Dave, my understanding is for any animal it is not just the oils in our skin but the dead skin we drop off while moving that they can sniff out for the runner, he leaves more of his scent from these 2 things. I have not tried the rubber boot theory, after all i doubt if it would work on a trailing dog since the track training we do for dogs. sometimes we use rubber boots and they track with no problem. So deer and dogs might be different in that regard.