Teaching Articles

[Amaruq]

I was watching some videos online last night and was thinking I am going to have a tiny problem with Keyzah and articles and want to set her up in the best way NOW to prevent it. While I never encouraged her with this because I knew it could be an issue in her training later- Keyzah thinks socks and gloves are GREAT toys and fun to grab in her mouth and run with. I distract with appropriate toys but it has not lessened her enthusiasm to play with gloves and socks (and slippers) any chance she gets. I have ONE idea that might work but would like other input on what I could try to let her know that downing on an article is more fun than grabbing it and running.

[JKlatsky]

I've always shaped my article indications with a marker/clicker. Look at it? Click treat on article. Touch it with nose? Click treat on article. Now depending on how impatient I am, I might wait for the down, or I might cue it by asking for a platz.

I've also seen article indications taught using the previous command of "touch". If your dog knows a nose target command, I've seen people start with the article in the hand and then slowly move the article to the ground. Important to bring the treat to the article and always feed on the article.

Eventually they all want to grab the article at some point, and that's when I would pick it up, give a negative indicator like "No" and then place it down again to restart.

Maybe to change the picture and avoid immediate play with the articles, you could cut your sock or glove into a square so that initially it's just fabric? I would also keep her on leash so she can't run off for a game of keep away.

[Amaruq]

She already tries to take gloves off of my hands when I am wearing them. She always has but yesterday I could not help but laugh (which is not good either because she LOVES to make me laugh) but I was outside trying to scoop the yard and she came up beside me and ever so gently grabbed my glove without ever touching my hand (very hard to do with these gloves) and stated to pull it off my hand.

I do plan to use a clicker but the two main objects I would use for tracking she has a natural joy of playing with them (perhaps obsession would be a better term).

[Samba]

Some AKC trackers use this to their advantage. They play like heck with that article with the dog when it finds it.

I like a down indication because that is hard to miss, but I know people whose dog brings the article, or tosses it high in the air ( a funny terrier)!

[Amaruq]

She will be doind SCH style tracking and I would prefer to teach the down. Although I might have to actually STAKE the articles in the ground to work on this issue. It is not something I ever intionally encouraged but some times I can't help but laugh at her creative ways of accessing such objects and laughing at her DOES encourage her.

[Samba]

There won't be gloves or socks, so no worries.

You can look up the type and size of schutzhund articles in the tracking rules so that you can practice with those. They are relatively small articles. When introducing these as an article to down on, the dogs seem much more interested in earning their reward than playing with a little flat piece of something... here anyway.

[JKlatsky]

Yes, you're in luck. Tracking articles are generally small, flat pieces of leather, carpet, vinyl, or wood. When I initially train articles I use things like old belts cut into pieces, old check book covers cut in half, etc because these are easy to get ahold of. They're not much fun and don't really resemble your gloves or socks!

[Northern GSDs]

A super easy way to make tons of regulation size wood articles is to buy wood shims at the hardware store and then just cut them to required length with a mitre saw. The width and height for the ones I got were dead on, so cheap & easy and I got about 40 articles out of them - not that we need that many but its always nice to have a bunch of extras for anyone else who may need articles.

I also got a steal of a deal going to Value Village and buying a huge old leather purse for $2.00 - got lots of articles out of that one!

I can't remember who it was at our club but I remember them telling me that one of their dogs actually gobbled up a leather article when tracking - the dog downed, looked at the article and then had a quick munch.

[Samba]

Yup, the regulation size is so small now.... about the size of a "bisquit"! Yikes!

[Northern GSDs]

Quote: Yup, the regulation size is so small now.... about the size of a "bisquit"! Yikes!

Yet another good reason to not keep the tracking bait in the same bag as the articles!! LOL