IPO 2050 .. What Must Change ..Tracking - Page 14

After reading some messages to this and some other related threads here I am starting to understand why some are getting out of IPO and turning to another dog sport.

I have never been asked what I was doing with a dog on the golf course or asked to leave. I've trained and exercised my GSD's there since moving here almost 4 years ago. I wait until about an hour before sunset when I see no golfers in the area where I am training, clean up after her, never walk on the greens or let her urinate on the fairways. The rangers have seen us, they wave and say hello.  I try to make us as inconspicuous as possible. I don't allow her offlead to play ball, let her drag a very long line. She's not going anywhere without me, but it just looks more responsible if there are any golfers still around. I don't allow her to bother or bark at anyone and if they ask to pet her I say "No, I'm sorry she's in training". We probably use that golf course 5, 6 times every week of the year unless it's raining hard. I wouldn't be bold enough to set up jumps, to take more than one dog at a time on the course or do anything else that would attract attention to what I was doing. We don't have geese here, we have Sandhill cranes; Bev isn't fond of them but she doesn't chase them. She's been taught not to.

When I lay a track on the trap field I generally do that after everyone is gone for the day. I try to find an area where no one has been walking around or where no other dogs  have been. I like longer grass so use the areas that most people avoid.  When my club was still holding trials we never had any problem finding open fields to lay the tracks; held the trials at a private farm.

I don't have a dog in this fight but that map is misleading.  That map is only of federal land.  In Michigan for instance.  when you look at a map of federal land in Michigan there is an approx corrosponding amount of state  land.  The amount of Public land available for tracking is actually quite substantual.  And I don't know of what state you would be required to have a permit for using federal land.  I used to work for the U.S.F.S. and if any Ranger was watching you it would only because they were curious and interested and would be tickled if you spent a moment and explained and just chit chat. 

 

Reggie

Would it hurt IPO if the tracking was done in a more realistic way with less focus on obedience and extreme precision, if it´s so hard to learn a dog to track good IPO-style why have that kind of tracking if it takes so much time and skill, especially if it´s breedwhortiness and making the sport more attractive for others that is the goal. If land is no problem why don´t replace the tracking with a search for articles in combination with a more practical type of tracking , wouldn´t this also be better both as a breedtest and make it more fun and less about the skill of the trainer.

Johan have you bothered to read the rest of this thread?

Yes, most of it if I haven´t missed the point.

If you don't like tracking don't do IPO. It really is that simple. There are lots of other sports for you to do without tracking so go do one of those.

I live 5 minutes from downtown Los Angeles and don't have a problem finding tracking.

oh! and the obedience is so difficult! why do they have to heel so precisely.  Who cares if they run or walk to get the dumbbell.  And they're so picky in the protection!  Fussy Fussy about the grip.  Who cares as long as they get a hold with at least a tooth?  Barking is so over rated! It makes it so hard to hold a trial with all that barking.....

If we're making the tracking "easier" because it's so hard lets make it all easier!

(sarcasm - all of the above)

The way IPO is set up now, you do not have to do tracking. You can title in OB and Protection so it does let you choose to do the full Ipo title or not. There are many dog sports that do not have tracking so leave it for those of us who do enjoy tracking our dogs...

ltsgsd wrote
"...leave it for those of us who do enjoy tracking our dogs..."
I train with people who say this type of statement all the time and i just have to shake my head as I have not found it enjoyable yet . Tracking requires that I drive about an hour away from my place, get to the fields before the sun and heat set in, then lay track, wait around playing with my dog and then finally get to working/teaching the track, I would much rather stay in bed lol. But like most of you I made a decision to compete in the sport of SchH, which has 3 phases. I don’t want a training degree, I want Titles and points!! I don’t understand why all this talk about eliminating tracking to make it easier, or to attract more people to the sport. Schutzhund isn’t going to die or dwindle down to nothing if tracking is part of it, heck if that were the case it would have died out sometime between 1899 – 2014 IMHO.  At the end of the day, if the sport were easy everyone would have numerous IPO III’s on all their dogs under all the judges. And from what I have been told by some of the old timers in the sport is that we watered down the protection phase to help more dogs pass making SchH easier and that did not lead to an influx of new participants.