Just the facts Ma'am

I loved everyone's comments on the challenging track I put in for Fletch. Your comments raise some points for discussion. Many of you commented that deer might have walked somewhere, or people might have picnic-ed and left food droppings, possibility of cross tracks etc. Question: Do we KNOW that any of that happened? If we don't KNOW, then we do our dog a disservice to make assumptions. Here's the thing--it does. not. matter. why. it. was. hard. It only matters that a given situation was hard for my dog, on that day. Each time you say to yourself, your tracking buddy or me, "I think it was....." you've lost an opportunity to say, "he found the fence line challenging," or "the picnic table was hard for him." NOW you have something you can train--fence lines, picnic areas, parking areas, wide, narrow, wide areas etc. This clarity will allow you to set up tracks to teach the dog how to handle the challenge. If you make the site the challenge, you really can't use it to your best advantage.

What did Fletch find hard? For sure the wide area after the narrow....and the portion of the leg along the trucks. The entire leg along side the picnic table blew his mind, yet the turn at the fence was a slam dunk. Turn at the birdhouse was stupid tracklaying on my part....BUT, he found going diagonally across the mow very hard, so while I hate where I put the corner, I love what I learned.

To be clear, the entire purpose of the 5, 5 yard long, individual tracks through the political signs and under the tent were simply to expose him to those challenges in a way I hoped he would succeed. He did, therefore, we did. Sure, there was likely a ton of contamination, and the signs probably impacted the scent. None of that was my focus. My focus was "let's keep your nose down and you going forward through this stuff." I wanted SO MUCH food on the track that he'd just go from food drop to food drop without showing awareness of the environment. Do I think he knew the signs and contamination were there? Hell yes! But this wasn't designed to be a challenge for him to work out (it was for Gusto), for Fletch it was something happening around him, that (fingers crossed) didn't involve him. And that's how it happened--he tracked cookie to cookie, through all that stuff, and never picked his head up. Do I think he learned anything? Yes, for darn sure, yes.

Let's quickly apply these concepts to your dogs. You put a track in past a woodchuck hole (judges do that a lot). Your dog stops, sticks his head in, becomes excited. You command him to leave it, get back to work, track--whatever. None of those cues/commands are going to teach him to check and dismiss woodchuck holes. The science would suggest that adding conflict (telling the dog what YOU want, and ignoring his needs), will make the woodchuck hole MORE appealing the next time. So in the moment, move up your line and get past the hole, silently. Next time, put a track in that starts, goes maybe 15 yards, now it passes the hole. Scuff and put food every footstep....to the glove which is maybe 5-10 yards past the hole. And the glove is stuffed (and I do mean stuffed) with high value treats. Handle your dog by being as close to him as you physically can. If he sticks his head in the hole, stand still, hold your line, and say nothing....because it's unlikely he's going to catch the groundhog....and very likely he's going to find the food trail. So he will make a choice to follow the track.....

Make sense? Questions below