Have my dog tracking 400 yards with 3 turns with bait anywhere from 20 yards to 150 yards. I have also been using Ed's tape's advice on training the dog OFF track how to lay with it between it's front paws. How should I put this all together. Also he still pulls hard, when I am within 5 feet of him, but not more than I can hold back now. (Is this O.K.? Seems the more he does it, the less he notices me following and with the long lead he doesn't pull at all)
Secondly, the frost is drastically changing the terrain, should I wait for first snow to start article indication?
At what point should I start aging tracks, before or after article indication?
Any thoughts appreciated

Wow, I thought you were only going to be able to track one day a week?? You're progressing very quickly, perhaps too quickly if only around one month ago you were just starting out and now the food is so widely spread out. If your food is never any closer together than 20 paces, and sometimes much much farther, then the dog figures that out pretty quickly and knows once he finds a piece of food, he might as well rush on becuz there isn't going to be any reason to go slow for a MINIMUM of 20 paces. Usually novice dogs spend much more time doing tracks with a lot more food on it so that they develop a consistent habit of relaxing on the track and checking each footprint for food.

As for the articles, once he's good at indicating them off the track, you can either lay a track with many articles on it, spaced anywhere from 5-20 paces apart, or you can just add one article at the end of a normal practice track. A lot of dogs simply don't put two and two together when the article shows up on their track; they're really into tracking and will walk right over the article. Walk very close to the hip and be prepared to help (not punish) him when he gets to the article by blocking his forward progress by closing your hand on the line and saying platz. If you do a track with many articles, keep in mind that animals learn quickest when the practice is spaced out. Putting 20-25 articles on one track is NOT the most effective way to teach articles. Put 6-8 and call it quits. Next track same and he'll pick it up very quickly without stress.

Aging the track can be done whenever you feel like it; it won't affect his tracking very much and won't interfere with learning the articles. I wouldn't wait for snow to add articles; then you would be changing TWO variables at the same time. Do it now while it's still grass tracking that he's used to. BTW, snow tracking is extremely easy and too much of it can lead to a dog who uses his eyes to find the track rather than his nose. Best to do it in an area with lots of footprints in the snow so he can't rely on his eyes.

Sch3fh2
Had to go run grab my book to see. Yes 9/23 started. Have run 14 tracks since. I started lenghtening the tracks thinking I could tire him out. He just keeps doing these new things I throw at him, all the while laughing, wondering what the big deal is. Do you tink I need to do less? He hasn't lost a track yet. Sometimes he kind of bows around the outside of the turns but I have been able to correct this by just holding him back right before the turn? Once he was to the right of the track about a foot, I kept pulling him over, he kept going back?
I put the same glove down that I use off track for indiction and he just sniffed it and went on. You would think after downing 500 times on this article he would just do it.

Are you aiming for AKC or schutzhund tracking tests? If AKC, you're fine. If Schutzhund, you need precision to get good points. Holding the dog back in order to assist him to make the corner correctly is counterproductive, cuz in the test, you won't know where the turn is, except of course in Sch1, but even then it would be considered handler help. He's got to learn to rate himself a little slower so he can find the turn on his own. With only 14 tracks under his belt, I hesitate to say make the tracks more difficult so that he has to slow down to find them (i.e. serpentines, turns in quick succession like a staircase). Other options are putting him on the prong dead ring and letting him lean into that and it should cause him to find a more reasonable pace that is comfortable for him, or if you think he is confident and won't shut down on you, you can allow him to overrun the corner (you have to know EXACTLY where it is), then give hiim a hard correction, then leave him alone to find the new leg. Several of these corrections combined with tracks with multiple, quick succession turns, will slow almost all dogs down. If you're going 400 paces with only 3 turns, your legs are long and straight, so that also encourages hiim to rush.

Almost all dogs fail to recognize that the article on his track requires the same behavior that he learned off the track. The context is so different that they don't put it together. That's why you have to be ready to help him.

If he consistently drifts to one side of the actual footprint, it's normally cuz that's the downwind side. I don't pull them back onto the footprint; I block them from making forward progress until they get back into the actual track. They have to correct themselves.

Thanks again, hoping for schutzhund.
I will try the prong and let him lean, will at least make it easier to hold him.
He isn't going wide around all corners, just some.
If I can't pull him back, what then should I do to indicate

If I can't pull him back, what then should I do to indicate

I don't understand your question here. Do you mean when he runs over the article?

I'm sorry, someone came in.
I mean't to say when he goes around the corner. I still am pointing at the footsteps when he misses them and around corners I pull back on the line if he starts to swing out. It's weird, because instead of swinging into the turn( toward the new direction), he swings the other way as if to loop the outside of turns. If I do no correction he gets back on the track about 5-8 steps into the new turn and goes on.
What should I do to fix this?

Put a bit of food under the article. As he comes to the article give him a down command (assumes dog is good ob). Have someone there with you who will pop the article up to reveal the food underneath. Do this until he is consitently tracking from article to article, not requiring down command. Then start removing food from underneath articles on a random basis.

Be sure that you know exactly where you made your turn; use a landmark that you won't miss like an extra tall clump of Johnson grass, anything unusual that catches your eye as you look down your leg, so it will catch your eye when you return. The dog sounds like he is overshooting the turn due to his speed - he doesn't recognize the loss of scent immediately; by the time he does notice, he's past the corner and has to curve onto the new leg. If you are positive that you know where the turn is, only allow him to go past it by one body length, no more. Then either just close your hand on the line to stop him from continuing or (only if you think he is a confident dog that will not be unduly upset by a correction) give him a pop on the prong when he is one body length too far. Then tell him to "such" and leave him alone. Don't point out the steps to him. Let him find it. Put food 2-3 steps after the turn to reward him for making the turn.

I don't like putting food under or on the article becuz it encourages the dog to play with the article, which is faulty. If he's been taught to down with it between his front legs OFF the track, it won't take long for him to understand that this is the same behavior that you want on the track. If you're close to the dog when he gets to the article, assist him with a platz command and immediate praise, step up to his side and give him food from your hand, but he has to stay in the down thru this, just as he did when he learned them off the track.

with only 14 tracks, you are progressing very quickly.
not ncessarily bad--i have worked 6 dogs on tracking, and three of them were "naturals". could do a sch 2 track in 3 months.
for the turns, if you need to slow him down before the turn, figure out the pace that enables him to find the turn and maintain that pace around the whole track.
for articles, i have seen a lot of dogs--mine and other peoples that do not make the connection when articles first appear on the track. i do a few short tracks with about 10 articles spaced 10-20 paces.
the dog understands the tracking, so on the first few article tracks i am not so concerned with the track itself. i walk next to the dog and as he gets to the article i tell him down. then i reward and tell him find. usually three tracks of that were enough for the dog to get the idea.