Teaching Articles

As the majority of my tracks are hot pursuit (10 minutes) or less at times, it is imperitive that I find the bad guy(s) before he can break containment. Therefore I never train article recovery during tracking. I want my partners mind to be thinking one thing only, catch that guy! After locating the quarry or not, I simply back track and have my partner quarter the area for any discarded items. I track off the lead so I am at a fast jog most of the application and would most likely skip over the items anyways.
Another exercise I do almost every session is after my partner locates the bad guy during bite exercise, I have the quarry discard an item while fighting and after putting him inside a vehicle I have the dog locate the item tossed during the fight, I should note this is done at night so the dog does not see the item being tossed. I believe this conditions him to expect to find something even though he is still excited after the fight. So even doing aggression work I make him finish with scent work. As soon as I direct him to fetch he goes right to work with little or no voice correction. necessary.

I use both a passive and active alert on the same dog but they are triggered by the behavior cue. In tracking I first teach the dog the "find it"
(behavior search off lead) by presenting an odor in plastic bag such as food then another hidden once the dog understands find means locate odor that was presented he is moved to learning human scent discrimination and a active alert such as (barking at find). I use socks for this (want dog to learn foot wear and human odor related to feet). The dog is also conditioned to a handler cue such as the word " yes" for correct behavior during this phase. Once the dog is proficient at locating the presented odor he is ready for learning a passive alert on track. I teach the down on article first by taking out wallet setting a short distance away directing dog to and commanding platz the minute he downs he hears the "yes" and is rewarded. Once he is auto down on wallet we start tracking. He is conditioned to the start by always being downed at start and a finger point to track with the cue "such" (behavior on lead follow track lay down on find). By teaching the scent discrimination first before tracking allows hard surface and transistions to be trained quite easily and with greater reliability. A normal training track for myself would typically have several articles and on the last article I turn dog loose with "find it" the article at end elevated or in some form of cover that he can see but not access and he barks till I arrive or I eject with remote controll device or at times the tracklayer is last article and rewards with toy after barking. I do schutzhund, akc, and bow & arrow deer recovery all with same dog. Schutzhund tracking I consider easiest most clubs looking for those Ideal conditions. I am not high scorer in points however I prefer reliability (always pass or score high in trial when conditions are tough). The down on article during tracking is best all around you can teach the sit but it wont last most will down from trying to get close to odor source anyway.

Dan Reiter