Tracking With Your Boxer
Mike & Claudia Clifton
Semper Fi Boxers
For Boxers, tracking could quite possibly be the stepchild of American Kennel Club performance events. The reason? Very few Boxers have ever earned a tracking title, even though it is quite attainable.
We have heard all sorts of excuses for not doing obedience, agility or tracking. Do you think that you do not have enough time to train or it is too expensive? Do you or your dog have physical limitations? Or do you think that you simply do not have enough room to lay tracks? We are going to throw out most of these excuses for not tracking.
Got a tight budget? For tracking, you will be able to work pretty much on a shoestring budget. All you need is a tracking harness, a 15-20 foot long line, 10 or so marker flags, 10 turn markers and several cotton gloves.
Everything else you will probably already have at home. Things like a six-foot lead, bait (food motivator) or toy, comfortable shoes and appropriate clothing for the weather including rain gear!
Feel like you don’t have time? Tracking takes less time than obedience or agility training. All you need is about 20-30 minutes each day that you work, even on advanced dogs.
Tracking can be done almost anywhere. You don’t need the length of two football fields to lay a track. You can lay a track in your yard, at the local park, schoolyard, the grassy strip at the shopping center, the shoulder of less traveled roads, just about anywhere.
Tracking is safe and fun for your senior or for your very young puppy. Tracking is low impact. It won’t damage the joints of a constantly growing young puppy or the arthritic joints of a senior.
The most fun and important part of tracking is that you will be spending quality time outdoors with your Boxer doing something that he already loves and knows how to do, sniff and explore!
Claudia, along with one of our Boxers, 18 month old Ivy, will follow along and participate in an American Kennel Club (AKC) style tracking class with AKC Tracking Judge, MS Linda McKee over a five-month period.
Claudia has titled several dogs in Schutzhund style tracking. She will tell all about what they do in the class each month. She will explain some of the differences in AKC style tracking and Schutzhund style tracking. She will give a monthly update on what they do in each class and a progress (or not) report on our two Boxers.
The First Class
Saturday
8:00 A.M.- Meet at Linda’s home for the “book work” that is required before the actual field work. In this class there will be a Boxer, Harrier, English Cocker and a Corgi
8:15 A.M.- 11:00 A.M.- The dreaded classroom work. Here we are taught the basics of tracking, such as how to lay a track, what to expect from your dog, how to read your dog and so forth.
Each handler is taught how to know when their dog is actually working and following a track. Just as importantly, you are taught to recognize when your dog has lost the track or when they are just goofing off.
The class is also taught how to create, maintain and use a tracking log. The tracking log is a great tool to gauge how your dog is progressing over time. It is a good place to place a sketch of the track(s), length of track and ground cover and conditions. In addition, you would note the time of day, the weather conditions; time the track was laid, run and completed. There should also be room for notes about difficulties, distractions and of course, success.
11:00 – Lunch. While laying your track, you are allowed to eat your sandwich.
During the course of the afternoon, each dog and handler team will work two sets of 30, 60 and 90-yard straight tracks in two different locations.
Each handler will be paired with another handler so that they can take turns laying tracks for each other. The first designated tracklayer will put their dog away while they lay the track for the first team.
A marker flag will be placed at the beginning of the track. With a six-foot lead attached, the handler will hold their dog at this point while the tracklayer lays the track. Initially, the dog will be allowed to watch as the tracklayer lays the track.
The first track will be approximately 30 yards in length, with a glove and a flag at the end, with a big piece of food placed on top of the glove.
In training for AKC style tracking, the tracklayer will take normal steps, placing small bits of food every three to five steps.
In training for Schutzhund style tracking, it is common practice to take small heavy steps or to shuffle your feet, literally leaving an imprint upon the ground to follow while leaving food in every footprint.
When the tracklayer is finished laying the track, the dog/handler team approaches the starting flag. At this point, the dog is encouraged to sniff the area, including the ground and the flag.
When the dog begins sniffing the ground in the track area, he will be further encouraged to sniff the ground in the direction in which the track has been laid.
When the dog finds the first piece of food, they will be praised verbally (no touching the dog) and encouraged to move forward seeking more food for the entire length of the track.
In training, you must stay aware of your position in relation to the start and finish flags so as not to veer off track. By knowing your position on the track, you will be able to determine if/when the dog loses the track. If you sense that the dog has lost the track, stop immediately and give the dog a chance to find the lost track.
A marker flag identifies the end of the track. Next to the flag, there will be a glove, usually cotton, with a big treat on it for the dog. In addition to the treat, the dog will receive LOTS of praise from the handler.
After completing the 30-yard track, the dog/handler team goes back to the original starting point. The tracklayer will immediately lay the 60-yard track. The first 30 yards of the 60-yard track will be laid on top of the original 30-yard track.
The original finish flag will be moved to the 60-yard finish point along with the glove and reward for the dog. The tracking team will negotiate the 60-yard track exactly the same as they did the 30-yard track.
Immediately after finishing the 60-yard track, this whole procedure is repeated for the 90-yard track using the original 30 and 60-yard tracks. When finished with the 90-yard track, the teams trade places. The original handler now becomes the tracklayer. The original tracklayer is now part of the new tracking team and will complete the same exercises as the first team.
After each team has completed these three tracks, MS. McKee critiques each team. Not only does she tell them what they did wrong, she also tells them what they did right.
After this critique by MS McKee, all of the handlers and dogs load up and move to a new location just down the road from the location where the first tracks were laid.
At the new location, new tracks are laid and the whole process of working 30, 60 and 90-yard tracks is gone through again!
After the second set of tracks, there is another critique by MS McKee and the other handlers in the class.
The other handlers in the class are encouraged to give you feedback and a critique of your tracking for the day. Even from a novice tracker, any input that you get can be beneficial to your tracking success. Remember, while following a track, the only thing that you see is the “stinky” end of the dog!
From off the track, others can see things that the tracking team can’t see. You may be wrapped up in the excitement of following the trail and miss certain queues from the dog
Some of things that can be seen from off the track is what did the dog do to indicate that he had lost the track? Or what did the dog do to indicate that he had found the track again? Input like this can help you as a handler to better “read” your dog. It is essential that the handler know how the dog signals certain information to you.
During this first class, Claudia was quite surprised. Since she had done Schutzhund tracking before and had worked with Ivy before the class, she expected to have the jump on everyone else.
Ivy had to go back to AKC tracking square one and start all over to un-train some of the things that Claudia taught her based on Schutzhund tracking.
Homework
Of course, Ms McKee gave everyone in the class TONS of homework! Everyone in the class is expected to track their dog approximately every three days. Tracking is one area where you really do not want to over train!
The first assignment is increasing the length of the track that the dog will work. Each dog will go from doing the 30-60-90 yard tracks to doing 60-120-180 yard tracks over a period of several weeks.
At this stage, just as in class, the dog will be able to observe as the handler lays the 60-120-180 tracks on top of each other.
After the dog is reliably following the longer tracks, the next thing to change is the age of the tracks being followed. The age of the track is the time from when the track was actually laid until the time the dog actually tries to follow it.
When aging the track, two major things happen. First off, the dog will not be allowed to watch as the track is laid. Second, the length of the track will go back to 30-60-90 yards.
The age of the track that the dog will actually follow will be gradually increased over several weeks until the dog can reliably follow the tracks. At this point, the distance of the track is again increased. After about three weeks, the dog should be able to follow a track of up to 180 yards that is 20-30 minutes early.
Look out for next month’s tracking coverage when we throw our 20 weeks old puppy (Glory) into the mix and start tracking training with her.
Let’s all get out there with our Boxers and “Find It!”
