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!

Back Story

I've already posted about how I used to track with my first Dobe, Jemma. I can't remember why we stopped tracking--it might have been because that's about the same time I started doing agility. I've wanted to get back to tracking for years but just could never get started again. I'm pretty famous for never going *back* to anything. Once I stop doing something I rarely-- if ever-- go back to doing it again. But with tracking I think the thing that stopped me was primarily because I didn't have anyone to help me with the training.

It's pretty difficult to find someone who's really knowledgeable who offers tracking classes. Sometimes clubs will offer seminars but just like all seminars, once the presenter goes home you're still left with no one to help. And unlike obedience or agility, it's hard to tell when you're not doing it right. We don't know what the dog is scenting when they track. We can only hope they're following our track. We often wind up guiding them along the track without even realizing it. And if we hit a training snag, it's hard to even identify the problem.

So, my first thought was that maybe I could get someone who I knew did tracking to come over on a regular basis to help me. There are several really experienced trackers around my area but unfortunately they were too busy to be able to committ to that kind of schedule. However, a couple of them suggested I contact Allison who is a tracking judge and Westie breeder who lives not far away. Allison has lots of experience not just with tracking but also with teaching tracking so I had the idea that maybe I could get a few people together who all wanted to learn tracking and we could bring Allison up on a regular basis. Meanwhile we could help each other with training (maybe somewhat like the blind leading the blind but still fun) and lay tracks for each other.

So earlier this month Allison came up and gave us a great basic tracking seminar and helped us get our dogs started. She suggested we track only a couple of times a week and to keep the tracks short and motivational. Her approach to starting dogs is different than the method I used 20 years ago. Instead of putting in straight tracks for beginner dogs, Allison uses tracks that are serpentine in nature. That way instead of teaching dogs that all tracks are straight and then suddenly introducing turns, she introduces the idea that tracks can go anywhere right from the beginning. It's sort of the same idea as teaching agility dogs how to turn over jumps right from the beginning rather than letting them blast straight ahead for 6 months and suddenly expecting them to be able to collect in front of a jump. I think it's brilliant.

So ever since I've been tracking Zodi about 2-3 times a week just putting in a couple of short-ish tracks and then running them right away. I think we're doing OK but it's kind of hard to tell for sure. Luckily, Allison is coming up in a couple of weeks so hopefully I won't have enough time to really wreck her until she can help fix some of the problems I've created for myself.


One of the best things about tracking, in my opinion, is that you can't force it on the dog. You have no way of knowing whether the dog is really tracking the scent or not. Most dogs are plenty smart enough to pretend to track if the handler is too compulsive or makes too many mistakes. I'm sure more than one handler has thought their dog was tracking like mad only to discover their mistake when the dog pulls them straight to the freshest pile of deer poop they can find and then joyously rolls in it.

The other thing about tracking that many people don't find out until they get started is that there's a lot for the handler to think about.. Laying tracks is not the easiest thing I've ever done. You have to be able to walk a straight line while carrying food, articles, flags and a clipboard all the while making notes, counting off how many yards it's been since you made a food drop, noticing that you just walked over a gopher hole that's probably way too much of a distraction for your dog at this stage of the game noting on your map which way the wind is blowing, whether that blade of grass is different enough from the other blades to go on your map as a marker for the turn you're about to put in and making sure you don't drop your articles all over the track. Oh and don't forget to make a note of the time you put the track in, where you put the crosstracks and what time it was and then, just as you go to run your dog you see a troop of boyscouts setting up a picnic in the middle of your track's third leg.

But for some reason that's just so much fun. And so worthwhile when you see your dog nail that turn and pull down the final leg toward the article. Who knew?

Still getting started.

Took Zodi out on 3/22 (last Monday) to do some tracking in the fields behind my agility field. I had just received her tracking harness and line in the mail on Saturday and I couldn't wait to use it. I ordered the harness and line from Paw Mark (www.pawmark.com) and they're pretty brightly colored. I have a habit of losing things so I wanted to be sure I wouldn't overlook them in the field.

The evening was pefect for tracking being cool but not too dry. I had decided that I needed to do a couple of short tracks with a fair amount of food because recently Zodi has been stopping a lot (or what I think is a lot) on her tracks and having to be restarted.

