Article/re-acquire track exercise

https://youtu.be/5Z8tTDcjcjE

heres the exercise we did today. The goal of this exercise is to shift the responsibility for finding the track to the dog (like we do on a stair step track with articles on the turns). If your dog isn’t as experienced as Gus, don’t step as far off the track--3’ is fine. The goal is for the dog to re-find it easily, so he feels MORE confident, not less!! Over time, as he becomes more skilled, increase the distance a bit. This should help teach your dog to keep looking. Remembe—this is a training exercise, not a testing one!!! This isn’t a place for challenging or novel articles—the goal is for the dog to find this exercise fun and easy, without any assistance from you. The assistance comes from the track….

hints: I scuffed 10 out from the article, walked 10, small food drop (3 pieces of food in a pile), walk 10 to next article. Repeat this pattern, as it helps the dog find it, and then rewards him when he does. It should be a straight track (no turns). Keep the pattern so the dog can anticipate the articles. And please don’t work article indication at the same time. This is re-acquiring the track and nothing else. Bad indication? Ignore it, fix that next time out. The articles are flagged, so you can cheer, run up, and using your food, pull the dog off the track. NOTE: don’t do it like I do in the video, but rather, one session, step off to the right of the track each time. next time you do this exercise ((NOT the next time you track!!!), you’ll step

off to left. Next time, mix it up. When skilled at that, turn your back to the track. When skilled at that, turn and face the wrong direction. This starts to teach the dog not to cue off of your position, and to check behind you. The purpose of the video is to demonstrate each of those options.

Id put this track into your rotation (starts, articles, stair step, duration, and re-acquire). Note there’s something between your articl track and this—that’s important!! Don’t do articles one day and this the next session—do something else on between.