Sunny Sunday Tracking

Had a great day of tracking last Sunday. It was sunny and about 60 when we got started. Several of us were there to work with Allison, a follow up to the introductory seminar we had in March. As Allison went around the group asking us how and what we'd been doing since our last meeting, I realized that I was definitely with the right group of people. Almost everyone had been tracking once or twice a week with quite a bit of success. We have a variety of experience with tracking in the group but everyone is an experienced dog trainer and well able to help each other by observing each other and listening to what Allison had to say.



Here's how it worked:

After we chatted briefly about the experiences we'd had since March, we were given our "assignments tracks". Some people were advised to set somewhat longer tracks, some shorter. Some were advised to age their tracks a bit longer, put down less food (most of us were advised to use less food) or use less scuffing. Allison's advice is to get the food off the track as quickly as possible so that the dog isn't distracted from tracking by looking for the food. That might sound contradictory but if the dog is actually scenting the track itself, when they suddenly smell a food drop, they stop following the scent cone (and there are different opinions on what makes up a scent cone) and start looking for the food. Once they eat the food then they esentially have to start looking for the track all over again. This was very obvious on Zodi's track but more on that later. We were also reminded how to lay the tracks so that the wind was at our backs and to wait 20 minutes between tracks so we could all walk the track with Alison and hear what she had to say to the handler.





So the first thing I did was to lay my track on the crown of a hill which meant a nice, playful little breeze was skittering around and across it. I should have realized that the air would be moving around much more up there as opposed to where I tested it which was in a gully. And of course I didn't wait 20 minutes until I put my track in which meant I either had to run it at 45 or 50 minutes or skip walking the track before mine. Since the track before mine was Mona's (Zodi's BFF) I decided it would be better to skip walking that one. As it was, when I got Zodi out of the car she immediately dragged me to Mona's car looking in all the windows hoping to find her. It's pretty cute now but at the time I was a little concerned that Zodi wouldn't be able to track if she knew Mona was in the vicinity.





When it came time for Zodi's track there were about 5 people all walking and talking right behind me. And Zodi is such a little social butterful anyway, I was really doubting we'd have a good track. She ate the food drop at the start flag but only after I pointed to it. Then she went back to making goo-goo eyes at the gallery hoping someone would offer to pat her. I re-started her after a couple of minutes and she went a little way down the track but then started looking back at the gallery and up in the sky at the birds flying by and then sniffing around for deer droppings. I just stood there waiting and chatting with the gallery for about 5 minutes until she finally decided it was going to be more fun to track than to just stand there. Once she got started she was great. She put her little nose down and stayed there. Until we came up on the first food drop. As she approached it her head went up, she started casting around and going in circles until she found the drop. After she found it (and ate it, of course) she pulled very steadily to the next one. I'm not very good (actually I stink) at laying serpentine tracks. Mine are straight lines with a very open turn followed by another straight line followed by an open turn, etc. The turns went mostly left and when I started to make them to the right I started to run out of room so my track didn't resemble a serpentine as much as say, a checkmark. But she found the glove I put down on one of the legs easily and then pulled hard the rest of the way. She probably only overshot the turns by 3 or 4 feet and didn't circle at all. I was very happy with her track and Allison said she had nothing to suggest other than to get the food off the track and just put down an extra glove or maybe two on the longer tracks. Then, when I removed the harness and let her go out to the end of the line, she just kept right on tracking me to the edge of the field and out to where the cars were parked. I love seeing that. It just proves that they really aren't doing it to find food but because they enjoy it.



Some of the questions that people had for Allison were:



How quickly do you want to get the food off the track? Her answer was as quickly as you can. A TD track is 450 to 500 yards long and there's no food on it so the longer you use food on the track, the harder it will be to pick it up. Put an article down for motivation and then feed the dog from your pocket when they find and nose the article.



Should we be teaching article indication? Not yet. For a TD track they only have to nose the article so rather than take a chance that you're going to squelch their enthusiasm for tracking by insisiting on a particular behavior to signal the glove, wait until after you get your TD to worry about that. Allison continues to say that the difference between TD training and TDX training is like the difference between attending grade school and getting a PhD. She said there is so much training to do for the TDX that we should concentrate on training for the TD (and I interpret this to mean also focusing on keeping motivation high), pass that, and then start worrying about things like article indication, cross tracks, aging the track change of cover, etc.

