May 19, 2011

I live in the UK. My 2 1/2 year old police dog was started on area search before his tracking was finished. Now I want to train him in

Full Question:
I live in the UK. My 2 1/2 year old police dog was started on area search before his tracking was finished. Now I want to train him in "tracking through drive" and he is missing corners.
Ed
Ed Ed's Answer:
There are a couple of mistakes.

1. It is always more difficult to correct problems than it is to do the training correctly in the first place. Training air scenting first created a problem - you have already found this out.

2. TTD for police is never done for toys - there ALWAYS has to person at the end of the track. This builds hunt drive. Tracking for toys does not do this - no matter how much the dog likes a toy.

I would back up your training. Do 30 easy tracks with people at the end – no corners for a while. Then add in the corners. Do corners up wind first – when they go OK then do downwind corners.

What you really need is the first two training videos to show you how to do this work and how to lay a training track.

Training a Police (S&R) Tracking Dog - Level One. This video was filmed in Canada with the RCMP (Royal Canadian Mounted Police). In my opinion they are some of the best tracking dog instructors in the world. S&R trainers in Canada cannot be called out until they have passed a level one certification by the RCMP. This training tape shows how dogs are trained to this level.

Track Laying for a Police Tracking Dog. How to lay a good training track is critical in training tracking dogs. This tape goes into a great deal of detail on track laying. There is an art to laying a good training track. This tape shows how the experts do it. If you are new to S&R or police tracking, or if you constantly have to retrain track layers, this tape can save you a lot of time and energy.

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