Teaching Article Indication?

[amjrchamberlain]

We are finally in a tracking class (woohoo) and our girl is tracking fairly far, reliably. She is still on a 6 ft leash for tracking and when she hits the end, her obedience oriented brain tells her to turn back and check in. Then, she's off tracking again. We use an article at the start and an article at the end. She doesn't indicate the article. She waits to get food but doesn't sit or down. She isn't extremely toy motivated and doesn't want to play with the article after her track. So, she gets to the article and is calm, waits for the food reward, and to be directed about what to do next.

I'm sure our instructor has it planned, as to when we should start requiring the indication, but when do you all teach article indication? And how do you teach it? (Do you teach it separately from the track and then combine it with the track later?)

[lhczth]

AKC tracking? I teach article indication on the track, but many people do it off. I like to teach it once the dog is tracking a medium length track with confidence. I would discuss the different methods with your instructor. She may have a preference depending on what she sees in a particular dog.

[lhczth]

I missed the "how" question.

I lay a track, put several articles on that track with food on top of the article. I walk closely behind my dog so when they stop to eat the food I can ask them to down. They down, I walk up and reward them, pick up the article, show it to the "judge", reward, etc. Eventually I remove the food from the article itself and only reward from my hand. This has worked very well for me.

[amjrchamberlain]

Thanks Lisa! We'll check with the instructor, too, of course.

[Kayos and Havoc]

That is how I teach it too. I also teach it on track but I start it immediately on the very first track. I don't put food on the article I feed it from my hand and show it to the dog as soon as they nose the article.

Actually, what your dog is doing is article indication already. The AKC does not require any specific type (sit or down) of indication. Stopping and standing at the article is perfectly acceptable.

Personally I prefer a specific indication so I KNOW the dog has the article. So I train a sit or down. Kayos taught herself to sit on her very first track. Havoc taught himself to down on his very first track. Kayos had already learned to sit for a treat and whn she saw the food in my hand she sat at the article. She has indicated that way since. Havoc was lured into a down and also is very reliable about that.

Isn't tracking fun???

[amjrchamberlain]

Kathy;

It is! Our class is 8 weeks long and we are on week 2.

We've dabbled before and we did take a class (but it was classroom instruction only, this is our first working tracking class). I'm forgetful, though. And I love to get opinions from fellow GSD people here on the forum! LOL

Thanks!
Ang

[aubie]

Great tips! I was wondering how to get Anna to indicate...we'll try this out!