(Moderators, please move the thread accordingly if it is in the inappropriate forum.)

Hello,

I have an 8 month old showline Alsatian that I plan on participating in SchH with as an activity we can enjoy together. She has a lot of drive, shows great potential, and enjoys working on sessions from my Bernhard Flinks DVDs.

So far we have been focusing on the 2 DVDs from Leerburg on Drive Building and Handler-prepping.

Last week, we were approached by a gent who breeds hunting dogs. He shows and trains them for the ring and the field. He told me my puppy was a natural 'sniffer' and that she would have been a great 'sniffer' had I started training on her much earlier.

In short, I was told it was too late to train my 8 month old to track. Then he went on and advised me not to spay my pup, breed her, sell her and her pups to make a profit, and keep one of her pups as a foundation bitch.



Apart from his interesting opinions, I didn't think she is too old to be learning these commands. She is still very young ... But she is my first dog I am raising and training on my own since having family dogs years ago.

Should I start tracking with my puppy now? Why did he say Janka is too old? Is she? How should I introduce her to the game?

I was advised by the SchH members at my local club to just let her be a puppy for now, and focus on drive and focus building before moving on to other facets of the sport.

Appreciate input from trainers and owners.

~ Rei

"Why did he say Janka is too old?"



Because the man knows nothing about training a dog for SchH tracking......

If I make a suggestion, negative-type advice coming from someone that doesn't compete in your sport and most likely never even saw a SchH trial isn't going to have much value - as this advice clearly shows.

While training a dog while it's young helps to establish a foundation in which to work, virtually any dog with enough drive can be trained to trial track with a daily session done over a two month period.
It's that simple ( or hard ) - daily, progressive training for a straight two month period.

We've discussed how to start a dog new to tracking *many* times in different threads, it'd be worth your time to review the information in them.

Good luck!

Much appreciated.

I was a little distraught by his opinions, although it didn't make sense to me. But it is hard to filter good info from bad when one still has such a blank slate, so forums can be a wonderful tool for discerning wisdom from garbage.

I will do a search on 'tracking', and go from there. Thanks.

~ Rei

Rei,
You're in the same boat as all beginners ( and take comfort in the fact that we were *all* where you are at one time ) - and everyone, and I mean everyone, gets advice that's both good and bad.
It happens on every training field and dog training forum in the world.

Trust your gut - if something sounds wrong, it likely is, most of dog training is just common sense ( and repetition )

If it's any re-assurance to you, many people don't even start training their dogs till they are a year old and the dogs do just fine. Many of the dogs you see at the top level of competition were bought as young adults when their potential could be better evaluated. Some people start young, some don't.