History Main / TheyHaveTheScent

* In ''Literature/{{Discworld}}'', once criminals start hearing that a werewolf has joined the watch, they grow wise and carry 'scent bombs': a thin glass vial of peppermint oil or aniseed oil is shattered in a busy intersection, where hundreds or thousands of people will walk over it, obscuring the criminal's scent with theirs. Also, Moist Von Lipwig has an emergency escape plan (hatched after he heard the watch employs a werewolf) including detours through the butchering district and riding dung carts. Except that this won't work, since Angua ''can'' track a suspect through those. The one that does get her is the spice market.

** In "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS5E12HomerTheVigilante Homer the Vigilante]]", Wiggum tries to use a rather vicious one to get Homer's scent using a handkerchief, but [[TooDumbtoLive foolishly wipes his face]] [[HoistByHisOwnPetard and underarms with it first.]]

** In "[[Recap/TheSimpsons5E12HomerTheVigilante Homer the Vigilante]]", Wiggum tries to use a rather vicious one to get Homer's scent using a handkerchief, but [[TooDumbtoLive foolishly wipes his face]] [[HoistByHisOwnPetard and underarms with it first.]]

** In "[[Recap/TheSimpsons5E11HomerTheVigilante Homer the Vigilante]]", Wiggum tries to use a rather vicious one to get Homer's scent using a handkerchief, but [[TooDumbtoLive foolishly wipes his face]] [[HoistByHisOwnPetard and underarms with it first.]]

** In "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsWhoShotMrBurns Who Shot Mr. Burns (Part 2)]]" Wiggum tries to use a rather vicious one to get Homer's scent using a handkerchief, but [[TooDumbtoLive foolishly wipes his face]] [[HoistByHisOwnPetard and underarms with it first.]]

** In "There's No Disgrace Like Home", Eddie and Lou take a bloodhound named Bobo into Moe's; Bobo quickly starts to bark at Homer (seeing as he's the criminal they're looking for) but Eddie and Lou are too dumb to get the point, and take him out.
** Both Scraps and Laddie played the Trope pretty straight while sniffing out narcotics in "Weekend at Burnsie's" and "The Canine Mutiny".
** In "Who Shot Mr. Burns (Part 2)" Wiggum tries to use a rather vicious one to get Homer's scent using a handkerchief, but [[TooDumbtoLive foolishly wipes his face]] [[HoistByHisOwnPetard and underarms with it first.]]
** Sniffy seemed like a good police dog until Wiggum told him to get Homer's scent via his underwear in "Natural Born Kissers". Poor Sniffy.

* ComicBook/{{Tintin}}'s dog Snowy regularly picks up trails. He's not usually successful, though; on at least one occasion, he was actually going after a bone rather than the criminals Tintin was trying to catch. Tintin also scatters pepper in one story to put an enemy dog off the scent.

* In ''WesternAnimation/TheFoxAndTheHound'', Copper first meets Tod by tracking his scent.

* In ''Literature/{{Discworld}}'', once criminals start hearing that a werewolf has joined the watch, they grow wise and carry 'scent bombs': a thin glass vial of peppermint oil or aniseed oil is shattered in a busy intersection, where hundreds or thousands of people will walk over it, obscuring the criminal's scent with theirs. Also, Moist Von Lipwig has an emergency escape plan (hatched after he heard the watch employs a werewolf) including detours through the butchering district and riding dung carts.

** Except that this won't work, since Angua ''can'' track a suspect through those. The one that does get her is the spice market.

* ''film/TheMackintoshMan'' (1973) subverts the 'lose the scent via water' version when the protagonist uses the river to [[GoodIsNotNice drown the dog]] instead.

* ''Series/GameOfThrones''. Season 6 opens with Sansa Stark and Theon Greyjoy fleeing Lord Bolton's bloodhounds, who catch up [[RealityEnsues despite the fugitives crossing a river, and Theon trying to lead them off]].

* ''{{Literature/Animorphs}}'' had the Yeerks doing this with Taxxon trackers in one book.

* In Literature/{{Discworld}}, once criminals start hearing that a werewolf has joined the watch, they grow wise and carry 'scent bombs': a thin glass vial of peppermint oil or aniseed oil is shattered in a busy intersection, where hundreds or thousands of people will walk over it, obscuring the criminal's scent with theirs. Also, Moist Von Lipwig has an emergency escape plan (hatched after he heard the watch employs a werewolf) including detours through the butchering district and riding dung carts.

