Tracking..please help!

When my GSD was a puppy, I started off teaching him tracking at the WT club I went to in the UK. So it was done with a toy being laid at the end. He had no trouble following the track but would race along to the finish.

Then someone said that if I ever wanted to do Schutzhund with him, I should do footstep tracking. So I started doing scent pads and then small tracks. He was about 12/13 weeks old by then and would literally scream with excitement all the way to the pad/track and then bomb along it. I was pleased he was showing enthusiasm so didn't do anything to discourage it.

Then I moved to Italy and we occasionally did a bit of fun tracking (usually with food in 1 or 2 places along the track but I let him go fast as we were just tracking for fun and I didn't think I would ever find a club to train with.

But then I have found an IPO club and tracking is now a major issue (that is entirely my fault )

Kofi loves to track but he still acts like he did when he was 12 weeks old, he whines/barks with excitement, he is miles too fast, he skips food and tries to race and I feel like I am trying lots of different things and making everything worse.

His dad is also a fast tracker so I think a bit of it is genetic...and I am completely rubbish at track laying which doesn't help either.

I have tried teaching him the word 'slowly' which he understands but he literally looses his mind on the track and doesn't seem to hear me.

I have now gone back to scent pads again.

Someone also kindly gave me 'The tracking Dog' by Glen Johnson which lots of people recommended but it seems to encourage hiding a toy and doing it that way, which is what got me into this situation in the first place.

Kofi normally learns best with the clicker, can it be done this way? By clicking each time he puts his nose in each step for instance?

Sorry for the long post, everything else is going so well in training except tracking and I feel all disheartened and stressed about it...

I might be able to help, having competed succesfully in both Schutzhund and Working Trials with the same dog.

First of all, if you want to compete successfully in both you MUST teach the Schutzhund method of tracking first, if you do not, you will not have a consistently successful tracking dog in Schutzhund.

Secondly speed is not the issue in Schutzhund, it is consistency, your dog could go along the track at any speed as long as it does ALL the legs and ALL the corners at the same speed.

Having a dog scream all the way to the scent pad is NOT the way to have a successful tracking dog in any discipline, as the dog is not focused just off his trolley.

The dog should approach the track in a very calm, vocused manner.

Most people move on to tracking FAR too soon, and do not take sufficient care to introduce scent pads properly so the dog works it properly.

Ideally what you want is to have some small kibble (orijen is perfect) and make a pad with your feet and then plant this kibble IN the ground so the dog has to really search for it and work to get it, and the REMOVE the dog before it has all gone.

The idea of this is that if you train a dog to track for food, there is NO REASON for the dog to go off track to look for anything else.

The best DVD for tracking I know for Schutzhund is the one by Joanna Plumb.

Also, if you can find anything by Bernd Fory, I went on a tracking seminar with him in the UK a couple of years ago and he uses the method I touch on above.

Thank you.

I have gone back to scent pads and will stick to doing them for a while. I think I rushed it when he was a puppy and have created a bad habit.