Oh, and my purple and yellow argyle tracking line received many compliments so I considered it a very successful day of Tracking :-)

Tracking: the Lonely Dog Sport

Just wanted to thank those of you who have been reading and commenting on this blog. I just recently noticed the comments because I thought that I'd get email notice when someone commented like I do with my Live Journal blog. I haven't had time to explore Blogger enough to figure out the options. When I do I'll try to figure out how to allow commenting without using a google ID.

Yes, Tracking is an interesting sport. It can be very lonely out there, especially if you're struggling with a problem and you can't find help. And it's mostly mental exercise, not physical. I can't explain why I like it, I just know that it's really thrilling to me when I see my dog actually tracking. I guess because, in this case, the dog is in charge, not me. Especially when you are running a blind track (one you didn't put in and have no idea where it goes), you are really just a passenger. The dog is in charge and you have to trust your dog and go with her even if it looks like it couldn't possibly be the right way. Let me tell you, that takes a kind of courage that agility doesn't.

And it's lonely in the sense that it's hard to find help. Nowadays you can find an agility class almost anywhere but just try to find a Tracking class. Tracking takes a lot of time, a lot of space and someone willing to help you. I'm lucky in that I just happen to have access to a lot of really nice fields near where I live which is rarely the case if you live in a large metropolitan area. And sometimes, even if you live in the country, you can't find a field that doesn't already have inhabitants of the bovine variety. And once a field has been used for cattle, it's pretty much useless for teaching a green dog to track.

Then there's the whole issue of getting into a tracking test. there are relatively few of them and they usually have to hold a draw for who gets in. The good thing is that you only have to pass once but when you reach the TDX level, you could test and test and test and still fail if just one little thing goes wrong. Plus you have to find a judge to certify you before yo're even allowed to enter a test. I guess because so few spots are available, they want to be sure that your dog is really ready so you have to find a judge who will come out and put in an appropriate track for you to run. I'ts good though because it's an excellent test of whether you and your dog are ready.

All those issues and more are why you can almost never find a Tracking class and even if you do, you still need space to put in tracks and run them that haven't been over fertilized, over used for some other purpose or infested with fire ants, ticks or other unfriendlies. No wonder why so few people acheive Tracking titles. My goal is to get a TDX on Zodi. I'm pretty sure I can get a TD but a TDX is another story. It's a much longer track, it's aged longer, it has change of cover and cross tracks that the dog has to ignore. But I'm really excited to be tracking again. I just wish I had started last Fall so that I wouldn't have to stop for several months due to the heat and bugs (ticks).

Some Advice from Allison

I haven't had a lot of time to take Zodi out but I did manage a track early last week. I particularly wanted to try out some advice I got from Allison. I emailed her when Zodi seemed to be varying between pulling so hard that she pulled right past the food and veering so far off track that I had to stop her whereupon she'd just stand there and look at me or even sit down and look at me. I wanted to provide more motivating tracks but more food didn't seem to be doing the trick.

Allison suggested that I make sure the wind was at my back when I put in the tracks and that instead of putting down more food to put down an extra glove somewhere on the track. Well, it worked great! I put in 2 tracks; one was a 1/4 circle to the right and one was a 1/4 circle to the left. The wind wasn't exactly at my back but it was pretty calm--not like the previous outing where it actually started to rain.

I put some food on the track but not more than one a leg and on the leg where I put the extra glove, I didn't do a food drop. Each track was about 50-70 yards long again but it doesn't seem the length of the track that bothers her. Allison said I could keep them that length as long as they held her attention.

As I started her on the track, it was clear that the lack of wind made a huge difference to her style. Where before she was quartering, this time she just kept her head down and pulled straight ahead.. She got most of the food drops and was quite happy to find the glove although she wasn't interested in playing with it. She just put her head back down and pulled through the rest of the track. I don't think she stopped at all or if she did it was momentary and not like before where she seemed to be quitting.

I started the second track fairly close to where the first ended so she pretty much continued tracking the whole time. She definitely seemed to be tracking this time and very close to the track. I had still scuffed both tracks because it makes it easier for me to see where the track is and I really need that right now. But I can tell that pretty soon she won't need me to scuff except for in transition spots and in windy conditions.

This was truly the first time I felt like she was really tracking and it was fun and exciting!