Summer Tracking Thoughts
- judisedwards
- 1 day ago
- 4 min read
Summer (it’s summer this week😳) is all about short tracks. Which means it’s all about finessing the details—both dog details and handler details. Please watch this track in slow motion (I’d suggest 0.5 speed).
This is my friend Suzy and her Danish Swedish Farmdog ‘Helix.’ Watch carefully at about 14 seconds. Do you see Helix clearly indicate the track? His nose actually follows the track as far as it physically can, while he is lying down at the start. NOTE: if trained to do so, most dogs do exactly that. They find the track at the start—at the flag! That is a great summer skill to work on—both the dog finding the track at the flag, and you, the trainer, noticing it and training for it. How do you train for it? Well, I routinely train without a start article. We didn’t have a start article for the first 40 or so years of tracking, and dogs did just fine. In class, we trained for this behavior by always scuffing the start for about 10 yards, sometimes using a scent pad, and if we used a scent pad, we placed another just a couple of yards from the first. The goal is the dog identifies the track at the flag, and tracks away from the flag. Notice, Suzy didn’t do anything as a handler to “make” this happen. She plotted the track to make it more likely, but didn’t ‘steer’ the dog to stay on the track.
Short summer tracks are the perfect time to finesse your turns—both the dog’s skill and yours. Can you train yourself to stop at the first LOS indication your dog gives you? Can you train yourself to stop at every LOS the dog gives you, even the small ones? Can you train yourself to then stand still and let the dog take line when he clearly tracking again? Can you train yourself to not give line until the dog is showing you tracking behavior?? Can you train yourself to keep your feet absolutely still until the dog has gone several feet down the track, correctly (Correctly=spine over track, pulling into harness, head down AND, most importantly, ON THE TRACK), with tension?
If you work—hard—on responding to your dog’s LOS, every time (regardless of if its at a turn, or if the track continues straight ahead), the dog will become more clear in his LOS indication. Why? Because the track leads to reinforcement—you responding to his communication with you, allows him to access the path to reinforcement.
Here’s Fletch today. A fresh track, laid for the weather. 3 legs, none longer than 35 yards. First turn is at a rock lined wet area (dry today). That’s the educational portion of the track—my goal was simply to introduce him to a turn at rocks. Second leg has an article, last leg parallels the gravel road. Environment was public park, dog walking/human walking area.
Note, while he puts his nose down at the start (55 seconds) he initially is heading away from the track. By 1 minute, he has corrected and is clearly on it. I move up the line to training distance, he casts off at 1:05, and I stop, he refinds, I stand still and let him show me the track, and I follow. It’s interesting at about 1;28–you’ll hear me murmur to him, as I was surprised he didn’t cast off at the sand….and then, after he’s past it, he does cast off. This is an example of what I call his nose is ahead of his brain—his brain didn’t notice the changed scent until he wa past it, and then he stopped to recalibrate. Quick circle, and he’s back on the track. His LOS was about 6 inches past the turn, notice he only checks in the direction of the turn. By putting the time in on his starts, I have also trained him to find the turn at the turn, not 20 feet out. 1:47, another cast off at more sand, this time ON the sand, as we haven’t really gotten on a roll on this leg yet. He shakes off, and clearly is now looking for “the” scent. We get to an article, and notice you don’t hear me say “down.” But i did. Quietly. Not as a command (“YOU MUST DOWN NOW”), but as a reminder. As his behavior changed (2:05), I very quietly cued ‘down’ in a soft, pleasant voice. I know he knows….but why wait and see what happens? Let’s keep establishing the habit, but not by me taking control, but just giving a quiet reminder. At 2:17, I pocket the article while he is still down. No fumbling once he’s up—by the time I release him to restart, I am 100% ready to follow. I’ve checked my feet (not tangled), the line (not tangled), my dog (doesn’t look hot or thirsty), stood up, cued him to start. At 2:41 you can clearly see he overshot the turn. Equally clearly you can see I kept following him past the turn, and stopped the instant he cast off. He didn’t commit as quickly, or as hard, as I’d prefer….so I let him take a little more line than usual, so he has the chance to prove to me he’s got it. In a test, I’d be unsure with that behavior, and would likely wait longer to make sure I was seeing behavior I recognized as tracking. So I do that now, in training. I’m keeping the responsibility on him. At 3:03 he finds the final article. His behavior is so clear—he smells it, and can’t find it (it’s under some leaves). He decides ‘the hell with it’ and starts to continue the track. I simply hold the line and don’t allow that option. I say nothing, he searches a little harder and actually finds it and indicates. I wait our 5 seconds and lt him bring it to me. He wasn’t as enthusiastic with the bring this time, which is something I’ll watch. I don’t need that behavior, historically it’s made him crazy happy to do that. If it doesn’t, I’ll go back to just the down.
Please take note of the track—it’s SHORT. We ran it FRESH. It had ONE training goal (turn at rocks). If he was a T dog, it probably would have been shorter. He’s an X dog, and the track was less than 100 yards long. And I am very happy with what he learned. If you don’t take anything else away from this incredibly long post, please take that away!
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