Working trials!

Hi I'm new here! I have a beagle,called oscar and he will be 2 in may

I wanted to do a beagle related sport with him,so i chose tracking and then i learned about working trails and i am extremely interested in doing them.I have a tracking book which i am reading at the moment and come summer i will be starting the training but in the mean time i am hoping to do some working trial training. I know what is required and i have contacted the kennel club(the irish kennel club,i live in ireland) and they have given me all the information about the trails but i want to know more.

So if you can give me anything at all to do with training for the control(heel,send away etc) and agility(equipment building and training) sections of the trials i would be very great full!!!

I dabble in Working Trials................

Oh smokeybear,i know that you more than dabble in WT

Well now i have an actual question!
How do i train a search square??? Like,well,ummmm....... is it the same as tracking,where the dog follows the persons track or does he just basically find any article with human scent on and bring it back???? Like would it be better if i trained oscar to track first or would it make a difference???

And again if anybody has anything that may come in handy,please post it

There are all sorts of methods of training search squares.

I like to think about what I want my dog to do, what I do not want him to do and thus how to get what I want.

I also am very careful about what I choose to train when putting out search squares.

I do not use them to train:

the hold
the give

These are trained AWAY from the square

I start with 4 poles about 5 paces apart and put a smelly titbit at each pole.

I start with a visual cue ie the food is light such as cheese I then quickly move to food that cannot be seen.

This means my dogs are conditioned to to to poles.

I then basically make the squares bigger.

Once the dog is covering the square and getting the food, I then reduce size of square and start putting articles in, HUGE ones.

then I gradually increase size of square.

I then make sure I put articles all over the place, usually about 8 or so, I do not usually make the dog pick them all up.

I then start making some smaller but keep large one.

I then start to make squares by NEVER walking the perimeter

That is an overview.

NEVER put food AND articles out at the same time.

The dog should bring ANY hot article back however as they have to be placed not thrown they cannot be very far from where your feet are, so dogs soon learn that articles will be near to footsteps.

It is immaterial whether you teach a dog to track or not first.
HTH

Thanks,may write that down now

As for the articles,what should i use?? The tracking book says i should have 6 leather and 2 non leather ones but thats for tracking and from what i have read the articles in the search square can be anything from pieces of metal to shoes,so what should i use,leather things,camera cases,wallets??

I am going to start training the search square in the next few weeks,as soon as i have all the stuff and then do the tracking in summer.

So when i start out i should walk the perimeter of the square and then as he gets better at getting the articles i should stop walking the perimeter???

Which tracking book are you reading?

When you become a devoted triallist you become a "collector" of

cartridge cases
leather
bottle tops
carpet offcuts
wooden stirrers
Clothes pegs

in other words what you would normally throw away you keep.

only use each article ONCE and then discard (unless it is metal when you can wash it).

If I were you , I would take advantage of frosty mornings and wet ground to lay tracks....................

Not everyone stops laying the perimeter but some dogs can spend 5 minutes tracking aro0und it
HTH

Some nice tips there SB. Never thought about the visual cue for the poles before (in fact an very experienced triallist had taught me the poles were irrelevant!). I will try that one with Max when he's ready.

Lady always tracked the perimiter before starting a square, so I just had to chill for a minute until she got started. Do you just start at one pole and walk diagonally across dropping an odd article?

Also, I think I'm right in saying there are Irish triallists competing?

Pindonkey - you'll love trials. I have been hooked ever since a fellow triallist took me tracking about 3 years ago. And, as SB says, your friends may look at you strangely when you collect random objects. In addition I have

- a padlock (bit more work to get them to hold metal, wouldn't start with that)
- a bolt
- an old credit card
- a bit of scouring pad
- a plastic whisky bottle miniature

I googled working trials ireland and it appears that there is club that runs classes from Tallaght (not sure if your near Dublin?). Might be worthwhile making contact?

I did contact them but they are 2 hours away from me so it doesnt really suit but they said its mainly something that you can train at home.

I'm reading the 'tracking dog' by glen johnson.
I will take advantage of the frosty and wet mornings,and lets put it this way,the rain loves spending time with ireland