The Weather outside is delightful….

Some of you worked through the summer, kudos to you! For those of you (like me) who just couldn’t handle the humidity this year….it’s gone!

MaryAnn and I would like to encourage everyone to get out and start training! Tracking is an instinctive activity for our dogs, and as such, it doesn’t usually degrade with time off (your hunting dog remembers how to hunt every fall, as does your herding dog or sighthound remember how to do their thing). Please don’t wait for class to start before you go back to training—you’ll miss 2-3 months of great tracking weather!

Feel free to start at the beginning if that’s your comfort zone—short tracks, easy scuff walk food pattern (S10W5F2)—for the first day! It’s likely your dog will be thrilled to get back to the game, so push on!!

If there’s one thing we’d like you all to focus on as you get started, its identifying when the dog is tracking successfully and change the set up! S10W5F2 went well—push on! S10W10F5. That went well? Push on! When you get to the pattern you were using at the end of last year, go back to doing it twice successfully before you PUSH ON!

All you’re doing the first couple of tracks is getting both of you back into the swing—he remembers how to do this, we are just doing a quick tune up. As you tune up, start to incorporate the rotations:

1. Starts (4 L’s) run at intervals (15, 30, 45,60 min; 30, 60, 90, 120 min)

2. Articles. You should have an encyclopedia of article training exercises

3. Duration: long, as few turns as possible. Goal is 500 yds for T students, 1100 yds for TDX

4. Turns: Check the resources, remind yourself how to plot a stairstep track (yes, 50 yard legs matter—longer isn’t helpful). We want the dog to recognize the pattern and be thinking “turn” as they get to about 45 yards….

And remember, we are only a blog post away!

MAM & JSE