Training Program
Document your training
Use Judi’s “Goals for this Track” Form (a.k.a. Goals Form)– fill in the blanks and answer questions; plot your map on the back side of the paper. Use the Goals Form to help you with your blogs. You track; you blog.
Carry water
Offer water and establish a routine for water breaks. Your dog needs to be trained to take a break and take water. Pour water in a bowl and drop a yummy treat in the bowl and let your dog slurp it up.
Pick up the first article!
Why wouldn’t you? If your dog struggles, you have an opportunity to offer water and re-scent using the start article. If your dog continues to struggle and you want to abort your training session, you toss this article over his head and celebrate his success in finding said article.
Video
Videos add so much value to your understanding of dog behavior. Go Pros are awesome. Or get someone to video you with your camera.
TD and TDX training program rotations:
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Starts: generally, one turn
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Turns: always 50-yard leg length
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Articles: See exercises
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Duration/length
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Age
TDX also incorporates
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Obstacles
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Cross Tracks
You are training your dog by working through this rotation in a variety of locations and conditions.
TRAINING EXERCISES
STARTING A DOG AND FIRST STEP OF INTRODUCING WALKED STEPS, TRACKS
For the second track, it's 10 scuff steps, 3 walked with a food drop at step 2, scuff another 10, walk 3 with food @ 2. Food will only appear in the walked sections.
START TRACKS--BEGINNER DOG WHO IS MAKING TURNS
The dots are NOT food drops, but rather the handler's path from track to track. Should the dog choose to follow the track to the next start flag, that is fine, but then they MUST indicate the article using the same indication they are trained for at the end.
START TRACKS--MORE ADVANCED DOG
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STAIRSTEP TRACK
NOTE: You can start with first turn to right or left, and should be trained both ways.
CROSS TRACK TRAINING TRACK
TDX only
TDX TRACK
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All legs ~50-75 yards (to conserve space)
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Articles ~30 yards from turn
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Get as close to the obstacle as you can before turning
ARTICLE INDICATION PRACTICE
Thank you Betty Swenson: Gather 10 diverse articles. No food in any of them. Put 1st one on ground, scuffed 5 steps, put down #2, scuffed 5 more steps, put down #3, etc. until all 10 in a row on ground.
Put harness & line on dog, walked her up to 1st article, gave down cue as soon as she sniffed it. Gave treats from pocket, moved on to next one, repeat all the way down the line to #10, which she got to play with.
Left articles in place. After playing with last article, put it back in place & went back to #1.
NOTE: DO NOT DO THIS BACKWARDS--start over from #1. Repeated process except this time waited a beat to see if she would lie down on her own, which she did 7/10 times. Repeated again, dropped on her own 9/10 times. Quit
5 COMMON TD TRACKS
5 most common TD test patterns
ACUTE TURN
Please don't do this until instructed by me--first acutes will be in class.
Put in a straight track, after ~30+ yards, put in a flag. Walk straight ahead 5 paces...turn completely around and walk back to the flag (so you have double laid this portion of the track). At the flag, turn 45 degrees back, scuff 10, walk 10, food &/or article. End it.
When handling this, you, the handler, should not pass the flag. GIve the dog enough line to investigate the double laid portion and circle back. Wait patiently until they check behind them, go on a weak indication.
Make sure you train this in both directions. You can put in 4 individual acute angle turn tracks (like you'd do 4 start tracks--same concept).
ARTICLE TRACK
Article Track
Article Games
You must continue to build value for article indication throughout your dog's tracking career. Your food reward for articles should be THE yummiest – and a different snack from your track food drop rewards.
See Judi's Article Track training exercise above. It is systematically lays out an article and food reward following a predictable pattern of walk25FD/walk15Article/walk10FD/walk15Article/walk10FD/walk15Article/walk10FD. This systematic 'article track' should be part of your training program rotation. Use ten articles.
There are also 4 GAMES you can play to build value for articles AWAY from tracking (thanks to Carol Maupin for reminding me that 'games matter' when my feral dog runs over articles). Your treats should be HIGH value. High value means rotisserie chicken or steak or pork chop.
Your goal for these GAMES is to get your dog to OFFER a behavior. You must stop PROMPTING him to indicate an article. And when he offers a behavior, PAY HIM WITH YUMMIES! If your dog likes to tug and play, then in training play with the article.
