Question about tracking

[cj7jeep81]

My wife and I have an 8 week old female. When she is older we would like to do some tracking when she is older. Nothing really hard core, but we would like her to be able to find her toys (and people) in some fairly easy terrain (a field or woods). How old should she be when we start, and does any one have some advice on the best way to train her?

[czechrott]

You can start right now to teach her tracking. Take her out into your yard, and throw some special treats in the grass. Hold her and tease her with the treats, and then toss them a few feet away, and then release her, and tell her to find the treats. When she finds them, praise her happily.

After she learns this game, then you move up to stomping a single footprint in the grass, and then placing the treat in the middle of the footprint. She will soon associate the odor of the footprint with getting a reward. These activities are the foundation for teaching a dog to track.

There is no easy way to teach your dog to track. Although the exercises are easy, and non stressful, attention to small details and repetition is vital. This results in a substantial commitment of the handler, and may seem "Hard core" to some, but the results you get are well worth the time spent.

[Storm]

Once you have done as czechrott said "conditioned" the puppy to seek for the treats amongst the grass, hereby using its scenting ability to find the food, you can also form a "scent pad" by stomping the ground beneath your feet and sprinkling some food then take a "leap" to another spot, once again shuffle your feet, sprinkle food and do this a third time. Let the puppy seek the food moving from pad to pad hereby reinforcing the association of the food with the "disturbance" on the ground. On the last pad take the puppy away when say 50% of the food is still left. By doing this the puppy leaves while still wanting more and will even be more eager next time around. Do say 300 of these exercises and then move onto short tracks.;)