Sera_J
Posted : 11/13/2008 8:35:53 PM
Thank you so much! He can be such a good boy when he's not being naughty LOL ... and it's lucky he's so handsome, it's saved his hide many a time. Hard to stay mad when he looks up at you with those light eyes and giant ears! :)
I'm actually not taking a class a friend is starting her puppy too, so we are helping each other with laying tracks and motivation to practice. Granted she's doing more of the helping than I am, since I don't know what I'm doing. But it's a heck of a lot easier to do than i would have thought.
To start you need a harness (you NEED a harness) hotdogs or other smelly meats and we are using a leather glove.
You lay a track by walking straight placing a hot dog ever 3-5 steps (just a small piece, not too much) so they are really tracking hot dogs at this point, I'd only do 40-50 paces. Move slowly not at a brisk pace and verify it's not very windy, calm is a better way to start. At the end they find the glove covered in hotdogs with hotdogs in it. And you praise them like crazy. You do it again. For us our 3rd time we spread out the hotdogs a bit more 7'ish steps. So now they need to follow the scent of the human to find the hotdogs. You'll want to do this at the pace you feel your dog is doing best, neither rushing it too fast nor taking so long to change it up that they get lazy. Weims are known for being very natural trackers, so I hear that they get this a bit faster than some other breeds, so you'd just want to watch your dog and go with your gut. Anyway, now you add a turn. on the 4th or 5th lines (I only do 2, max 3 in a single practice, mostly for space, but also because you don't want them to get bored) Take a LONG TIME stepping through the corner so it's very well defined. Do NOT place a hot dog on the turn. Place it 2 or 3 paces prior then about 2 after the turn then another 2 steps more and then 2 steps more so you are cementing that they made the right choice.. then back to normal (as for paces and hotdogs) I'd do this track 30 turn then 30. At the turn be prepared for them to cast around, this is good, just plant your feet, let them work it out and when they are on the right track follow them. Use a prompt like "FIND IT!" and praise and talk to your dog. Slowly you add more turns (you only need 4 for a TD I believe), less hot dogs and different surfaces. There are a ton of books out there on the subject.
We are starting variable surfaces and are currently doing 3 turns, using hot dogs every 30'ish paces now going about 350 yards. They are totally getting it and our first cross track (a complete accident, some random dude stumbled right through our lines we'd just put down! lol) was fine, when you start them well the totally get it and it's so neat to see! We need to move to a new location to get up to the 4 turns and 400+ yards.
The hard part is getting into a test. You have to be certified prior to that (find a judge to verify your dog is up to snuff) then you get put into a drawing for spots available at tracking tests. Depending on the size of the location it can be hard to get through to test. For example, Nationals in May (weims) there are 4 TD and 2 TDX spots. SIX a total of SIX spots... that's crazy!! So one of us or maybe neither of us will even be picked to test then. It'd be very cool to get a TD at nationals though! We want to be ready if given the opportunity, so we'll be looking to get certified in jan or feb.