This weekend I attended an excellent tracking seminar hosted by 4 Paws DogWorks. Taught by the extremely skilled and observant Sil Sanders, not a one of us was able to escape unscathed from Sil’s watchful eye. Hopefully everyone else felt they learned as much as I did. Here are some of my notes:

Tracking is Not About Training Your Dog to Use His Nose



It’s about training your dog to be easy to read while she is in scent. When I first started teaching Gypsy to track, I often became frustrated because it seemed to me that she was not really following scent, just walking in a straight line because that is what I encouraged her to do. Little did I know that this is exactly what is supposed to happen in the beginning stages of tracking. As it turns out, dogs already know how to follow a track. They may not know why they should follow a track, but in the beginning phases of learning, the tracks we lay are like blinding neon yellow lines to them. In Phase I and II of Sil Sanders’ approach, we are molding the dog’s behavior while he is following a track so that it is easy to communicate with him that we’re on the same page, we’re in sync. We reinforce walking in a straight line even if the dog can smell the track from 15 feet away, because this makes it easier for us, the stupid humans, to know where we are going. In later stages, the dog will run into true scent problems that take work to solve, and it is important that we have the foundation of tracking behavior good and solid so that we can recognize when they are on a track, searching for a corner, or completely lost. So much of the training that goes on is not about scent problems at all, but communication. Making sure the dog presents a consistent and reliable set of behaviors when they are working will ensure that it is easy to tell whether the dog is truly confused or simply not motivated enough to stay on track in later phases when the track is blind.

Training and Handling are Not the Same Thing

When I picture someone training a tracking dog, I do think first and foremost about line handling- but handling the line on a blind track (communicating with the dog) is a skill that is actually separate from training. Sil demonstrated this to us when we watched a dog training for a TDX work a track that had several blind turns but directional flags on two of the legs. He noted that on the occasion that the handler is able to align themselves with the directional flags, that is a training opportunity. It is time to step in and make sure that the dog stays close to the track and does not fringe or quarter, one of this dog’s weaknesses. We accomplish this by raising and lowering the line to apply torque- not steering per say, but making it easier for the dog to stay close. This is different from the legs that were blind, where handling the dog is all about getting out of the way and letting them work.

Another distinction between the two is that training refers to the total arrangement of the session. It encompasses the set of skills that enable the trainer to problem-solve and motivate the dog, such as knowing what length and age of track to lay, where to place bait, where to place visual aids for the handler, and what challenges should be there. It is “setting the dog up for success,” which is often easier said than done. For one thing, we must put aside our own schedule and focus on the matter at hand…

Focus on One or Two Training Objectives

Each session needs to be structured to address one or two specific problems. Any more than that, and it becomes difficult to evaluate the progress you have made. It can also become overwhelming. Not having training objectives at all is equally problematic, for the same reason. It’s easy to feel like subsequent training sessions have some kind of vague progression of difficulty, but are you documenting exactly what you’re doing? Sil’s approach is extremely methodical and pragmatic in that it breaks issues down into discrete categories that reflect the total dog-handler relationship. We discussed problems with the dog’s behavior (commits weakly on corners, weak starts, lack of excitement) and problems with the handler (doesn’t believe the dog, doesn’t use corner communication). There are also challenges to work on in regards to the quality of the track itself, and these can be overcome by incrementally increasing the difficulty in most cases.

If you go through Sil’s book, you will notice that each phase addresses a different issue separately. At the beginning of every phase, we return to using short tracks with the new concept introduced. For example, Phase 3 introduces corners. What is the value of a 20 yard track with one corner for a dog that already knows how to track hundreds of yards, you might ask? Well, by making it so gosh darn easy, the dog is able to take that corner without a second thought. The handler can in turn challenge them, putting pressure on the line and asking, “Is this the good track?” The dog, seeing the glove mere yards away, will lean into the harness as if to say “Yes, dummy!” and then you can release your line tension and they get the reward. This behavior of leaning into the harness as a way of committing to the new direction can be shaped and incorporated into organized searching behavior in later tracks where the dog experiences loss and recovery of scent at corners.

Tracking is About Motivation

The biggest takeaway from this seminar for me was that I do not motivate my dog properly even 70% of the time. I figured if we were doing longer and longer tracks with more and more corners successfully, then her motivation was alright. But the smaller problems like lack of line tension and the occasional laying down on the track out of stress were in fact much more problematic issues than the length or difficulty of our sessions. I also did not know how to respond to lack of motivation. Now I have a much better understanding of how to evaluate what went wrong and how to rectify it without making it feel like either I or the dog gave up. Sil teaches that you must really play with your dog, intensely, and make sure that finding the glove does not mean the end of the fun. If you find yourself fizzling out before the final article, that is an opportunity for encouragement. If you can achieve motivation, the rest will follow.