Track Recovery

While I’ve taught this concept for years, I’ve not previously identified it as a unique skill we should be training. It is a key concept that transfers responsibility for finding the track to the dog, with minimal help from us. I can easily come up with several practice tracks to work on this skill, which in reality, is probably every bit as important as starts and turns. It’s quite likely your dog will loose the track at some point, and it’s important we’ve taught him that searching for it will result in him finding it again! If this is well trained, it should give the dog an active behavior, rather than stopping work and staring….. So put this in your training track rotation!

Track 1 would be the article track which is on video for your understanding. The track is laid as follows: Article, S10, W10, F, W 10, Article, S10, W10, F, W10, Article. Continue for about 6 intermediate articles (8 articles total). As the dog indicates the article, feed/play, and walk backwards, moving him ~3-6 feet off the track. Stand still, facing the track (not the direction of the track, but the track itself) and allow him to recover the track. Praise! Repeat for each article. Do NOT work article indication on this track—one goal only, and that is track recovery. While in teaching mode (the dog hasn’t mastered refinding the track), always step off the track to the same side (so step to for example, the right of the track for all 6 articles). Next time, step to the left. When dog is re-acquiring the track easily in both directions, change the direction you face while the dog searches—initially, turn your back to the track, and over time, shift until you are facing the start, putting the track behind you. You are trying to teach the dog that your position is not a cue for track location—that is his job!

Track 2: put in a 50 yard track, put a flag in, walk 5 more steps. Turn around and walk back to flag. Turn 90 degrees, walk 5 giant steps, then S10, walk ?5, article (loaded with food). Repeat this track, making sure you teach the dog to look to both directions. When he can refind this turn easily, make the turn acute—so the track will be behind the flag. Over time, move the article further out, using a S-W pattern, until its about 30-50 yards from the turn. Take your time—always building difficulty when the dog shows enthusiasm

Track 3: Put in a 50 or more yard track, put in a flag, jump as far to one side as you can, put in a flag, W 5, S 10, article, and continue on the new path. Do this jumping to both sides (can be same track, but put a good 50 yards on the new path before moving back. Articles should be full of food—we want to train the dog that refi

Track 4: stair step with articles on turns

Track 5: 40 yards, S5, walk 5 giant steps, turn 90, walk 5 giant steps, S10, W5, article.

One more thing…..you are at a test….you approach the flag….the start article is missing. There’s a scurry of activity, and the tracklayer hands you an article. What now? Do you panic, or do you smoothly shift to a process you have trained? Have you carefully taught your dog to either take the article in his mouth, or taught him to take a few long deep breaths of the article? The judges might let you place the article on the ground, but they also might not (it’s vague in the Rules). It’s a great idea to actually teach your dog some sort of rescenting behavior, ideally using positive methods, and training it slowly and incrementally, so that pulling an article out of your pocket is reinforcing (definition: increases behavior) not aversive.