Tracking.

Just general questions.

What does your dog track?
What scent do you lay if any?
How do you lay a scent without the dog just following your tracks?

We did a little tracking in class where Louie had to find Leanne using a scent cone, however he was more interested in tracking the rabbits on the field, so I would like to lay tracks rather than try scent cone again, not yet anyway.

My dogs are trained to follow footprints, although I have trained one of them to track blood.

I do not lay any scent.

The whole point of tracking is to follow footsteps.

Did you track or did you air scent? The two are entirely different, so SAR for example will search using air scent coming up, out, down, through things like snow, water, buildings etc.

So I think you need to be clearer about what you want to train your dogs to do.

Ah scent cones so we did air scent. I remember being a tad disappointed we weren't tracking.

Our trainer used thin slices of hot dogs and some plastic post (like electric fence posts)

set up posts -

1 post at start point with slice of hotdog at base
standing with heel against post take a good step landing with your heel first

Place slice of hotdog in dent made by heel, take another step place hotdog in dent and repeat (in a straight line) for about say a tennis court distance away

Place second post in ground with large piece of hotdog at base (you can put this in a tube with holes in it that lets the scent out - think this is the ground work for tracking 'items')

return to first post - do not walk back across your 'track' return to first post by taking a wide berth around the area

sit dog by first post (in harness on long line) and with right hand make sweeping gesture toward the hotdog at base with a happy encouraging 'track on!'

give some direction to next bit of HD if required and they will hopefully start to follow their nose

if they dont get it straight away do not flap or try to rush them its important that they enjoy it as with all training

if HD doesnt float their boat anything nice and smelly will do

doing it on an empty stomach helps as they concentrate more so early morning tracking practice I found the best

the reason for the poles is so 'you' know the direction in which you are going

once youve put in the practice you can reduce the frequency of the HD and also introduce bends in the track (use more poles between your start and finish point to guide you in a zig zag for example - but remember your scent cone? if you make your zig zag too 'tight' then you may find the dog will skip a few markers as he picks up the scent cone from a point further on )

its been ages since i did it and am not sure what that style of tracking is working towards (ref SBs point) but we enjoyed it

after a few weeks the trainer started hiding the plastic tube that we had been using at the end of the track in his 'search' constructions (aka piles of pallets and big plastic drainage tubes etc) which was fab like proper search and rescue stuff! (kinda )

despite not having done it for ages i can still set the boy off on a search with a sweep of my arm in the direction i want him to go and an excited 'track on!'

fun to do in the house as well hiding treats about the place

I took away most of your post as it was a bit long to quote.

But thank you for that, very informative.

I'm going to ask my trainer if we can do some in class soon.

If you want the bible on tracking, then Glen Johnson's The Tracking Dog, is the best book on the subject ever written, if you follow his instructions to the letter anyone can train a very good tracking dog.

Schutzhund style tracking?

Off I go to Amazon....

Hey - Hi-jacker!

Thanks SB

GJ book is aimed at the AKC titles of TD and TDx (tracking only titles in the US).

However it would be fine for WT etc in the UK.

More precision is required for Schutzhund style tracking.

There is a new DVD coming out soon from Leerburg but one of the best I have seen is by a Canadian whose name escapes me at the mo re Schutzhund.

If you think of anything could you let me know please? Don't want to google anything in case it's rubbish. Should I basically get anything by Ivan Balabanov?

Sorry for the hi-jack lol!