This was the part of the working test where my dog failed on when training for the working test in Belgium (without this test we cannot obtain the titel of Belgian Show Champion). Unfortunately my teacher was used to work with Rottweilers and Dobermanns and did not know how to deal with a Belgian so we never succeeded.
Saskia
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He is your friend, your partner, your defender, your dog. You are his life, his love, his leader. He will be yours, faithful and true, to the last beat of his heart. You owe it to him to be worthy of such devotion.
What he needs to do is an L-shaped trail (long side 40 m and short side 20 m) with one object at the end and the trail is around 30 min old and made by a foreign person.
I had to walk onto the field and mark the start of the trail by putting a stick in the ground. Then I had to mark the trail and put a piece of food in the heel print of every step and at the end I had to put the object which also contained food. Yentos himself had to lay down at the stick after which he was given the command to search.
The first 2 lessons eveything went well and he really enjoyed it but then he started to show less and less interest in tracking the trail, he did not even care about the food that was on the ground (although I made sure that he did not receive a full meal the night before to make sure that he was hungry). He most of the time did the first few meters very well (like he wanted to show that he knew what he had to do) and then just quit. When he arrived at the end of the trail and found the object, he laid down with it so he knows what the whole idea of the exercise is. Strangely enough he was very interested in tracking the trail after the end of the exercise and this without a problem. I have asked the instructor to cut down on the food (since this did not seem to stimulate him) and use a different tactick to get him interested but according to her this was not the way to go.
Unfortunately it is very difficult to find a club in Belgium which trains both Belgian ring (this is needed for the biting part of the work test at the time) and IPO (this is needed for the tracking). Due to problems at the ring training I could not motivate myself to continue with the tracking lessons and I quit after 4 months since I could not see any progress. Now I can only become Belgian show champion if I have my work test. I have talked to several people and they say that it is too late to start again (Yentos will become 6 years). When I start again I want to train with somebody who believes it can still be done and who knows how to work with a dog that is a bit insecure. When he sees an "apache" he still has the drive to attack but he needs excersise again.
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He is your friend, your partner, your defender, your dog. You are his life, his love, his leader. He will be yours, faithful and true, to the last beat of his heart. You owe it to him to be worthy of such devotion.
Iff you don't mind I will explain too you in dutch. Om jou hond geintresseerder tekrijgen zou je een L-figuur kunnen uitlopen waarbij je de hond vast bind aan een paal en je hem toelaat kijken waarbij jij drift maakt op het spoor. Je kan natuurlijk ook een sleepspoor uitlopen met gekookte lamshart of pens in een sinasappelnetje en die sleep je achter je aan en dat leg je op het einde van het spoor. Maar ook in dit geval laat je hem toe kijken. Dat is ook een manier om de hond te motieveren.
Could you please write in english because here are people from all parts of the world and they don?t understand Dutch, they maybe have the same problem.
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The truth is out there, but so are the lies. - Dana Scully
if you have not much experience in Tracking and nobody who can help you for a perfect IPO track then I recommend to you the videos from Gottfried Dildei. I did not see ever a better video for beginnes. you cannot make anything wrong if you follow this videos. Did you know them??
by Gene
« Last Edit: September 17, 2004, 10:05:30 PM by Gene »
I'm sorry that i have been written in Dutch so i'll translate it. Saskia the problem with your dog is that he is not motivated enough,wright. So what you can do is two things. First is you ty the dog too a post at the feeld where you will be laying the track so he can watch you laying the track and while you lay the track you make him "crazy for the track" by saying for example: lets go surching , where is the food etc. And do not make the track too long star with the first leg 10mtr and make a little bent in the track and the second leg 4 or 5 mtrs at the end you lay a little bit off food a hand full. Allso when he does start tracking you walk behind him on 2mtr. because you dog knows allready what tracking is. The second thing what you can do is a pulltrack(I don;t know iff this is English wright called). You start the same as the first one,ty the dog up and let him watch. The pulltrack works like this. You take a orangenet anf there you put some stomach off a cow or some boiled lamshart. While you lay the track with food you pull the orangenet with the cowstomach or lamshart with in it behind you at the and off the track you lay the stomach or lamshart. Iff you do this the dog must react after severall trainings that he is going "crazy"at the post.
