I'm about as green as they come when it comes to Tracking....so forgive my questions if they seem off.
A quick run down: The local club I've "joined" (and I use quotations because I'm not so sure I'm going to stick with them long term) offered a sort of seminar put on by a lady who has a TDX on her dog. So I showed up and learned all about the equipment needed, some of the rules and then watched her demo with her TDX dog. She then offered to have us do some "go outs" where someone ran away from us, putting on a show by hollering the whole way then hiding behind a bush/tree. Then we were told to let our dog go (with us at the end of the lead following). When the dog reached the person, it was rewarded with lots and lots of treats. After the seminar, this same lady offered to have a couple more get togethers two weeks in a row following the seminar and I went ahead and showed up. She showed us how to lay track and we did more run outs.
OK, so now for the "problem" (or at least what I'm worried about). When I asked her how best to practice with my dog on the BASICS, she told me I should be going out and laying my own tracks and practicing this sort of thing on my own, with and without someone actually running out for me and my dog....and after just two "lessons" which consisted of my dog basically chasing another person to his/her destination...?? This seems very rushed to me...shouldn't there be basics taught first?
So I'm totally confused and thinking I'm just going to cut this group out and wait until the club down in PHX resumes it's tracking in the fall. I learned looonggg ago it's best to start things the right way when one does not know what they are doing and I'm already worried Kaiya might have caught onto the whole "I'm supposed to chase the person for the treats" and how she'll transition from that to an actual TRACK and something at the end of it (other than a person with treats). I haven't bothered to do any kind of go outs on my own for fear of screwing something up I'll have to go back and take lots of time to fix....
Am I totally off base? I realize everyone has different training methods and that run outs may be part of teaching all of this, but it all just seems like its so rushed (to be told to go out and lay my own track and then have my dog run through it that is)....where are the transition points? My dog doesn't quite get it yet, so how do I do what she said to do and succeed at the same time??
Sheesh I hope this thread makes sense!
Any advice is appreciated and I'd love to hear some personal experiences as far as to what training methods you used to teach your dog to track?
