How do you eliminate food used in training a competition tracking dog?

New trainers often think that it is very important to eliminate food on tracking. While this is important for obedience training it is less import in tracking.

Many top trainers will never eliminate food from the dogs track until the day of the track. Others will use food throughout the life of the dog at different stages of training or on different parts of the dogs track. Some trainer will only feed their dogs at the end of the track. The dog learns, "this is where I eat my food on the days that I must track." This does not have to be an everyday thing, just on the days that the dog goes out for tracking training.

If you are lucky enough to have a dog who is easily motivated by food you should use food as a training tool as long as possible. Initially the food will be eliminated on the straight legs of the track (once they are doing a good job here). Food will always be used after corners on the tracks, after articles and after cover changes (all depending on wind conditions).

A great many dogs (after a year of age) are not that motivated by food. This is something else that needs to be addressed in training. What is a trainer to do when his only style of training is a food drop in every foot step and the dog doesn't like food that much? I have addressed this question above. You can find the answer to this question on the list.