tracking - Page 1

I've never trained a dog to track and I would like to try and train my 7 month gsd to track. Any pointers would be a great help. I heard that some people will boil a chicken and then save the juice. They will then let the juice and chicken cool. When the chicken is cooled they will take an old sock and stuff some bread into the sock. Then soak the sock in the chicken juice. Then you go outside and drag the sock in the snow behind you in a straight line and leave a piece of chicken meat about every 2 feet. Is this a good way to begin? Thanks in advance. Mysti

I have heard/seen the old school Germans using tripe like this. I start off cutting meat cubes about 1/4 inch cubed. I go to the start point. I stand rubbing my feet over the ground for 1 minute in a 2 feet square at the start point. I step out of the square, proceeding forward in the direction of the track to be laid. I reach back and drop cubes into the square. I then proceed(laying the track) as follows: I stomp the ground, rigidly, firmly planting each foot, and as I lift my heel for the next step, turn around and place one of those cubs in the foot print, I just made. I do this for each footstep, initialy for 15 feet or so. Longer trails are made each time we train the maneuver. The dog was out of sight when i did this. I go get the dog, take him to the start point and tell him to "find"(I use the German command for this). I point to the first few footsteps until the dog gets the picture and starts searching the footsteps for him self. At the end of the trail, I have a ball, favorite toy, of pile of meat and make a big fuss of "good girl"(praising him/her exuberantly), when we get to the objective. Just one way to start the "tracking", there are "others". I do this in the morning, BEFORE I feed the dog(she is hungry), and BEFORE the sun has a chance to heat the ground and start causing "thermals". When you start this I would recommend doing it under a "calm wind" condition. Stephen

Hi Mysti, Never heard of that method not too say there is anything wrong with it. Start your dog with short straight line tracks. Lay a scent pad, meaning a starting point where you stomp down the ground and rub your self to drop more scent, Go in a straight line dropping a treat, I use very small bits of hot dog or peperoni, in each of your foot steps down the track. Asv you are lifting your foot you drop the treat in the foot step. At the end you have a little pile of the treats. This teaches the dog to smell each foot print and helps keep there nose to the ground. best time to do this is when the dog is hungry. As the dog picks this up you then put out the food every couple of feet. Don't try and rush your progress. When the dog has mastered this meaning food at begining middle end then add a turn in, once again use the treats in the turn as you did in the begining. As you start weaning the dog off of food on the turns it is best to double lay or tripple lay your turns meaning you walk over your turns again, exact same path. Two of the most important things when training tracking is that 1) you know exactly where the track is. Use a litle flag to mark where the track starts and each turn. I use dow rods with a piece of survey tape. And 2) when you leave the end of the track after you lay it walk a ways away from it then go to the area you want to start the track at, don't walk over the original track unles you are double laying it. Be patient, dogs progress in leaps and bounds and can have a bad day. This is a positive exercise with absolutely no corrections. Lots of encouragement to get the dog started. If he is going down the track fine an occasional good boy but don't distract him. I have taught puppies at 10 weeks to follow a simple track using this method. This is not the only method but it is one that has worked well for me Hope this helps, Mike

SGBH- looks like both of us are on the same page, just one of us types faster than the other LOL

Mysti, I don't know about chicken. Why don't you try following Armin Winkler's advise: http://siriusdog.com/articles/dog-tracking-winkler-schutzhund-1.htm And there are 3 more parts after this one, but that's for later (corners, articles). I tried it, it works just fine. Good luck!

Well Mysti, I guess it depends on whether you are trying to find people at the end of the track or chicken. Real world tracking is really trailing, sport tracking is like bite work but only for those stepping out from behind a blind. But really, trailing is an art and you don't start with food in the track you start with the games of find. If you want more info on trailing let me know. Maxislooking

Food is one method and games of fine is another and there are probably many more that we can all appreciate. I happen to use food to start the dogs off. As far as real life tracking, I have tracked or trailed depending on who is using the terminology, supects across mountain sides, over streams cross roads through marshy areas at night during the day ect. Real life live tracks for armed and dangerous suspects. Can't get any realer than that. There is no one and only way of training there is only the end result.

Hi Maxislooking, I am trying to train him to track people. So any help you can give me will be great. Thanks, Mysti

Yes there are many different ways to do it. I guess my question is if you are training for SCH/AKC tracking or are you trailing for SAR or police work. It really is different. For competitive tracking your dog looks for scent caused by disturbing the ground and their heads cannot go up, they cannot deviate from the track, and sometimes the track layer is behind the team. The goal is not to find the person at the end but to follow the footsteps. With trailing you are working through the scent gradient caused by the wind moving scent into the environment. A trialing dog will not do well in competitive tracking, and a AKC tracking dog will not do well in trailing. We start our dogs with a puupy run away...