It turned out neither were very short, probably between 50-70 yards but she's such a big dog that if I drop food every other body length or so, the track quickly stretches out. Plus I want to try to curve the track [see back story, next post]and of course I have to remember not to put the flag where I've made a drop so before I know it I've gone about 50 yards.

But I decided to see what happened so I brought her up to the first one when it was about 10 minutes old and she got a pretty good start, pulling out to about 8 feet which is the length of line I'm giving her at this point. She went straight down the track for about 20 feet, missing 2 or 3 food drops and then stopped for the fourth one.

Just before she she gets to a food drop she'll go off track several feet and then stop and turn back and search for the food. She does this almost every time she gets a food drop although I'd say she's missing 3 out of 4 drops. She pulls so hard and she's so fast that we whizz past them before I even realize it. I often see them as I go over them. At this point I'm trying hard to drop the food in a place with less cover so I can see it.

When we got to the first turn I noticed I'd forgotten to put in a flag (there's so much to think about when you're laying a track!) so I was pretty thrilled when she just kept her nose down and followed it around to the drop beyond it. After that she started quartering and missed the next drop and then stopped when I wouldn't let her go off in another direction. She was fairly close to the glove at this point so she re-started herself and then saw the glove and had a good time with that for a minute or two. She wasn't vey interested in playing with it and pretty quickly started following where I'd walked on to lay the next track so I unhooked the line from her harness and attached it to her collar.

Attaching a line to Zodi's collar is a little like clipping a leash on a semi. She is so strong and so big that you just don't have a chance to to stop her before she's barrelling onto the next item of interest. Sometimes I wrap a leash around her waist and then hook it to her collar and then she doesn't pull at all. I had to laugh when Allison Platt [see back story for more on Allison] said in her seminar that it was important not to discourage your dog from pulling on the line when they're tracking. I don't think I'll ever have a problem with that.

When we got to the next starting flag I reattached the line to her harness and allowed her to snarf up the chicken I'd put down. She didn't start off nearly as well on this track which was in a part of the field where the wind was blowing across the track from left to right. She barely made any progress as she kept pulling go off the the left so I'd have to stop at which point she'd just stop and stand there looking at me. I had to re-start her 3 times and she still managed to miss most of the food drops.

Finally we got to a point where a tractor had left a rut in the field and I purposely put a piece of chicken there so I'd be able to tell if she found it. she did and then finished the track nicely.

So I've got a lot of questions for Allison and I'm hoping she really meant it when she said we coule email her :-)

Welcome to my blog.

I've recently begun training my 2 year old Dobe, Zodi, in tracking and decided to keep a record of our training progress in this blog. I only have a little experience with tracking training and that's from about 20 years ago when I got a TD on my first Dobe, Jemma, so I consider myself a complete beginner.

So much has changed since I've done any tracking. I was looking at the AKC tracking website and noticed they have a Tracking Invitational now (www.akc.org/events/tracking/national_invitational) which I think is really cool. It's new, only a few years old and it really gives people who already have their Tracking Championship something else to shoot for. They didn't even have a Tacking Championship 20 years ago and hadn't even started awarding titles for VST back then.

I'm excited about all these new opportunities in tracking. Tracking is something I've always enjoyed for several reasons. It's done outdoors in the fields and woods where I love to spend my time and it has very different training challenges from agility and obedience. In tracking--it seems to me--the trainer offers puzzles for the dog to solve and then allows the dog to use her brain/nose to solve them. The trainer shouldn't be interfering or leading the dog, just shaping the dog to stay relatively close to the track (in AKC tracking anyway, I can't answer for other types).

And there's just no feeling like the one I get when I see my dog settle into her harness and pull smoothly down the track and through a turn. It gives me goosebumps. I've heard people say they can't think of anything more boring to do with their dog than tracking so I guess you either get it or you don't. I defintely do.

I love that this resurgence in tracking interest on my part has corresponded to several things that seem to be coincidence but may be something else. I've been experiencing some--not exactly boredom--with agility lately. It's more a feeling that I've gone as far as I'm going to go and a feeling of spinning my wheels or running in place. I'm a little tired of spending so much time on one thing when there are so many other things out there to do. Tracking is a new adventure that I really need right now and I have a great dog to do it with, too. Zodi is a little immature for agility still but tracking is such a natural thing for a dog to do. It sort of works better with a Dobe's instincts, I believe.

Well, that's just a little intro to what this blog is (hopefully) going to be about. I hope you come back soon and see that we've made some progress and that we're having lots of fun.