My little 15 week old GSD, Danke, just ran her first training trail tonight. Granted, it was pretty short (under 100 meters), but she ran it with nothing but enthusiasm and glee, pulling every inch of the way, nose to the ground.

Very very exciting for me, as I'm hoping to go into rural S&R with her.

Alyssa, she sounds like a trooper!
Can you do an intro under the 'bio' section with her photo? Everyone loves puppy pix!

Wow, I had no idea S&R dogs were trained so young! I learn something new every day here!

We immediately realized that Danke had a high prey drive and loved to scent when we brought her home. If she's not eating sleeping or pooping, she's following a scent. She'd spend all day outside with her nose to the ground if I let her.

She comes from good East German working lines, and her breeder noted that the litter seemed to have a high tracking drive pretty early on. Since we brought her home two weeks ago, I've begun playing "hide-and-go-seek" with her. My husband will take her for a walk while I go out of sight to hide. As soon as my husband lets her off the leash, she's looking for mom. At first she was "looking" more than tracking, but eventually she realized the only way to find me was to actually use her nose. A few times I have hidden in one spot, and then switched spots, and watched her go to the first spot, circle a few times, and then follow my scent to the new spot.
I wouldn't call it training so much as I would call it imprinting. She's beginning to learn that I want her to use her nose to find things.

Last night was the first time that I took her on leash and tracked with her.

I've never really had much interest in tracking training, it seems to be VERY involved, but it does sound interesting! Definately a training you can see the rewards of your hard work!

How too very cool!! Yes to the picture request.....some of us have to live vicariously since we're maxed out already!
Only bragging we get to do around here is that its been so hot we ALL have to go on diets now!