Agility and obedience are the most popular--and common--of the competitive sports dogs and their owners can do together. Tracking, the simple activity of following your leashed dog along a predetermined scent track through the woods or across cityscapes, is not as well known, but it's just as much fun.
If you're looking for something new to do with your dog, or if your dog can't lift her nose from the ground long enough to jump over an agility obstacle or heel by your side in the obedience ring, then tracking may be the sport for you. Here's get started.
Instructions
1. Make it a game. Tracking is all about teaching your dog to follow a specific scent that you have pointed out to him. With his superior sense of smell (at least 100 times better than a human's), your dog already knows more about tracking scents than you ever will. The trick is to teach him to track the scent *you* choose.
Start with a basic scent discernment game. Hold a treat in one closed hand and offer both closed hands to your dog. If he picks the correct hand, open it and give him the treat. If he indicates the wrong hand, put your hands behind your back for a minute and try again. Don't move the treat to your other hand until your dog figures out the game; you could confuse him. This won't take long--dogs are pretty quick to figure out which hand has the yummy treat.
2. Make the game harder. When your dog is out of the room, scatter four or five treats on the floor. Then call your dog and guide him (if he needs your help) to the treats. Once he figures out that game, make it harder by making him do it on his own.
Then make it even harder -- hide the treats slightly under a piece of furniture, or up on an entertainment center shelf.
3. Prepare to lay a track. Take a pair of old but clean socks or some gardening or winter gloves you don't wear any more and sleep with them in the bed with you for a couple of nights to make sure they smell very strongly (to your dog) of you. Go to the garden store and pick up a pack of 3-foot-tall bamboo plant stakes.
4. Lay the track. While still at home, put the nylon harness on your dog. Tracking competitions require leather tracking harnesses, but until you figure out if this is something you and your dog really want to do, a nylon one will do. In time, your dog will know that the nylon harness means it's tracking time.
Take your dog to a park or wooded area near your house. Don't try this in your own backyard--there's too much there that smells like you and your dog and he could get confused. Leave your dog in the car until you've laid the track.
Stick one stake in the ground, and drop one of your slept-with socks or gloves and two or three of your extra-special treats at the base of it. Shuffle your feet in a straight line from the stake, dropping a treat in your path every 3 or 4 feet or so. After about 50 feet, stop, plant the other stake, drop the other sock or glove at its base and add six or seven really good treats on top. Loop around downwind, back to your first stake and your dog.
5. Track! Snap the long leash onto your dog's harness and lead him to the first stake. Show him the sock or glove and let him sniff it and eat the treats. Then wait patiently for him to find the track. You'll know when he does. Follow him, staying on the track, until he finds the other stake and the big payoff of treats. Praise your dog, put him back in the car and lay another track. Do this a couple times a week.
Related posts
Exercise your beagle every day.Beagles may look adorable and generally make good pets, thanks to their sunny temperament, but they are also scent hounds that are frequently used to hunt small game...
Home baked dog treatsIf you’re a dog lover, this is the perfect low budget business to get into. It’s great for moms with children at home as you can use your own uncertified...
Dog ernjoying a dog food bakery treatA dog bakery business fulfills the desire of the dog lover to be an independent entrepreneur. It takes little startup money and you begin small with an expansi...
Indulge your love of pit bulls and open a kennel business.Pit bulls are lovable creatures, but due to their aggressive personality toward other dogs, they may not be ideal pets for everyone. A com...
Pet stores are charming places. Fuzzy hamsters, cuddly puppies, talking parrots, and tropical fish can be found at most of these stores. Walking through a pet store is like taking a stroll through...
