Laev loves tracking, but she doesn't love 100-point tracking. Laev's idea of tracking is to move at maximum speed over the footprints, air-scenting except where needed, and getting to the end as quickly as possible.
Well, that's not exactly true. That's how she starts, yes, and then she settles into very nice accurate tracking. But I would like to see nice tracking the entire time!
I don't know exactly why this is -- I have never made the end of the track very fun in comparison with the track itself. Friends will play tug at the end of a track, or finish with a pile of food, or chase a ball in the field; Laev's tracks end with an article and then a sit at heel. There is no hurry to reach the end, except in her mind.
For competition, she'll need a deep nose and accurate footprint tracking, so I'm trying to get her more focused. After talking with my club, I decided to go back to serpentines, lots of food in the starting scent pad, and food in nearly every footstep. Tonight I went out to lay a track, and I chose to lay it in ankle-deep grass with lots of inches-thick grass clippings; no racing down this track! To get the food, she was going to have to go slowly and dig a bit for the pieces. This would slow her and require concentration, certainly.
I brought Laev out and dropped her into heel position. Laev loves tracking; I can ask her to heel and work to the track and the cue to track is the reward. She gave me lovely focus, begging for the track, and I cued her to start.
Right off the bat it was ugly. She snatched a single piece of food from the scent pad and rushed off it, already veering off the footprints in her hurry. But she realized her error and got back on the track, and after a moment she seemed to be working better, eating most of the treats and following the track. We were doing all right 'til the first article, which was a piece of PVC I hadn't used before. Laev wanted to skip it, not recognizing it as an article, and when I gently insisted that she should indicate it, she seemed to fall apart. She couldn't really concentrate after that, and she had a terrible time finding and following the track. Even right on it, she skipped every treat -- it was as if it was too much work to pick them up. She (and I) missed the second article, and she was ugly all the way to the end, where I encouraged her to down on the third and final article.
So. If she can't be bothered to eat on the track, then she's clearly not hungry. We went back inside and prepared dinner -- I had even tracked her at dinner time -- and Laev is on short rations. Tomorrow we'll try the same field and see if it's still too much trouble to concentrate to find the food....
Have you gone back to scent pads?
HAve you considered going back to scent pads?
I recently attended a tracking seminar here in the UK given by Bernd Fory, he insists on the dog being very calm at the start of tracking and makes great use of scent pads with puppies and older dogs; even those that track.
He uses tiny dry food and inserts it into the ground, and then puts a little bit on top.
the dog is brought to the pole calmly and, if necessary, hand fed there until its drive has gone down.
The dog must dig out the bait with its teeth even its paws and it should be doing this very calmly, take dog away before finished.
If necessary continue and do several scent pads a day.
When the dog is very calm and focused change to triangles with an arc to another scent pad, another arc and then serpentines etc; food still inserted in soil.
No toy, nothing at end apart from food or article for food etc.
HTH
This sounds like a job for Dr. Pavlov... :-)
Hi Laura!
I have seen this problem with many dogs. To solve your starting problems I believe you have to deal with the classical conditioning aspects of her behavior for a while. I haven´t seen your dog in action, but I would guess that as you are walking toward the starting point of the track, your dog´s level of arousal is high, at least too high for doing 100 p tracking...
The clue is to arrange the training so that when you start her on a track she is ALWAYS calm and relaxed. If you can arrange that for the next 20-50 tracks (maybe more depending on your dog´s learning history) Dr. Pavlov will solve the problem for you. And when your dog is tracking more calmly, Dr. Pavlov will also get better assistance from Dr. Skinner (when your dog is tracking more slowly the right behavior (tracking slowly with a deep nose) will be reinforced at a higher frequency since the dog finds more treats).
So, how can we do this in practice?
1. Always go for a LONG walk before you start tracking (at least 15-30 minutes). Let her run free and let out all excess energy (DO NOT take the dog right out of the car and then start her directly on a track).
2. It may be a good idea to put on the tracking harness before you go on your (long) walk. The harness is usually an arousal trigger, so let´s remove that from the start of the track).
