First I will determine the meaning of TRACKING. Tracking is the search for SOMETHING. How this is done is secondary to the GOAL, which is the finding of SOMETHING.
The main sense for tracking with these dogs is their nose; but their eyes and hearing may certainly not be forgotten. The SOMETHING can be: a victim of a disaster, a criminal, objects at the crime scene, sorting out suspicious objects / persons by means of the “sorting out test” and also regular objects with a IPO of KNPV trace.
In my opinion it is not allowed to pressurise the dog in anyway, after all, the dog has to like it and do it out of its own free will and initiative. There are many ways of teaching a dog how to trace with IPO or IWR, the one thing they have in common is starting when the dog is still a pup.
Common use is to start with a short track with deep imprints and a treat every two or three metres, ending with a bowl of food or a ball. The dog is taken on a short leash, and is corrected when he gets of the track. If all this goes well, we can start making an angle in the track. The next step will be placing an object on the track, when the dogs arrives at this object, he will have to indicate this by going DOWN next to it. After this he will get a treat.
The number of treats on the track will be taken down. This method was perfected by Dennis Steurs (Belgium) on his video “From puppy to IWR1”. For anyone who wants to teach his puppy how to track this is the ideal guidance.
I teach my dogs the principles of tracking in a very different way, because I feel that the dogs using the previous method are too slow and conscientiously in searching: there is not much space for initiative, it is all about eating-finding-picking up and very little about the tracking.
I think a dog must make mistakes in order to learn from them, instead of being corrected constantly. It is OK for a dog to circle at an angle to convince himself; he will only learn from this. If he is doing this too much, I can always correct him. This way, the treat that was put just around the corner, and not in the wind, certainly is effective!
First I will play a lot with the pup, using all kinds of objects that later can be used on the track. Toys made of textile, and making sounds when touching, are perfect. I will hide them in sight of the pup and I let him search for it freely. The pup does have to pick up these objects from the track, since I am teaching him how to track. If he does not pick up the objects, he is not suited for me anymore, and he will have to go! I feel that a user dog should want to fetch and bring anything and everything!
When the pup is 12 weeks old, not earlier because his walking is not perfect yet, I will tie him to a pole and will walk away from him about 20 steps, meanwhile waving with his favourite object, and put down the object. I will return to him with a detour and will let him run to the object while leashed, let him pick up the object and let him play with it, and he has to give it back to me after which he gets a treat. The next step will be making a start using a treat, and keeping the pup on a short leash while searching for the object on another track, again not longer than 20 footsteps.
If the pup has a good talent, the nose will go down automatically. Always reward the picking up and bringing back with a treat! To stir up the catch-drive we can make the pup drag and pull the object before giving the treat. When this goes nicely, I add another 20 footsteps to the track, and after the first 20 steps I put a treat. The pup needs to be corrected when he leaves the track, but never get rough or angry with him for it. After this a second object is taken in at 20 footsteps after the first treat. Now we already have a track that is 60 footsteps long!
After this we add another 20 footsteps, and then we make an angle, not in the wind and
20 footsteps before the final object. A few steps after the angle we put a treat. I will extend this until the dog is doing a short version of an IPO3 track, this will be just around 6 months of age!
Update: In the meantime Boban and Qina are at a stage in their training (january 2005) that I can show some photo's of them to make my theory more visual:
