particular dog they used had not been trained in urban areas and the trainer suspected it wouldn't work against a different dog. I'd think the only way to truly avoid the tracker is to keep moving. Tracking is a slow process, even for an expert.
This could work! Also, the thing with police dogs is, how are they picking up on the character's scent? If they picked up on his scent at the scene of the crime, and he still smells the same while he's fleeing, the dog will likely find him. The smell the dogs were given will have to fail to match the way he currently smells. If, however, the dog Think about when hunters are trying to find and kill deer... -Firstly, the use perfume and scent free detergent on their clothes. They may even consider buying clothing made for hunting that specifically locks in human odors using bits of charcoal laid into the fabric. So while the inside of your shirt might smell like, well, human, the deer downwind of you won't be able to pick up on the scent because the clothing is "locking" the scent in and keeping it within the fabric. -Next, they put their clothes, after being dried with no dryer sheets, into a plastic bag and seal it (you don't want to hunt smelling like bacon and eggs because you put your hunting gear on first thing in the morning) -Then, they'll brush their teeth after breakfast with baking soda, a proven odor-killer; no minty fresh toothpaste or cinnamon swirl. No mouth wash. -Next, they'll use odor-neutralizing sprays on the clothes and boots they're going to wear while hunting. -When they're done with that, they'll use an additional spray that adds an odor to their clothing; it doesn't have to be animal urine. In fact, that's a bit messy and could scare a deer off, depending on what animal's urine it is. If that deer's never been around a possum, don't use possum urine. You could be a spray to make yourself smell like a pine tree or mashed acorns. -Finally, it's all about position. Is the deer downwind or upwind from the deer? In other words, is the wind blowing from you to the deer or from the deer to you? If a deer is downwind from you, your scent is traveling toward the deer via the wind. So you want the deer to be upwind from you; the wind is blowing from the deer, toward you. Try and use this logic in your scene. However, remember that a dog's sense of smell is far superior to a dogs. That doesn't mean that a dogs sense of smell is perfect though. If a dog is trying to track a criminal after a few days of good rain, the scent on the trail will be gone. So maybe you can have it rain before the dogs start chasing your character?
I was going to say, If, however, the dog picks up on his smell from, say his pillow or something, but then during the chase he smells different, he'll have a chance of eluding the dogs.
I actually think this is a very apt description of what the dog is likely doing. You have to remember that dogs view the world much much differently than us. For humans, vision takes up about 30% of the processing power of the cortex, where scent isn't even a percent. Dogs on the otherhand, primarily use scent to observe the world and likely sense smells the way we sense photons. I imagine that for a creature like that, trying to cover up something with perfume would be like trying to cover your tracks in the snow. Sure, you could throw the snow around so your footprints themselves are obfuscated, but you can still easily follow it. Our dogs' ancestors tracked prey for miles across wind and snow-blown glaciers of ice-age Europe. During such brutal conditions, the evolutionary pressures kick into high gear. Dogs who couldn't successfully track their meals died. Dogs who could track their meals, but couldn't smell is as soon as another pack also died. As far as I recall, dogs are sniffing for your skin. You can't see them, but you are emitting a cloud of between 30,000 and 50,000 skin cells every MINUTE. Let's do a thought experiment. Let's say you really love garlic (replace with whatever spice you like the best.) Now I'll give you a cup of water and you have to tell me whether or not there is garlic in there. Garlic's taste is quite unique and even covered in pepper, oregano, basil... whatever, it's going to take a very large ratio of other stuff before you aren't able to tell if there is garlic in it or not. Sure, the mixture doesn't taste like garlic, it's probably completely different, but you could still pick out the specific flavor that you are looking for. Now imagine your nose was a hundred thousand times more sensitive. Scent/taste is made of molecules. Adding other scents on top doesn't remove them. Brushing your teeth, changing clothes, spraying cologne, hell even washing with gasoline will not affect the way your skin cells smell. Each skin cell smells like the culmination of your internal chemistry over the past 28 days and only long term changes in diet and environment will alter it. I'd think the only possibility is to increase entropy to such a degree that the density is below what the dog can smell. So your best bet is somewhere where entropy increases at greatly accelerated rates. Maybe a busy highway?
Well, that is how a sniffing dog works. They pick a scent up from dead skin cells and use that to track you. I've heard from police officers that a few days of heavy rain can throw a dog off a trail, especially in an area with heavy, daily foot traffic. So, along with the tips I gave above, maybe he can have his character move through a strip mall after a couple days of rain? Also, with the snow thing. When it gets really cold, skin cells get trapped inside of ice, making them harder for the dog to detect. So even though a dog may be able to track you through snow, it would be harder for them than tracking you through 70 degree weather.
Some great suggestions here. I especially like water and fish, because they're at the locus and your protag wouldn't have had access to them earlier.
