I'm way late to be starting this but have added it to my training. There's a reason nobody likes to track, it's laying tracks that's hard, not training to track! I followed Dave Kroyers 20 day challenge for starting tracking and it's food in every single step and he jumps from 25 to 50 to 100 steps right off the get-go. Plus curves and curved turns. Then to 200 - 300 steps. I absolutely was dying setting a track in my hard packed dirt/rocks/weeds with a little grass. He was using a plowed field with soft dirt. LOL. It took me 40 minutes to lay a track and 3 minutes to track the dog. I never got over 200 steps and mostly 150 was my tops. He did move to grass a few times but prefers to teach a new dog on dirt. Anyway, I did do 17 out of the 20 days, then kept on until I was done with the series. It's been fun (I'm lying. It's not fun to lay tracks), and I think the biggest take away is that doing it EVERY DAY is the key. They learn so much faster! I'd started this a few times, doing it once or twice a week and Asha just thought it was some kind of bizarre keep-away game where she gets food off the ground if she could just out-pull me. She was a freight train and I was a kite. But tracking 20 days in a row, she GOT it. The food is hers, I just insist she doesn't skip any.
Here's a video of us at the local college where they have a nice field of grass. First grass track at any distance, grass was rather dry and didn't imprint well and she got lost for a minute at a couple of turns. Not too shabby for less than 25 days. You guys who've done this, tell me it gets easier!
Here's a video of us at the local college where they have a nice field of grass. First grass track at any distance, grass was rather dry and didn't imprint well and she got lost for a minute at a couple of turns. Not too shabby for less than 25 days. You guys who've done this, tell me it gets easier!
