Just another Sport Dog - Page 37

I don't have a beef with IPO, they have some excellent trainers and some excellent dogs, for what they are trying to achieve. I have always acknowledged that and have incorporated many of their training ideas when the dog in front of me will benefit from it.

Lol...food on the track is not opposite of what LE tracking training is. It might be opposite of "duke's theory of LE tracking" but it's not opposite of what plenty of others do. It's different, but not opposite in any true sense of the word. The goals in LE and IPO are different. Food on the track is used to create a behavior that will get the score a trainer wants because IPO judging values certain behaviors. If a dog tracks without a deep nose, using air scenting, gets to the articles, hits the corners decently enough, and gets to the end of the track...the dog will pass. It won't pass with a high score, but it will pass.

Most dogs don't track with that deep of a nose, most trainers do not have the ability to train that type of behavior. Many dogs don't have the drive to do it either and the trainers can't adjust their method to benefit the dog and make sure the dog stays with it's nose down. The #1 reason dogs fail IPO trials is tracking...meaning most people cannot train "IPO style tracking" or even "LE tracking." In the same breath...removing the food, removing the IPO expectations and behaviors from an IPO trained dog...the majority would quickly revert to air scenting/raising their nose and just finding the source of the scent in any way possible. The scoring in IPO tracking is again just away to separate dogs in a competition. Certain behaviors are looked for and rewarded, just that simple. If all you care about is titling, you can teach almost any method and as long as the articles are found, the corners are taken (even with circling) and the dog finished the track...you'll pass.

I agree BW, LE defines success by the end result of track in terms of any objects found and or individual. They are not graded on methodology or techniques in terms of whether they are ground scenting-or air scenting or in most cases a combination of both. Actually, AKC tracking is much closer to LE tracking than IPO.
The best tracking dogs I've encountered( besides bloodhounds) were the military dogs tracker dogs we had at Ft Benning, Ga. These were GS and Labradors used in military combat zones. In training a typical training problem would be they would have you chopped out to the middle of woods at 4am in morning. Your instructions would be to take off for three hours in any direction you wanted, in any way you wanted, you can cross water, walk up the steam in water, back track, anything you want for three hours. Then you are instructed to crawl in a ravine and they will see you sometimes around noon. I have been the tracklayer in these problems and trust me I tried my best to fool the dog. No cigar! Haha.
But these dogs didn't just track with nose to ground, they air scented and used nose to ground, but they were extremely effective and they didn't give up over a three hour track.