I know these video's from Dildei and there not bad there are a some good tips on it. But the problem is whit these video is that the dogs are tought tracking on agricultureland and in Holland and in Belgium you don't have any or not that much land. And when there is some land the farmer send you away from the land. So it isn't easy. I know another way with tracking. I just started to do it with my young dog he is know almost 7 month old. It is (i call it drive tracking. german for Triep f?hrten). First you start with that a person hold your dog on the lease and support him while you lay the track.The dog is going crazy on the lease. The track is build up like this. First you lay a square 1mtr widht and 1mtr long(this kind off tracking is better on gras). And this square is full off food. The dog is being watching what you did and is going out off his mind(remind that the dog gets nothing too eat the eavening before). You let him in the square on a lease 3mtrs. long and you'll say everytime surch good boy/girl surch. But before he eat eveything up you pull him SLOWELY out off the square and saying where is the food and so on. The next stap when he does it really good you lay a triangle with the same pincipal as the first stap. The third stap is you start with a triangle and at the point off the triangle there is a piece off track ad the end off that track there is another triangle and you end the same as stap 1 and so you can build on and on. You can only go too the next step iff the dog is absolute going crazy when he is watching and when he eats his food very fast.
With greetings bjorn
« Last Edit: September 18, 2004, 12:45:36 AM by Bjorn »
The video from Godfried Dildei is a good learning video if you do not have any expierence with tracking. I have allso his video and i use some off his methodes. But not everybody is familiar with his video. But Saskia can take a look at them if she wants too. And maybe there is somerhing on the video that she can use.
Tracking the most time consuming of the sport. Tracking is without a doubt discipline. I have had a dog that was not in to the food much on the track He would pick the food up shake it and if it had dirt on it well He would just drop it this is after a reduced diet. He was a ball freak nuts for any toy so I went to multiple articles and when he downed on the article I would play with Him then bring Him back to the track put him in a down and then begin the track again. When He was doing good I backed off so many articles and He did well a little fast but tracked. I do not know if this will help. I think He can do it at six no problem. Good luck.
Well more or less i just started with tracking. We started tracking in a way that he is searching a toy or a ball. All is fine and working well just one thing, how can I slow him down... I try to track as many times as possible, today I went to track after not tracking for 4 days. He was completlly crazy and almost to entusiastic to calm down.
When I start tracking, I lay normaly a straight track that is ? 6 mtr long and in every step ther is food(not too big and not too small). When the dog tracks real good and he still goes too fast i put a coller on in German it is could "Stachelhalsband". And with little tugs on the line i slow him down and while the food is nearby he/she is motivated for tracking, when the food lais too far from an other and you pull on the line then the dog can lose his concentration and motivation for tracking. At this way you learn him too concentrad on te track. And at the end off the track there is a hand full off food and no ball or some other kind off play thing. You can try that.
« Last Edit: November 05, 2004, 11:04:22 PM by Bjorn »
My tervueren went the same way when it came to tracking. The first times we trained with an easy track he thought it was so much fun! Then he just went... down. He found it boring but he did know what he was meant to do...
So I asked my good friend who is a great dog trainer in my eyes and he said that: "He probably thinks it's too easy, so it's boring to him. He want's a challenge!"
So, the next time I made a track for him, i waited longer before we went on (about 2? hours) and I made the track a lot longer with two 90 degree angles. Tarass was bored at first even this time but then! When he realized it wasn't a game he really concentrated and worked with a happy tail all the way!
This was the problem for me and Tarass, maybe the same thing goes for you and your dog?
Saskia, I would recommend the "Speurhondeninstructieschool" of Cor Oldenburg in the Netherlands. They have a lot of experience with your specific problem, and know how to solve this.
I went to the seminar there, and they don't use food to teach a dog how to track. They get lots of people with dogs with problems as you describe, and I think he can help you solving it.
When you are interested, I can give you the website, so you can contact Cor by telephone or e-mail.
Author
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I try to track as many times as possible, today I went to track after not tracking for 4 days. He was completlly crazy and almost to entusiastic to calm down.
