Samantha....I would be sure that you have her do it exactly right from the start. Search EVERY FS EVERY time. Don't let her get sloppy EVER. Stand right over top of her head if you have to in order to be sure she is deep in each FS. I would even feed a dog it's meal on the track in the beginning if I had to in order for it NOT TO miss a piece in the early stages of tracking if they are leaving bait. If you let her take short cuts from the start...it will come back to bite ya in the butt. Much MUCH harder to go back & RE-teach something then it is to teach is correctly from the start. This from experience, unfortunately. :-( Just what I have done

 Quote: Anne Jones

Samantha....I would be sure that you have her do it exactly right from the start. Search EVERY FS EVERY time. Don't let her get sloppy EVER. Stand right over top of her head if you have to in order to be sure she is deep in each FS. I would even feed a dog it's meal on the track in the beginning if I had to in order for it NOT TO miss a piece in the early stages of tracking if they are leaving bait. If you let her take short cuts from the start...it will come back to bite ya in the butt. Much MUCH harder to go back & RE-teach something then it is to teach is correctly from the start. This from experience, unfortunately. :-( Just what I have done

+1

I was lucky .... I read here some posts by Will Rambeau and Bob Scott about the foundation, and I took them to heart.

If allowed, self rewarding can easily lead to false indicating. The dog starts learning that it's indication itself is rewardable. That's almost always a training issue but it can ruin a dog's reliability factor in a heart beat if not gotten under control.

I feed her meals on the track or during training or in work to eat toys. She's always earning her food in some way, and if I'm using treats instead of kibble I just try to balance out the calories to keep her weight healthy.
I'm right on her shoulder when tracking but when she's really going in deep and being enthusiastic about getting the job done I give her a small amount of space to experience working more independently. Less encouragement, more praise. She is fast when she's starting out on the track but the second time around she's nice and steady. She's become very handler oriented and wants me to tell her what to do all the time, so I'm trying to encourage her to do things on her own within reason. She's not nervous without direction, but she does seem to kind of flail around if I'm not guiding her, and on the track if I'm guiding too much she does things like belly crawl the entire length.

We haven't worked out a happy medium on the track. Everything else seems to be loud and clear about what role we both play. So far all of the Malinois I've had the pleasure of living with have been vastly different in personality so it's a learning experience. No other dog breeds have been this different!

Sam, I haven't done any circle tracking, but the videos I've seen indicate to me that one of the purposes is to allow the dog to work out the track on its' own.

It appears that way to me too, Duane. I'm trying to find free information on it without paying $21 for a 20 minute video that I only have the right to view for a few days and then I'd have to pay for it again.

For other's reference I found this -
http://www.beaglesunlimited.com/training/starting-puppies-track-using-scent-circle

bump

From what I can remember its more then just letting the dog work it out on its own. The idea is we create a lot of the problems in tracking. Conflict from the rituals we may go through, rushing to the track, etc..

This is to remove conflict with us. Its pretty interesting. This is Chaos on a circle track laid clockwise. Wrong way, back and forth, then the right direction all on the first time.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_zpNznq0QjI

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Q8k7Wmlh6M

River on a circle track! She was pretty good at it until she got to the really short grass and started cutting across the circle. It's clear to me that she doesn't comprehend what's really going on, but she does understand what she needs to do to get the food. A few more times should make the lightbulb go off.