Kims tracking training has been more or less regular since the last time I wrote about it here, 4 months ago. He has developed immensely (and so have I), but it is way too easy to get stuck and only work on what you do best. Why train on that? It is the parts you DON'T do well that needs strengthening and that only happens with experience, more training in other words. So I have made a little summary from our training diary of our good and our less good sides. Maybe you too will find something valuable in here for your own training?

What lead to this summary was Kims first experience of angles, a track that we did in the wood, 70 minutes old and containing 12 angles (here we would work on angles, that's for sure!), both to the left and the right on a 300 meter track. This is what I wrote in the diary afterwards: "This angle-track was too difficult. Maybe we need to do a straight, simple track the next time, and put emphasize on the articles instead. If it is in the wood, it should be a lot older".

What is Kims strong sides? He has an incredibly high drive and ability to focus. I get so happy every time I see his tail wag when I put the harness on ;-) "Difficult" terrain gives him only a little trouble, but that we have worked on a lot from his puppyhood. Thinking about how many tracks he has had on asphalt, stone, gravel, concrete, sand and similar, it would be strange if he didn't have something to hold on to when it becomes difficult. A simple basis as grass on the other hand makes him all whimsey, that is something we need to work on eventually!

We have focused on one thing at a time, or at least tried to ;-) On the very first tracks, we went to as difficult terrains as possible and made simple, successful exercises. When Kim got more secure on the basis, I could introduce difficulties as different times, articles, simple turns, to cross natural lines and so on. With natural lines I mean such forms in the nature that the dog prefers to follow, for instance a stone henge, a path, a glade and similar.

Different weather is nothing that Kim notices (both my Poodles do!). If I am close or far behind is not bugging him, Kim solves the problems on his own. Tintin is extremely sensitive and reads the lighest movement in the rope as a hint on where the track is, which always turns out totally wrong. But Kim is not effected if the rope is tight or slackening. He does track more careful when the rope is tight though, but I guess that depends on that I am the one deciding the pace to be slower... If it is on purpose, or because I can't keep up in the terrain, I don't tell :-D

Unexpected movements he reacts to. Once I had to jump down a cliff, and that he found very scary, since he was already down there, standing with his back to me, perhaps he thougth someone was coming to eat him. He has also reacted when my raincoat is flapping in the wind, but that I think is because of the maturing phase he has been through.

The few times he has gotten the opportunity to try, he easily has managed to sort out old tracks from new, and is able to stick with the original track. The first time I crossed the track on my way back was by mistake, the terrain was such that I couldn't get back any other way. The other times I have laid the tracks like that on purpose. Many are those that say that it is too difficult for the dog to sort out two tracks from the same person and that you should always use another person to lay these so called blind tracks. But if the dog can decide the direction of a track by that one single second that differs between the time the right foot lifts and the left is put down, it is not impossible to teach him to sort out tracks that vary a lot in time, even if the track layer is the same person. The dogs instinct is to switch to the freshest track (in the wild that would have been the short way to the prey), that is why the dog needs training to stick with the original track. We don't want him to let go of the track for anything in the world!

The easiest way to make the dog keep the original track, is to lay the crossing track at right angles. If you want to make it more difficult, you lay the blind track more and more alongside (or in the opposite direction of) the track and eventually perhaps follow it for a while before the blindtrack is leaving the original track.

If your dog consistently changes to the freshest track, you can work with it by laying the blind track so that it comes back in a circle to the place where the dog already have been. The dogs don't like by nature to use more energy than necessary and they tend to get very frustrated when the blind track leads them back to the starting point, without getting something for the effort. That is usually enough "punishment" for switching tracks. If that is not enough, you can go one step further and simply skip the rest of the training that day and go home when the dog has chosen the blind track and is back at the start.

So far, Kim shows no interest in switching over to prey. Luckily, because he has scared away both deers and rabbits and even hunted his first rabbit now, to my big disappointment. If he looses the track he doesn't give up, but keeps searching on a high level of intensity. He learned all from the very first time he lost the track, that "Mom is not to be trusted, she is just standing there!". If you show the dog one single time, that experience will never leave the dog, and even if the dog is searching and finding the track all by him self in the future, that day will come when it simply gets to difficult for him and he will turn to you for help. We want to avoid that. It's the dog that is doing the work - not you!