* In Creator/DevonMonk's ''Literature/MagicToTheBone'', Allie recounts how, to throw a Hound off your trail, you need to avoid using magic and cover up your smell with something else stinky. She opts for garbage.
* Used by the killer in Literature/DrThorndyke short story "[[Literature/TheSingingBone A Case of Premeditation]]". Pratt, the blackmailer, lets slip that his wealthy employer keeps a pack of champion bloodhounds. So Dobbs, the killer, plants in advance a scent trail, using musk, that leads to a different man. Then after committing the murder he plants a second, identical knife at the scene, contaminated with musk. Sure enough, the bloodhounds follow the scent to the wrong person.
* ''{{Literature/Animorphs}}'' had the Yeerks doing this with Taxxon trackers in one book.
* In Creator/JohnCWright's ''Literature/TheHermeticMillennia'', the dog things invert; when they are done sniffing around, they howl in frustration at not finding the scent.
* In Creator/AndreNorton's ''Literature/IceCrown'', the Duke tries to invoke this by getting the hound master to make a bait for the escaped Imfray. When he is told of the problems owing to the duocorn mounts, he orders one killed for the bait, even though it might hunt the pursuers' horses. The hound master being Imfray's friend, making the bait takes too long for it to be useful.
* In Creator/AndreNorton's ''Literature/StormOverWarlock'', the Throgs have a creature that can track them, and gives an eerie howl when it has their scent. Unsurprisingly, the human name for it is "hound."
* In Creator/RuthFrancesLong's ''Literature/TheTreacheryOfBeautifulThings'', the fairy dogs bark all the way as they chase and hunt down the tracker who failed the queen.
* In ''Literature/SardHarker'', Harker is chased by a mob and their dogs, and wades upstream to break the scent.
* In ''Literature/ShadowOfTheConqueror,'' [[SympatheticInspectorAntagonist Lyrah]] finds a place where Daylen stood early on, getting his scent and using [[TheNoseKnows her powers]] to track him.
* In ''Literature/TheBerenstainBears and the Missing Honey'', Papa Bear and the cubs enlist Cousin Fred's dog Snuff to try to sniff out whoever stole Papa's special blackberry (boysenberry in the AnimatedAdaptation) flavored honey. At fist Snuff is misled by other things with the same scent: first perfume, then a fruit stew Grizzly Gran is making. But finally he leads them to Papa's own honey-covered pajamas, revealing that Papa has been eating the honey while {{Sleepwalking}}.
* ''The Amateur'' by Robert Littell. The protagonist overhears his superior at the CIA talking of how he threw dogs off the scent during World War 2 by urinating into the snow, and later uses this when being tracked by dogs inside Communist Czechoslovakia.

* ''Series/MythBusters'' busted pretty much all of the traditional methods of throwing a dog off the scent: just about the only place you might conceivably lose a scent dog is in an urban environment, where there are too many other scents for the dog to concentrate on yours. Unless they're using a dog that has been specially trained to ignore all other city scents, as they demonstrated, in which case you're screwed.

* ''Series/GameOfThrones''. Season 6 opens with Sansa Stark and Theon Greyjoy fleeing Lord Bolton's bloodhounds, who catch up [[RealityEnsues despite the fugitives crossing a river, and Theon trying to lead them off]].
* ''Series/MidsomerMurders'': "The Night of the Stag" opens with a PursuedProtagonist being chased through an orchard at night by armed men with hounds.
* Played with in the ''Series/BlackMirror'' episode "Metalhead". The protagonist uses a stream to temporarily dodge the KillerRobot [[RobotDog Dog]] that's hunting her, but by placing a TrackingDevice inside a bottle and floating it downstream. However it quickly regains her trail using its electronic sensors.
* A couple ''{{Series/CSI}}'' episodes use scent dogs. They lose the scent in one case. Another involved Nick’s dog Sam, who he adopted after it was proven Sam didn’t kill his police partner. Sam finds what they’re after that time.

* In Limp Bizkit's music video for "Eat You Alive", police dogs are shown sniffing out the scent of the woman the band has kidnapped, and they give chase.

* ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaTwilightPrincess'' is a game example, where ''you'' are the one who picks up The Scent (in [[OurWerewolvesAreDifferent wolf form]],) with many different smells presented throughout the game.
%%* ''Literature/{{Discworld}} Noir''.
* The titular hero in VideoGame/BatmanArkhamSeries. With his (bat?)scanner, he can extract separate essenses (like tobacco stains or alcohol vapors) and then pinpoint them in the surroundings to track the smoker/drinker. For example in ''VideoGame/BatmanArkhamAsylum'' Bats has to find Frank Boles, an Arkham security guard, by the alcohol on his breath [[spoiler: which Joker knew about and used Boles' corpse as bait.]]