3. When you go to the starting point of the track, do not heel (if you have done that earlier it is probably a trigger too). Just walk calmly with the dog on a slack leash. Reinforce him for walking calmly by dropping treats on the ground (walking on a slack leash makes the dog calm, and so does eating treats from the ground. It also helps setting the dog in "food tracking modus" BTW).
4. 5-10 meters from the starting point of the track you can also drop a handfull of treats on the ground. When the dog has eaten them all you can start the dog on the track. Do not use your regular tracking cue (arousal trigger!). Instead just walk into the track and let the dog find the start on his own. The track should have food in 90-100% of the steps until you see 100 p tracking behavior from the start. Then you can gradually decrease the percentage of food - as long as the dog is still doing 100 p tracking.
5. Lay the tracks as long as possible. (Take a break during the track if the dog needs a pause to rest his head/nose). When you reduce the food you should make the track even longer.
6. Try do to at least 3-5 tracks a week.
I also recommend that you remove the articles from the track until you have established the right level of arousal. Focus on one thing a a time. You can practice indicating the articles outside the track in the meantime. You may very well combine this program with serpentines too.
Good luck!
best regards,
Morten Egtvedt
Canis Clickertraining Academy
http://www.canisclickertraining.com
You pegged her!
"...I would guess that as you are walking toward the starting point of the track, your dog´s level of arousal is high...."
You got it!
Laev has always been like that. There is food on the track only to slow her down; that has been the case from the beginning. At 10 weeks old she would throw herself on the ground and SCREAM because she couldn't track any faster than I walked. I had to work really hard to get her to eat on the track, so she would slow down and scream less. The track itself is a major reinforcer for her!
This has led to my current dilemma. Getting to progress down the track is at least as much a reinforcer as eating a treat. Limiting progress down the track with physical restraint leads to frantic behavior and tantrums, so I use food and articles as much as possible to slow and direct her....
So we do heel toward the head of the track, requiring self-control in order to start. This probably does contribute to her unsteadyness at the beginning, a little explosion at her release to track, but I just don't see her approaching a track *without* enthusiasm, and I refuse to let her drag me to the start and thus reinforce her frenzy!
We'll try some calming routines. As a whole, my club isn't fond of relaxing the dog before the track but prefers the dog to focus its energy directly into the starting scent pad. On the other hand, they have dogs that they can play with at the end of the track. ;-)
We also do lots of starts from odd angles, so Laev can't just assume that the track runs straight ahead. In my thinking, this should encourage focus at the start, but it's not always successful.
Thanks!
Laura &
www.CaninesInAction.com
Have you viewed Steve's DVD?
I'm certainly no expert since I have NO experience with tracking, but I just watched Steve White's video on the HITT method (Hydration Intensified Tracking Training) and it is AWESOME!!
In his DVD, among MANY other things, he explains how to reward the dog for the mechanics of moving with their nose really deep and to develop that muscle memory before progressing.
Also, how long did you wait between laying the track and running it? The DVD also explains that with crushed vegitation, there is about a 15 minute period where the scent of the vegitation is so strong it can overpower the human scent. Not a problem for the dog to follow, but because it's so strong, they don't NEED to put their nose down. Perhaps working older tracks will help?
Maybe we can get together when I get my pup and we can work on tracking together. :-)
Chris
not HITT, but she's got the idea....
Good thought. I've been running Laev on aged tracks for a year or two; that was an early attempt to get her to slow down and concentrate. ;-) Aging the tracks does seem to help, because there just isn't much air scent available for cheating at the beginning, but obviously that's not an only solution. Still, reducing the ability to cheat means reducing the rehearsal of cheating....
She *can* settle down and track deeply once she's into it; she just has so much enthusiasm at the beginning that she's not really channeling it well into the track. I need more focus for that enthusiasm and less spillage. There are moments of brilliance in there!
And yes, we will definitely have to schedule some sessions together. A few hours of driving is a small price for some quality clicker time!
Laura &
www.CaninesInAction.com