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T R A C K I N
G
submitted by Frank Sommer, truman@weimaraner.com
Tracking provides training for dogs and their handlers to meet some human needs for
tracking and finding lost humans or other animals, as well as, demonstrating the extremely
high level of scent capability that dogs possess. Tracking allows dogs to demonstrate
their natural ability to recognize and follow human scent. This vigorous outdoor activity
is great for canine athletes and it has been said that "it is cheating
to track with weimaraners!"
Tracking Resources (compiled
by Geoff Stern, e-mail: sternmandell@att.net)
Regulations
- AKC
Tracking Regulations
The PDF file requires the free Adobe Acrobat reader, or you can get a
printed copy from the AKC. You can search the AKC judges’ directory
to find a tracking judge near you for certification.
- ASCA
Tracking Regulations
The Australian Shepherd Club of America tracking program is similar to
the AKC’s.
- USPCA
The U.S. Police Canine Association has a tracking program as part of
its police dog certification
It is one of those
extraordinary mornings that tell us fall is coming. The air is crisp;
the trees now striped with reds and yellows in an otherwise summer
colored world. On the thick, grassy mat, lies a dog, breathing calmly
with eyes expectant. The handler picks up the old, worn leather line
and speaks to the animal. It stands, stares, and then lowers its dark
muzzle to the cover, moving slowly, steadily along a line no human can
know. Its warm breath turns to steam and spreads, for only an instant,
across the forward path in burst, like an engine. As it moves, the
power increases so it is driven by only one desire, the fusion of
scent and animal. When it reaches the first corner, it senses the
change and shifts to another direction, confident of its skill and
purpose. As the dog moves towards the distant hills, the trainer —
only walking behind — has a solitary wonder of what voice from
nature this child of the wolf is hearing. — Gary Patterson, Tracking:
From the Beginning
Clubs
Some tracking clubs’
Web sites provide events calendars, training tips, and other information:
E-mail Lists
The TDX handler’s
prayer, from Practical Tracking for Practically Anyone:
Please let me start.
Oh, little dog make a choice.
Go. Go somewhere and
Look like you know where.
And if you must fail,
Please put me in the woods
Where no one can see me.
Equipment —
harnesses, tracking lines, flags, books, videos, etc.
An extraordinary number of
failures at [tracking tests] happen when the handler pulls the dog away
from the trail, which may be one of the reasons the bigger, stronger
dogs do so well at tracking. — Vicki Hearne, Adam’sTask
Training Methods and
Hints Online
A dog can never tell you
what she knows from the
smells of the world, but you know watching her, that you know
almost nothing. — Mary Oliver, “Her Grave”
Books
- Glen Johnson’s Tracking
Dog: Theory and Method is a classic of dog training literature. Dogwise
also sells a booklet of just chapter 7 of this book as The Tracking
Trainers Handbook. It’s the core part of Johnson’s book,
including lesson plans and how to determine the “hump” factor.
Handy to keep in your kit bag.
- Sandy Ganz and Susan
Boyd’s Tracking from the Ground Up is well-written
(notwithstanding a somewhat unrealistically diligent training
regimen). The companion video, Tracking Fundamentals, is a good
introduction to the sport, well produced, and concise.
- Enthusiastic
Tracking: The Step-by-Step Training Handbook by Sil Sanders also
has a nicely laid-out curriculum. Interestingly, you can buy the field
maps for this book separately.
- The Puppy Tracking
Primer by Carolyn
Krause is a great little booklet by an accomplished tracker.
- Tracking: A
Practical Guide for TD and TDX by the Tracking Club of
Massachusetts is a concise introduction — very nice little book.
- Julie Hogan and Donna
Thompson’s booklet Practical Tracking for Practically Anyone
has good advice for the beginner to TDX and VST.
- Lue Button’s Practical
Scent Dog Training is a good general introduction to scent work.
- Another good short
book is Following Ghosts: Developing the Tracking Relationship
by John Rice and Suzanne
Clothier.
- Ed
Presnall and Christy Bergeon’s Component Training for
Variable Surface Tracking is the first book to cover the VST test.
- Betty Mueller’s About
Track Laying: Guidelines for Dog Tracking Enthusiasts is a very
handy, very nicely produced booklet that’s worth carrying in your
kit bag.
- There’s an excellent
chapter on tracking by Carilee Cole in Sallyann Comstock’s Belgians
from Start to Finished.
- Gary Patterson’s Tracking:
From the Beginning is based largely on drive theory and mostly
concerned with Schutzhund-style footstep tracking, but it has some
good hints for AKC-style tracking. Several other Schutzhund books also
cover tracking, notably Dog Training with the Touch by Tom
Rose and Annetta L. Cheek.
- The Leerburg
video Training the Competition Tracking Dog by Ed Frawley is
also mostly about Schutzhund tracking (with some very old-fashioned,
heavy-handed methods), but it has some good hints on track laying and
using the track as a training tool.
- Resi Gerritsen and
Ruud Haak’s K9 Professional Tracking gives the perpective of
veteran SAR trainers from Europe. Likewise Tracking for Search and
Rescue Dogs by Boguslaw P. Gorny.
- Some older books with
some good advice: Go Find! Training Your Dog to Track by L.
Wilson Davis; Milo Pearsall and Hugh Verbruggen’s Scent: Training
to Track, Search, and Rescue; and the tracking chapters in
Winifred Strickland’s Expert Obedience Training for Dogs.
- A Practical Guide
to Training and Working the Trailing Dogby John Lutenberg &
Linda Porter is the course book for Canine
Training Academy in Colorado, which provides training for law
enforcement and SAR dogs.
- William Syrotuck’s Scent
and the Scenting Dog is a technical discussion of scent by one of
the founders of U.S. canine SAR training. Also, Susan Bulanda’s
little vest-pocket book, Scenting on the Wind: Scentwork for
Hunting Dogs, has a good explanation of theory and practice.
- Roy Hunter’s Fun
Nosework for Dogs has some training games that can help motivate a
reluctant tracker — and amuse a dedicated one.
- The Audible Nose:
Training Your Newfoundland to Track is available from Judi
Adler.
© 2002–03 Geoff
Stern, excepting quoted material used as epigraphs, which are
copyrighted to the respective authors. Rev. 031202
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