* In ''Videogame/{{Evolve}}'' this is Daisy's basic purpose. She can find the monsters tracks, even when they are hidden due to sneaking, and follow them to the monster. While this is useful for remaining on the monster's trail it is less useful for actually pinpointing the monster due to its speed, necessitating players to anticipate the behavior of their foe. On the monster's side, it can smell all animals, hunters, and pieces of equipment within its smell range, as well as hunter tracks. This allows it to track the hunters or avoid them by detecting them first.
* In ''Franchise/TheElderScrolls'' series, [[OurWerewolvesAreDifferent werewolves]] are a [[MonsterProgenitor creation]] of the [[OurGodsAreDifferent Daedric Prince]] of [[EgomaniacHunter the Hunt]], Hircine, and serve him as "hunting dogs". They are sometimes referred to specifically as his "hounds" in this fashion.
* ''VideoGame/MonsterHunterWorld'': Scoutflies will usually aid their Hunter by clustering around objects of interest nearby. But if presented with the scent of a specific monster, they will swarm and form a trail along the scent, allowing the Hunter to easily track their prey. They become more effective at this the more familiar they are with the target's scent.

[[folder:Web Comics]]

* In ''Webcomic/{{Freefall}}'', [[http://freefall.purrsia.com/ff1700/fc01609.htm unleashing the hounds for this has complications.]]
* IN ''Webcomic/RedsPlanet'', [[http://www.redsplanet.com/comic/rp/pro/prologue-05/ the old man's dog barks and draws his attention to the aliens]]
* In ''Webcomic/GirlGenius'', Inverted: [[http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20130812 the Sparkhund recognize their master's horn telling them ''he's'' hunting.]]
* In ''Webcomic/BusterWildeWeerwolf'', [[http://www.furnation.com/BusterWilde/comics/buster023.gif Buster can tell people's gender and orientation by their distinct smells.]]

* Throughout the ''Franchise/ScoobyDoo'' franchise, the titular dog is mostly called upon to use his nose to lead the gang. While he's mostly successful, there are times where he makes mistakes, and is occasionally [[TheSnackIsMoreInteresting derailed by something tasty]]. In one particular instance where he teamed up with Creator/DonKnotts, Don had him smell a pair of socks belonging to a man he was searching for, and he ended up leading Knotts to a drawer filled with similar socks.
-->'''Don Knotts:''' "You don't follow the smell of the socks! You follow the smell of the man who wore them!"
* In the ''WesternAnimation/{{Doug}}'' episode "Doug On the Trail," Mr. Dink goes missing in the woods, so Doug, Skeeter and Porkchop set out to look for him. Doug still has a handkerchief that Mr. Dink lent him when he sneezed at the beginning of the episode, so he has Porkchop smell it to track Mr. Dink's scent.

* {{Tintin}}'s dog Snowy regularly picks up trails. He's not usually successful, though; on at least one occasion, he was actually going after a bone rather than the criminals Tintin was trying to catch. Tintin also scatters pepper in one story to put an enemy dog off the scent.

* Maximus tracks Flynn this way in ''WesternAnimation/{{Tangled}}''. (Maximus, by the way, is ''[[AllAnimalsAreDogs a horse]]''. Whinnies instead of baying to be sure.)

* In ''WesternAnimation/TheFoxAndTheHound'', Copper first meets Tod by tracking his scent.

* ''Film/ShootEmUp''. The villains bring in a German Shepherd to track the BadassAndBaby, who [[HeroesLoveDogs refuses to shoot the dog]]. Instead he distracts it by leaving the baby's soiled diaper behind.
* In ''Film/JurassicWorld'' Hoskins wants to use the raptors to track the escaped Indominus Rex, over trainer Owen's objections. Eventually he gets his way though, Owen grudgingly holding up the chunk of flesh I.Rex ripped out to remove her implant so they can recognize the scent.
* In ''Film/DarkNightOfTheScarecrow'', Otis and his lynch mob use dogs to track Bubba to the middle of the field where he is hiding inside the scarecrow.
* ''The Mackintosh Man'' (1973) subverts the 'lose the scent via water' version when the protagonist uses the river to [[GoodIsNotNice drown the dog]] instead.
* ''Film/GatesOfParis'': The cops, looking for escaped murderer Barbier, come to [[EveryoneCallsHimBarkeep the Artist's]] shack. They don't find Barbier, because he is hiding in the Artist's basement. Later a bloodhound leads its master to the shack, but the police, thinking the shack has been cleared, move on.

* In Creator/DanAbnett's Literature/GauntsGhosts novel ''Traitor General'', Landerson recognizes the sound and tells Gaunt that the dogs the Chaos forces are using have their scent.
** In ''Blood Pact'', the Chaos forces transform one of their number to do this, and later, when Mkoll picks up Gaunt's trail, Kolea phrases, "He has the scent."
** The demon-possessed tank which stalks the Gaunt's party during the liberation of Gereon behaves like a preying animal and probably can catch their scent, although this remains ambiguous.

