Tracking without food?

[ShatteringGlass]

Anyone have any info or experience tracking without using food in the footsteps? Shane is very enthusiastic about finding the article at the end of the track, with Sydney I used food in the footsteps because she was less motivated. I tried starting Shane out using food on the track, but he seemed to blow past them and just keep his nose down till he got to the article for the big reward. I'm very happy that I may able to train him to track without using food in the footsteps, one less thing to phase out!

Since the weather has finally started to clear up around here, I'm really starting to get going on his tracking. I've been doing short, straight, double laid tracks with no food in the steps and the article with a big food reward at the end. He will find the article, but sometimes he gets a little distracted (puppy brain!) and I have to remind him to keep sniffing, but I think he is getting it. I'd love to hear other methods or advice on training without baiting the steps.

...oh and today we where tracking and these darn swallows kept swooping down all over the field and where driving him batty! Stupid birds!!

[Amaruq]

Kathy W has had a lot of success with this.

[lhczth]

I did my first dog this way. I only added in food later to get her nose down for SchH style tracking. There is a USA judge whose current competiton dog tracks totally for a ball since he has no real drive to track for food. Has worked great for him. So, yes, there are people who have had success tracking using motivators other than food.

[Doc]

It sounds to me like your dog's reward is finding the object. He tracks because he likes to - he doesn't need to be "trained" to track - he does it naturally. Some trackers will track because they love it and figure that is what they are suppose to do. Lucky you!

[Heather]

Quote:Anyone have any info or experience tracking without using food in the footsteps?

Yup. Trained my first two tracking dogs that way, using Glen Johnson's method ("Tracking Dog Theory & Methods"). Those dogs were more "trailing dogs" than "tracking dogs", IMO.

I like to use food in the beginning, and phase it out as the dog shows me s/he doesn't need as much. Using food helps to tie the dog more closely to the track and makes the track itself rewarding, rather than "the end" being the reward. YMMV

[umzilla]

Originally Posted By: ShatteringGlassAnyone have any info or experience tracking without using food in the footsteps?

I think you will find this is very common with people who are training for AKC tracking for several reasons, one being that the tracking style does not need to be with a deep nose (where you lose points if the dog lifts his nose!). Another reason is that often the tracking cover is so wild that leaving food out there doesn't make any sense, and yet another reason is that the tracks are often aged for very long periods of time (3 hours or more). Do you have any AKC tracking groups/clubs in your area? If so, I bet if you offered to come lay some tracks on a training day, you'd get an amazing amount of information!!!! I'm sure you could work your dog too and get some feedback, so well worth investigating. I've seen alot of different "foodless" methods, and it's really neat to watch.

Christine

[ShatteringGlass]

There is a Tracking Club of Massachusetts, but right now my schedule and finances are pretty tight, and they seem to meet and train more in the central part of the state, Im closer to Boston on the east coast. I work at a kennel part time for a Schutzhund trainer/GSD breeder, but since he does Schutzhund, he needs the deep nose and he trains his dogs mostly with food in the footsteps. Thats how I started Sydney because otherwise she had no real desire to follow the track, and its hard to phase out the food with her, if I do too much too soon, she gives up or gets confused. From what I've seen with Shane, he has real drive to follow the track and find the object, I'd lay a track with a piece of food in each foot step and hed get maybe 2 and plow his way to the end lol. I was like, well, that was a waste of time and food! LOL

[Kayos and Havoc]

I do not typically use food, I use articles instead. If you want to stop with the food use more articles to offer Shane rewards more often. I feed from my hand and praise at the articles and jackpot and play at the end.

That said, I think Havoc may have done better with food. I did use some at the turns for him early on but found he passed most of it by. If you do use food especially this time of year, don't age your tracks very long or the ants will be all over it and that is no fun.

I start my dogs on pretty short grass and you can use food in short grass but Umzilla is right, you are wasting it in taller cover or even a mowed hayfield around here.

I have a friend that I tracked with up in Oregon that put string cheese in every foot step, did it for months and months, the pup was passing it by and I could not convince her to at least space it out more and then stop it. I have no clue if she still wasting all the great cheese or not. Her other dog was trained with a lot of food too and BTW is no more accurate or deep nosed than Kayos.

I think my next dog will be trained using a combination approach. Some food some articles.

There are lots of ways to train a dog to track a specific scent and they all work pretty well. So just have fun with Shane and if he seems to need food use it, if not don't.

[ShatteringGlass]

Thanks everyone, I think Shane will do best without food in the foot steps (except maybe when teaching turns, I'll wait and see how he does) and more articles on the track like Kathy suggested. I'm going to take the dogs tracking again tomorrow and see how Shane does.

I remember last summer when tracking with Sydney, ants would get all over the food and Sydney would sneeze like crazy trying to eat it! lol

[ShatteringGlass]

Just an update, went tracking with the spots' this morning, and I am impressed beyond words with little Shane! He did great! He did 4 tracks each had 3 articles and no food in the foot steps, they were only aged about 5-10 minutes, but he trucked right along and found every article. He is also showing much more focus and he picked his head up MUCH less than he did on Saturday. I pretty much didnt track with him at all in June, the weather was so crappy, so I am really happy he is doing so well with our limited training time.

Sydney also did awesome! She did a track with no food in the foot steps, with 3 articles along the way. She didnt shut down or pick her head up (usually with no food in the steps she would give up fast) She only got confused where the track turned at a curve, so I will put food down on the turns next time.