What surprises me is that he started to search in circles from the very beginning when loosing the track. To circle to find the track in wider and wider circles is an instinctive trait, that will always lead the dog back to the track eventually. BUT, Kim has gotten so much introductional training to search for the track on a straight line during the "find the track in the start" training, that it should cause problem when loosing it later in the track. In other words, he is taught to search for the track straight forward, and by that he would never find it again. Why on earth have I taught him such a stupid thing?

As I mentioned, the circling is a behaviour coming from instinct. That means it's the behaviour the dog tries first. Many, many are those who have the problem of the dog circling from the starting point instead of searching straight out. By teaching the dog from the very beginning that the track is always straight in front of him, you imprint another behaviour than the instinct. When the dog looses the track and starts to search straight out, he will soon find it's pointless. His instinct then tells him to circle, that is nothing we need to teach the dog. But if the dog is allowed to START with that behaviour, it is a lot more difficult to teach him to go straight. It is quite the same as the dog by instinct is searching with his nose high, we want a low nose in the track, that is why we start with tracking before we do any search training.

The most important thing to remember when the dog is searching for the track, is to NEVER interrupt or disturb him. Let him make his own experiences. Follow him when he has lost the track and allow him to search straight out until the dog turns all by himself, even if it means you will have to walk for a couple of kilometers! It's when the dog comes back and finds the track that he will make experiences and learns an effective and power saving way to find a lost track. Remember that the dog doesn't like to spend energy if it's not necessary. When the dog looses the track and pulls you away, it is very easy to believe that he has switched over to prey. Don't stop him if you are not a 100 % sure that so is the case. Do you have any evidence? Can you see the tracks from another person or prey? If not: let the dog go. Take the risk to learn something you too: to read your dog. Being able to see if the dog is on the track or not is and invaluable trait for the handler.

With more experience the dog will easily differ the situations where he will search for the track straight out and when he needs to circle.

Kim probably thinks he is a Retriever, because he loves carrying things around! It shouldn't be that difficult to make him mark the articles in the track better.

What do we need to put more emphasize on in our training? Kim is terribly sloppy with the articles, not only that he misses them, the marking is also not to my satisfaction. This should be worked on beside the tracking training, how we have done that is descibed below. Forcing natural lines and fences is also giving us trouble now. If the track for instance is leaving a furrow in a cultivated field, he tends to stay with the furrow, instead of following the track. If we approach a stone wall, he hesitates in following the track over, even though he has the physical abilities to go over. Now I will have to focus and really take advantage of the nature when I lay the tracks, try to see these passes that in Kims eyes can not be crossed and give him the confidence to deal with them.

Kim has become very good at deciding which way the track goes (this is something that we have really concentrated on since the last time I wrote here), but he needs more training in going completely straight out, especially when the wind is not blowing in our faces (if it does, he already smells the track before I get the harness on and simply follows the scent straight out). How to procede with that training, I will have to think more about.

Angles we just started with. Important not to stear him! We can probably start to work on durance soon too, by longer tracks, or many tracks on the same day, or older tracks. Another person to lay the tracks soon?

Well, these are my thoughts so far. We have started to concentrate on the marking of the articles. Kim has picked articles at home in front of the TV, out on the walk, during the obedience training at the dog club etc. Then we have made several short "pick-the-article-tracks" of about 100-200 meters with 10 narrow put, small articles in each. So far I don't see the results, many times he has not been able to mark the article even if it is placed directly under his nose, because he has so much work just to keep the track.

I strongly believe that when you work on something that you have a problem with, you should lower your demands on the other performance, so if he misses articles when we have done a lot of tracks on hard surfaces, it is not that strange. The last time he got a very good exersice in forcing natural lines was on an industrial area. The surfaces was mixed concrete/asphalt/mud and the track crossed a railway, concrete blocks and others from all possible angles. That he managed greatly! But without getting the articles with him...

Back to the article exercises: I have earlier realized that 1 hour old tracks in wooden terrain is way too easy for "mi lord", that's why I decided to do a test and laid out a "pick-articles-track" that we didn't enter until after 3 hours. Imagine my surprise when Kim acted exactly as if the track was totally fresh - he zig-zaged and circled with his nose high for several meters (and by that missed the first 3 of the articles that where of the size of a match) before he "sucked in" the heart of the track and lowered his nose! But then, to my happiness, he showed me the rest of the articles perfectly :-) I guess that Stig Berndtsson, my tracking teacher with Tintin, is correct when he says that a dog experiences a 3-hour old track as still fresh...

This is how satisfied and tired we get from tracking!