My Mal was taught articles by Ivan. The method was lay 10-15 paces with food then article, 10-15 paces, then article etc. til you have about 6 articles layed out -- no corners.
We started him out on grass. After I came home, I kept him on grass the rest of that summer. It was all I had available also at the time.
Then I went onto dirt. Let me back up just a bit by saying, he was started actual tracking on both dirt and grass and never had a problem going from one to the other - did a bit better on grass.
When I put the articles down in the dirt, he went along fine and when he came upon the first article, he stopped and looked at it and then at me. I waited and he did a body shake, then I leaned down (like in the very beginning) and pointed at it and said, "show me" which he did. Okay. Off we go to the next, same thing.
He's had alot of time off since then -- we are back and this year I have had him out tracking a few times. First time back, no articles. Just a plain laid track - he did awesome.
Next time out, I put out some articles like back in the beginning. First couple of articles I saw some hesitation but, I kneeled down right away pointing to it with the "show me" and he did. Got to the last two and the avoidance popped in. He looked away etc.
Today I went out and layed a fairly long track with only two articles. He got to the first one and stopped, looked at it, looked at me and then did a body shake and looked away.
The second article, he tried to run over it.
Tomorrow, I'm going to lay a track in the grass and see how that goes.
But, this dog has gone from (grass), this is so much fun, can't wait to get to an article to (dirt) I'm not so sure about this, to - I hate this thing in the dirt.
I'm not sure yet if it has to do with the change of ground or if he is truly blowing me off or what the deal is.
Any insight or suggestions?
Cindy

Without seeing the behavior I don't know that I would classify a body shake and looking away as avoidance. Since the dog tracks awesomely I would take the dog away from the track and test him to see if he really knows/understands article indication. If not, teach(motivation) and train(compulsion) articles separately, then return to tracking with the articles on the track. I would also recommend contacting Ivan.

Just an update:
Took my dog tracking today on grass with the articles.
And he did everything just about perfect.
So, it's just a matter of grass versus dirt.
He's not sure what to do with them in the change of ground - in his case, dirt.
So, I'll go back to the beginning stages with him in the dirt with the articles and show him that there is nothing different.
I should have known and listened to him a little bit better in his body language.
In the dirt, when he got to the article he would look at it then at me and when he didn't get any reaction, he would look away or just try to get past it.
He doesn't want to do anything wrong and just didn't know what to do.
Cindy

Always a good idea to back-up training when problems arise. But an article is an article, don't put any human thoughts into a dogs head. There is no right or wrong in a dogs world; just advantage and disadvantage, pleasant and unpleasant, comfort and discomfort, agreeable and disagreeable. Dogs are always telling us something, we just have to understand it.

Alan ,well said . I would back up to the article indication again off the track and then if the articles become the safe place to be, you will not have a problem on dirt or grass .An article is an article and it should be indicated on either . Peter

Alan ,well said . I would back up to the article indication again off the track and then if the articles become the safe place to be, you will not have a problem on dirt or grass .An article is an article and it should be indicated on either . Peter

I would like to know how your dog is indicating the article and what your doing if it doesnt indicate.

I guess more specifically, what is your dogs trained indication at the article and what do you do if the dog fails to do it's trained indication?

I would like to know how your dog is indicating the article and what your doing if it doesnt indicate.

When he gets to the article, he platz's and waits for me to get to it.
When he doesn't (dirt only), I say, "show me" and he then will.
I was just putting words to what he is doing - that's all.
I may think like a human but, I certainly don't think the dog thinks like a human. They can't reason.
This is why I don't like posting on boards - because you can't get a point across thru a post and it seems like everything just comes out wrong.
I still stand by what I said earlier -- he didn't know what to do in the dirt with the article.
Dogs are simple minded. An article is an article, this is true. But, that doesn't mean that everything is the same on different substrates to them.
If it's not black and white to them - they don't get it.
JMHO.

I dont know how other people train articles off the track but I train them by putting food under them and let the dog get the food then down them and switch the article for a treat with a one handed switcheroo for the article ,then once that is well understood I just start downing them at the article and then doing the one handed switcheroo for the article.I dont do compulsion on articles and have never had too,they always are very happy to find the article.