Any dog trackers?

[Howitzer]

Hi all,

I'm going to try some dog tracking with my Rottie this coming week and wondered if anyone had done similar or currently does tracking work?

It's supposed to really wear them down and get them to focus which is good as my wife can tire him out easier while pregnant.

I intend to not feed him, then take the chopped up cows heart and make a bit of a route, putting a piece of heart every 5 metres or so and get him to follow it. The place i'd do this has a few dog walkers so i'll have to go early or he may lose some of his breakfast.

Any hints or words of wisdom?

Dave!

[Autopilot]

Howitzer said:

Hi all,

I'm going to try some dog tracking with my Rottie this coming week and wondered if anyone had done similar or currently does tracking work?

It's supposed to really wear them down and get them to focus which is good as my wife can tire him out easier while pregnant.

I intend to not feed him, then take the chopped up cows heart and make a bit of a route, putting a piece of heart every 5 metres or so and get him to follow it. The place i'd do this has a few dog walkers so i'll have to go early or he may lose some of his breakfast.

Any hints or words of wisdom?

Dave!

I do tracking work with the dogs (Dobermanns) as part of Schutzhund.

Firstly, you need to make it as easy for the dog as possible. Don't bother doing it if it's a really windy day, it makes it much more difficult for the dog...which you can do later, but for now you want him to succeed so needs to be as easy as possible.

When you do tracking, lay the track facing the wind. Again, it's easier for the dog as the smell comes his way so his lack of technique doesn't matter as much.

Food wise, anything he really likes, sausages, cheese, whatever really. The smellier the better. You're 100% correct in that you don't feed the dog before you track, if he's hungry, he'll work harder.

Choose a starting point and mark where it is (Pole / flag etc). From this starting point, stomp around quite a bit, literally shuffle your feet around like your're wiping your feet and turn in a circle so you can see where you've been stomping. To start with, shuffle forwards and put a couple of small pieces of food BEHIND your left foot. keep shuffling and about 7 - 10 inches ahead, put food behind your right foot. Keep your feet connected to the ground the whole time, you should literally be leaving two solid lines behind you and you can see where you've shuffled along. Every 7 - 10 inches put food behind your feet, left foot, then behind the right foot and carry on until you've done this for 10 - 15 metres. When you get to the end of your track, WITHOUT moving your feet from the final position, put a container with high reward treats in it in front of your feet, can be the same as what you used on the track, just a whole pile of it. Leave the lid slightly off so when he gets to it he can devour it all. Now from your position, jump away as far from the track as you can. You don't want to contaminate the area with other smells and the dog needs to know the track has ended.

Do NOT walk over the track you've laid. Give it 10 minutes for the scent cloud to settle and go get the dog.

lead the dog to where the track starts but keep him about a metre away. If he's showing interest in the track as he can smell it, let him move towards it and say 'track'..you're teaching him commands he'll get to know.

If he has no interest in the track, put some food in your hand, hold it in front of his nose and lead his face to the first bit of food on the track, remember to use the 'Track' command and say it very calmly.

ALWAYS stand behind the dog! It's one of the rare occasions where it's ok to do so, but you can stand over his hind quarters and help steer him a little bit. A normal lead on him is fine, but if you use two longer lines that go under him and between his legs, you can kind of steer him a little bit. Depending on his natural ability, you may need to help him quite a bit and keep him on the track, or he could just take to it.

When he gets to the end of the track and find the pot of food, put your hands on him and gently push him in to a laying down position while he's eating, he should be nice and calm and will probably just drop down. When he's finished, praise him!!

So, what we've done is teach him that when you say 'track', he knows there's food in it for him and he's stood near a track.
We've positioned food at close intervals, literally the length of your foot away from the next bit so he can easily smell it and stay interested in the track and he knows what he should be doing. Definitely don't leave it 5m between bits of food it MUST be easy for the dog and not set him up for failure.

We've positioned the food from left to right, left to right so that when he gets the hang of it, he learns that when he tracks, he needs to use a sweeping motion with his head to cover a wider track, not just follow a single path. Kind of the same as you'd do with a metal detector to cover more ground.

He will learn that at the end of a track, there's a bigger reward for him. The track is fun and there's food, but he will learn it's the end of the track he's interested in.

Making him laydown when he gets the big reward teaches him that when he gets to the end of a track he must laydown. For you this isn't that important as this is used in competition so that the judge knows that the dog has found the article he's been asked to track. They don't use food in competition, it's normally a small object which the dog must laydown in front of to show he's found it. WHen you put the track down for the dog, jumping away from the very end of the track leaves a big gap so that the track effectively stops. If you just walk away, the dog things the track is continuing.

As the dog gets better with tracking you can then start to add legs (turns). Lay a track like the one first described and when you want to add a turn, put a flag in the ground and turn left or right. The end of the track should be set up the same as previously mentioned. If you're in longer grass, rather than doing train track style shuffling you can create divets by digging your toes in to the ground to create a small hollow and put the food inside it. Keep going left to right etc etc.

As the dog has his lightbulb moment and gets better at tracking you can then start to make it more difficult...more turns in the track, less food, food further apart etc etc.

The end game is that where you used food on the track, you end up not using any food. The dog follows the scent cloud created from walking over the grass and tracks you rather than food items. Give me a yell if you need more help.