I am by no means an expert, but here is my two cents...
If you are dead serious of getting your puppy titled in SchH, I would possibly wait until you have obtained those titles. SchH tracking is supposed to be deep nosed as you stated, and air scenting MAY affect that. When a dog learns to air scent they will a lot of times rather do that, than put their noses on the ground...
I do both SchH type of tracking and SAR with my Cody. I tell him SUCH when he is SchH tracking and "Find him" when he is on a search looking for someone and basically mainly air scenting. He also has a command for cadaver (search)... He -IMO- is a good tracking dog and will have a very deep nose tracking, but at times I have noticed that he will try to air scent, especially if the track goes through several cross tracks, and he gets confused. It may be MY OWN training problem, nothing to do with the fact that he has also been taught to air scent... but that I do not know.. maybe a little bit of both!
On the other hand, my SAR team leader has a SchH3 dog that has all along also done SAR work... so it it possible.
I will not start SAR with my puppy Brandie, because I do wanna try to obtain SchH titles on her before introducing air scenting to her...
If you are dead serious of getting your puppy titled in SchH, I would possibly wait until you have obtained those titles. SchH tracking is supposed to be deep nosed as you stated, and air scenting MAY affect that. When a dog learns to air scent they will a lot of times rather do that, than put their noses on the ground...
I do both SchH type of tracking and SAR with my Cody. I tell him SUCH when he is SchH tracking and "Find him" when he is on a search looking for someone and basically mainly air scenting. He also has a command for cadaver (search)... He -IMO- is a good tracking dog and will have a very deep nose tracking, but at times I have noticed that he will try to air scent, especially if the track goes through several cross tracks, and he gets confused. It may be MY OWN training problem, nothing to do with the fact that he has also been taught to air scent... but that I do not know.. maybe a little bit of both!
On the other hand, my SAR team leader has a SchH3 dog that has all along also done SAR work... so it it possible.
I will not start SAR with my puppy Brandie, because I do wanna try to obtain SchH titles on her before introducing air scenting to her...