I am starting tracking with my 10 week-old GSD and the only free time that I have is after work and by then it's already dark. I have a field right behind my house and I wanted to see if anyone else has started tracking at night? I can also do it on the weekends, but I feel it's important to get a short session in every day. Any advice that anyone can offer would be appreciated.

Tim,

For the dog tracking at night is really no different than tracking during the day. The difficult part comes on the handler. especially with a new pup. You need to know exactly where the track is. If this is possible than It really shouldn’t hurt his training. Jut be sure you know where the track is so you can be sure he is following the correct scent.

Good Luck,

Hey Tim,

I started tracking this year too and fairly late, so I wound up doing it mostly afterdark once the tracks aged. The dog had no trouble really because she is following scent and not sight.

Ed's video Training a Competition Tracking Dog talks about how to lay the track and how stay on it. Myself, I used glow sticks to accomplish this. I would crack one and drop it on the ground about 6 feet behind the scent pad, then about 3-4 feet after the track I would stick one in the ground, walk about another 10 feet and stick another one in the ground. This way I was able to find the start point of my track (after walking away and letting it age a bit) and maintain a straight bearing on it by keeping the two distant ones in line. Be sure to not put the glow sticks directly on the track, not because of scent contamination but because the dog can see them too. Also, remember to mark any corners in the same way (a bit past the corner). I actually found working at night to take us farther faster because she could not cheat with her eyes <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

Good luck!

Thanks for both of your comments. I really like the idea of using the glow sticks and I'll be sure to go and pick some up. Once again, thanks for the help.

FYI Tim...

Put the glow sticks in the freezer ASAP after tracking and they will last a while longer. I use mine over three or four days depending on how long I wait to put them away <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

Tim, this is just my opinion, but I do a lot of tracking and I'd say this:

As someone has already pointed out, training tracking in the early stages is more about you than the dog. You absolutely have to know 100% that the dog is actually sniffing from footstep to footstep and that would be very difficult to do even in a freshly plowed field in poor visibility conditions. On grass - it's be virtually impossible to do so in a low light environment.

There's just too much chance of you not be able to see exactly where your dog is working his nose to be worth the risk of establishing bad tracking habits.

Honestly, you'd be much better off tracking two good daylight sessions a week than five sessions where you'd always never be quite sure that the dog was doing the proper procedure.

Hi Will and thanks for the advice. I have thought about this and I'm going to go with one of the trainers from the club for a while so we can both watch. I will be bringing a lantern/flashlight or something and hopefully it will work. If I cant properly see the pup then I'll just go with the weekends for now.

Actually, if you are working on grass at night it should be a peice of cake to see where you walked.

Strap a headlight around your ankle aimed straight forward and your footsteps should jump right out.

Play with it BEFORE you try it with the dog to see if it works for you. You may want to try it with red LEDs too. Don't use something real bright but rather a more diffuse light.