tracking bait - Page 3

Serpentine tracks will definitely help to slow them down.  Had to go to those with my female. 

I am feeding my new dog raw diet. Have to make the stuff up in batches, then freeze it daily portions. (Boy is this getting old...;) This batch I am going to try some variations for tracking. Our hunting club has a commerical kitchen and cold locker. I'm thinking I will try packing the raw food in sausage casings, freeze the sausages, and cut them in thin slices with the meat saw wheile still frozen, store the slices in bags in the freezer. Little meatballs would work too. As long as its not too hot and the slices don't go bad on a long-aged track, that should work well, but in the warm weather I guess I would have to cook the mixture first or scrap the whole idea.

CaptMIke wrote- Aye! that Blond Bombshell Shelley Strohl be all me needs t' track her t' t' ends o' t' world. Me would carve me way through a thousand buccaneers just t' glimpse a peek at such Beauty arrrrr

I'm flattered, but you might want to reconsider when you learn that I am going to fry up a couple of raw diet patties and serve them on buns with mustard to my husband this weekend... his penance for bitching about how much I spent on 8 lbs. of "meat loaf" ...for a DOG! Chances are, he won't even notice it isn't my "usual" recipe for meat loaf. ROTFLMAO!  AS much as I can't keep him out of the tracking hot dogs, he ought to LOVE this stuff!

SS

"If the food is not there, he really doesn't know what to do. Any ideas would be great...thanks very much. I'm kind of stuck" Your dog sounds confused. Food is a tool in tracking that must be removed during the transition stage to articles. Articles will bring his drive back up once the confusion diminishes. Just make sure to quietly praise and heavily pay {food} at the articles. I us the Roll Sausage cubed  because it makes a young dog salivate and hunt for his next article.

Aye'' Shelley me godess, me most beautiful o' all t' golden haired beauties, what? what be this I hear? You mean t' tell me that scurvy dog makes you fry? lets make him walk t' plank me godess. me be pleased with t' raw patti and t' mustard. Never would me put me godess t' t' hard work o' fryin' arrrrrrrr

I am hosting a very small tracking seminar with Jim Lempner and his wife Gerri this weekend.  Jim and his dogs consistantly score quite high in tracking often seeing 100 and 99 point tracks.  Gerri has been in the Search and Rescue venue for many years.

I will be sure to post some of the notes from this weekend's seminar next week.

Gerri is a firm believer in foot step tracking even when training for S&R, I see Jim laying tracks for his 18 month old dog with LOTS of food pretty regular.  I am excited to get a bit more insight on this tracking stuff!

I trained my female to a SchH3, and we always had a hard time in tracking.  I am convinced it was because I took the food off of the track too early, and never had enough on the track when she was learning. 

I prefer to use something other than what I feed her for dinner, and treats on the ob field just for the fact that tracking is so important, and one thing that Ivan always uses as an anology is that when you do a hard job, you expect to get paid well for that hard work rigt?  So I like to feed good stuff on the track, healthy and on articles when I first taught them Sasha got paid huge!  Steak was her "bonus" for the articles. 

Be back on this subject next week!!! ~ Kari

KariM You are fortunate to have these people for the weekend. I have not seen his tracking but have friends who have and they can all track. You are right in saying that food should be on a track except for trial day. However, the article component must be taught without food so that it becomes clear to the dog that his reward comes from hunting the article. Once taught food is introduced again small steps at a time. I would add that food should be placed in four or five consecutive steps to reset the speed. Good luck to those of you still tracking as we have snow here now and won't track again until spring.

I use a LOT of food in the preliminary stages of teaching tracking. Every step for quite awhile, and if things aren't looking good later I go back to more food.

I train articles OFF the track. I start by throwing an article down and instrcuting the dog to platz with it between the front legs in correct position, well away from the tracking field, sometimes in the living room, in the front yard, places like that.  Later I will lay a short "warm up track" with several articles on it, fairly close together and a can of tuna or chicken with my scent on it at the end which I can open and dump between the front legs as a reward. I do use some compulsion when necessary on the "article track." I do NOT put food under the articles ever. That leads to the dog flipping the article out of the way to get to the food beneath... not exactly the indication I'm looking for, Ha ha ha.

Those of you who know me have doubtless seen me lay practice tracks prior to my "real" track, both in practice and before my trial tracks. This has worked well for me over the years, getting some of the pissout of an energetic dog so they will "settle"  instead of goofing off on the first leg later. I'm also a big fan of "ritual" behavior. Ex: everything the same for training as on day of trial: Walk dog. Return to crate. Tease dog with food and articles in crate. Let dog rest with me out of sight. Remove dog from crate, harness, proceed to practice track, reward (calmly) practice track. Return dog to crate. Return to take dog to "real" track. Down dog. Step away. Take dog to report. Start track, etc., etc, etc., same way every time. This is not just for the dog. This dizzy blond NEEDS ritual to overcome stupid mistakes on trail day as much as the dog does. Hope this helps somebody along the way someday.

Capt: I don't mind cooking. I like it. Unfortunately so does the War Dept. What I don't like is having to clean the kitchen afterward, especially when I have to scrap stuff off every surface from the ceiling to the floor after he preparea another one of his gourmet offerings. :-O Its easier to cook it myself.  I come from a long line of women who think the best way to clean house is to HIRE SOMEBODY. Hence the high maintenance issues. ;) The women in my family are notoriously bad in the household organization and maintenance dept.... by choice and by breeding. I'd just as soon burn it to the ground as vaccuum it. LOL

I use turkey and cheese hot dogs - I cut them up into the right size for "whoever" and freeze them. When I lay the track, I put down the frozen pieces (I actually take them to the field in a cooler with an ice pack...). My guys LOVE them (as does my husband!  ). And here in Florida, fire ants are a big problem with the bait. They swarm the bait before the dogs can get to the track if you use anything that is "fresh". The frozen pieces seem to keep that to a minimum.  Now, I have worked dogs who seem to think that the fire ants are like,hmmmm, hot sauce and scarf them down along with the bait.......go figure....

Oh the turkey cheese hot dogs go on sale regularly as two-fers.... another plus....