Tracking problems

[Ryan]

‘Cona has been tracking for about 10 weeks now. Since I work full time I have been tracking her in the mornings and evenings. Since it’s now winter, she has been working mostly in the dark. I like tracking in the dark under the light of street lights. I know she can’t see the track and it forces her to fully use her nose. On the weekends we go out for longer tracks on a large field. This field unfortunately has some significant pools of water which we have to work around.

She is very food motivated so I have taken the “traditional” route of baiting the track with hot dogs. The bait is getting less and less every week. She is now at 20-30 steps between food – which is only one piece of thinly sliced hot dog (an 1/8 to 1/16”). At the end of the track is a small pile of hotdogs – so she knows she is at the end. She is also tracking 30min aged tracks and is doing corners and curves with relatively good success.

Problem #1 – she often “trails” the track 1 to 2 feet to left or the right of the actual track. This causes her to sometimes miss the small piece of bait. My plan to fix this is to do a week of 30min aged tracks heavily baited with food – every step or every second step – on a straight line. I’m hoping that this will make her focus on each footprint better – as well as remotivate her to track more intensely.

Problem # 2 – sometimes, on straight sections, for no apparent reason, she will just follow her nose right off the track for 5-7 feet. When she gets too far off I stop, to prevent her from going any further, as I know that she has left the track. She then looks like she has lost the track and I verbally encourage her to “find it” again. She always does, but I’m afraid that when I do “blind tracks” (where I don’t know the route) that she will get herself lost and I’ll think we are on a corner when we actually aren’t. Any suggestions?

[ed]

Problem #1 – she often “trails” the track 1 to 2 feet to left or the right of the actual track.
Problem # 2 – sometimes, on straight sections, for no apparent reason, she will just follow her nose right off the track for 5-7 feet. When she gets too far off I stop, to prevent her from going any further, as I know that she has left the track. She then looks like she has lost the track and I verbally encourage her to “find it” again. She always does, but I’m afraid that when I do “blind tracks”[/quote]

1. Normal behavior...scent drift
2. Don't do "blind" tracks ever.
You must learn loss of track body language.
As you do, let her work it out.Give it time vary the tracks distance ,

[Ryan]

Thanks Ed,

Is my stopping (and tightening the line) to prevent her from going too far off track correct?

There seems to be a fine line between preventing the dog from making mistakes, and subliminally/inadvertanty helping or showing the dog where the track is. (which as far as I understand is what I dont want to do).

Ryan

[Roger]

I'd make sure to work her on an empty stomach.

[Ryan]

Empty stomach for sure.

Although 'Cona has the body of an Airedale and the stomach of a LAB! It's bottomless. If I left an open feed bag, she'd be dead in a week.

[hicntry]

Ed is right, if I understood what he was saying. By stopping, you are preventing her from learning not to "over run the track". Just time and experience. When she realizes she has lost it, she will come back and locate it on her own. She will also learn to not over run it with experience. An airedale with a good nose runs a track amazingly fast when hunting. The often over run it because they are really covering the ground. I have seen the over run one by a good twenty feet and they lock it up and come back and take of again.....always at a run. This is caused by the speed they are running it at. A walking exercise such as you are doing....the dog will learn to stay on it.

The tracking down wind if the track is normal, as Ed said. Not sure how that would be corrected except for a lighter track she has to stay right on.

[melanie]

Welcome to tracking with Iko!



[glow=red,2,300]Mel[/glow]

[Summit Forge]

Ryan,

How you train should depend on whether you want a tracking dog ( on lead, head always down on the track for Schutzhund etc.) OR a trailing dog ( off lead, air scenting with head up most of the time for hunting and retrieving). It is much more difficult to read a trailing dog, as they tend to be all over the place.

Ron

[morgan]

I agree with Ron. I work for a tracking dog, beacuse I can't read my trailing dog. Ed is wise in these things. Deciding when and how to help, and when and how to allow independent thinking is tough. I try to read whether or not the dog is really working, or has given up the job and is either:
1) playing
2) playing me
3) posing as a tracker
4) looking for a deus ex machina (sorry Maugh, but I couldn't resist big words)

Also-ask Maugh, she's great at this.
Dave

[Summit Forge]

Well Dave, at least we agree on some definitions. I primarily want a trailing dog. A good trailing dog is much faster and efficient as a hunting dog on fur or birds. I stopped tracking training as soon as my puppy realized what it was we were hunting.

Ron

[morgan]

Ron,
Would you say, on bird finding trailing, you did any training besides experience? Was it different for varmints or coon? To what degree do you (or we all) instruct the dog on how we want them to hunt, and to what degree do we learn the dog’s innate or acquired style?
Do you think there's a corollary in trailing/tracking to the "don't handle on marks" admonition?

I ask this, because for those of you who haven't seen him work, Forge is a driven fur dog and the best/most willing handling Airedale retriever I've ever seen. That's a tricky balancing act.

Dave

[ed]

I plumb almost drove my dog crazy because I cross worked him in three types of scent work.

1. Hunting birds
2.Trailing animal scent(not animals)
3. Schutzhund tracking

Bird hunting is off lead and primarily air scenting with head up and then down as he closes in on a bird. He covers a lot of ground, 4 to 6 miles over three hours (criss cross or wind shield wiper ). Only needs to watch me so he doesn't get of of gun range.Total Area covered and ground cover cleverness is important precision is worthless.

Trailing for the artificial but fun fur tests. Off lead runs(not walks) a meandering scent trail left by a drag.No right angles or objects to indicate. Air and ground scenting. Loss of trail ok and dealt with by looping up wind doubling back circling.Much less taxing than hunting regarding effort but not really natural either. For example he will run a real rabbit trail with great enthusiasm even occassionally flushes said rabitt.

Schutzhund on lead tracking deep nose and precision required. Speed is faulted as is circling doubling back going up wind. Air scenting or lifting head is penalized. This is a precision thing. Very German foot print tracking. Must find articles and lie down to indicate with article between front paws.

Damn I get exhausted just thinking about this stuff. We go hunting Friday !!

[Summit Forge]

morgan said:

Ron,
Would you say, on bird finding trailing, you did any training besides experience? Was it different for varmints or coon? To what degree do you (or we all) instruct the dog on how we want them to hunt, and to what degree do we learn the dog’s innate or acquired style?
Do you think there's a corollary in trailing/tracking to the "don't handle on marks" admonition?

I ask this, because for those of you who haven't seen him work, Forge is a driven fur dog and the best/most willing handling Airedale retriever I've ever seen. That's a tricky balancing act.

Dave

Thanks for the kind words Dave.

I have never given Forge a correction on how to run a fur trail. I do not know what is correct. He is the dog. He has a dog's nose. I don't.

On bird trailing training, I only correct for command refusals.

I see no corollary except that, if one's dog does not have the desire, it is MIGHTY difficult to compensate for that. For me, the "don't handle on marks" admonition only applies to puppy training.

Ron