* In ''Literature/NOrM'', Creator/AgathaChristie's Tuppence Beresford has rubbed aniseed oil on her shoes so that she can be followed by the officials when she goes to meet a suspected spy. When the person escorting her to the meeting tells her to get into a car, [[spoiler:she expresses doubt about the quality of the tires and kicks it several times, transferring the aniseed oil to the sidewall of the tire.]]
* In William King's TabletopGame/Warhammer40000 Literature/SpaceWolf novel ''Grey Hunters'', Sven and Ragnar know there is trouble when they see the Chaos forces have dogs sniffing at a trail.
* In Creator/GrahamMcNeill's TabletopGame/Warhammer40000 Literature/{{Ultramarines}} novel ''Courage and Honour'', when two dogs grow frantic, Uriel does not use the phrase, but goes to check himself and smells human blood.
* In Creator/JohnCWright's ''[[Literature/ChroniclesOfChaos The Orphans of Chaos]]'', when Grum sets Lelaps on Vanity and Amelia's trail, he finds them, turns away, and starts to bay, running off. Grum comments that he's found the scent.
* In Creator/RobertEHoward's "Literature/RedNails", when Literature/ConanTheBarbarian and Valeria are inching away from the dragon, the wind abruptly blows directly from them to it. Its reaction is instant, and they ''run''.
* In Poul Anderson's ''Literature/AMidsummerTempest'', they get the dogs on Rupert and Will's trail.
* Creator/StephenKing's ''Literature/TheGreenMile'' plays with this. A group of dogs track the two kidnapped girls at the beginning of the story, but get mixed up at the creek; two of them want to go in another direction. After the scent is reestablished, they go with the rest of the pack. Later, Paul figures out that it's because those two dogs weren't police dogs and got the smell of the killer and the girls mixed up in their head, so that when the killer ditched the girls at the creek, they went in ''his'' direction, rather than where the girls were eventually taken by John Coffey.
** That is, the tracking dogs had to be primed with a scent, and the scent they were given was of the girls. The police dogs caught the third scent mixed up with them and knew from training that that was the real target [[spoiler:Wild Bill]]'s and tried to hunt that down. The others track what they were given to track. Where the two diverge, they disagree. When they find the scent of the girls minus the third scent, they all chase that down. The search party makes the obvious assumption when the dogs lead them to what is found - a blood-covered ScaryBlackMan with the mangled corpse of a white girl in each hand. PoorCommunicationKills.
* Literature/MatthewHawkwood and Lassuer are hunted using dogs in ''Rapscallion''.
* In one of the [[Literature/HeraldsOfValdemar Tarma and Kethry]] short stories, two kidnapped girls drop shreds of white silk out of the wagon they're being transported in. The silk is invisible against the snow the wagon is rolling through, but leaves traces of their scent that Tarma's kyree familiar Warrl can follow.
* In Creator/GeneStrattonPorter's ''Literature/{{Freckles}}'', they try to use bloodhounds to find Black Jack. They follow his trail for an amazingly long time, but finally lose him in the depths of the swamp, which is attributed to snakes frightening the hounds.

* In ''WesternAnimation/LadyAndTheTramp'', Trusty is a retired tracking bloodhound who has lost his sense of smell. When the Tramp is taken to the pound, Trusty tries to pick up the scent. Joq at first feels sorry for his old friend and tries to make him admit he can no longer track, but Trusty scoffs it off and continues. Against all odds, he manages to pick up the scent and arrives just in the nick of time.

* ''The Amateur'' by Robert Littell. The protagonist overhears his CIA superior telling how he escaped tracker dogs in [=WW2=] by urinating into the snow, and later uses the same technique to escape tracker dogs behind the Iron Curtain.

* In ''Literature/TheBerenstainBears and the Missing Honey'', Papa Bear and the cubs enlist Cousin Fred's dog Snuff to try to sniff out whoever stole Papa's special blackberry (boysenberry in the Animated Adaptation) flavored honey. At fist Snuff is misled by other things with the same scent: first perfume, then a fruit stew Grizzly Gran is making. But finally he leads them to Papa's own honey-covered pajamas, revealing that Papa has been eating the honey while {{Sleepwalking}}.

* ''Film/TheLordOfTheRings'': ''The Two Towers''

* Maximus tracks Flynn this way in ''Disney/{{Tangled}}''. (Maximus, by the way, is ''[[AllAnimalsAreDogs a horse]]''. Whinnies instead of baying to be sure.)
* In ''Disney/LadyAndTheTramp'', Trusty is a retired tracking bloodhound who has lost his sense of smell. When the Tramp is taken to the pound, Trusty tries to pick up the scent. Joq at first feels sorry for his old friend and tries to make him admit he can no longer track, but Trusty scoffs it off and continues. Against all odds, he manages to pick up the scent and arrives just in the nick of time.

* In ''Disney/TheFoxAndTheHound'', Copper first meets Tod by tracking his scent.