I've been training my puppy to track and working with him 4-5 days per week. I was told that I am doing too much and should back off to 2 tracks per week. If my training is going well do I really need to back off?

Good day

Thank you for all the excellent training content.

I have been training my pup since eight weeks old to do footstep tracking and he does it accurately and at a good pace. Not quite a tracking thru drive pace, but the dog is focused.

I have been doing tracks in the country about 4-5 days per week.

I was told that is too much tracking and should back off to 2 per week.

However, my dog loves to track and I don’t think he’s being overworked physically by any means. I don’t overexercise his young skeleton.

Things seem to be working fine as is but someone who I believe has some authority in this realm of training has said to back off.

I guess my question really is if it's going well right now, do I really need to be backing him off the training?

Thank you for the speedy reply.

I am a police officer in Canada training a dog since 8 weeks. He is prospective for SAR and the goal is to pass a certification found in the attachment provided.

The dog is a Catahoula and is very good at tracking. There is no lack of intensity in the dog he would run after the scent if I let him, he also is focused on his task and his nose to the ground right up to his reward at the end (food at this time).

The person who told me is a trainer who just knows my dog is 5 months old and said more than twice a week is too much for a young dog. No rationale was provided.

My thought is that as long as the dog is doing work willingly, and with enthusiasm, then there is no issue. I have been following much of the information provided in your video on training rcmp dogs that I purchased online. I vary the length to give him easy days and some hard days. I give him aged tracks (up to two hours) and fresher tracks depending on his performance on the previous track.

I am quite new to this and have limited mentoring so I am questioning myself a lot. However, my instinct tells me that We are doing a great job as a tracking team. I mean, at the end of the day the dog is hearing the command and gets to work and finds the prize at the end after sometimes up to 800-1000 yards, and does it with focus, then all is well.

If that does not explain enough please let me know if there is anything you need to know to assist.

Cindy,

Thank you for your input. I will experiment with that and see the results.

Generally speaking, the dog's days off are my days at work (so two days a week with no tracking or any training really, and two more days where I am prepping for nights and we just have lots of downtime together).

So really it is 4 days a week that start with tracking, then rest, then bite play then rest, then some obedience and play then rest and so on.

Thank you for taking the time to reply back to me. I have a lot of faith in your company's protocols and will continue to purchase your videos and read articles.