Using food vs. NOT using food to teach tracking.

[BlackGSD]

I have been thinking about trying to teach Siren to track. (She constantly has her nose on the ground, may as well be doing something constructive with it!)

I know most folks use food to teach tracking, but read that at least 1 member doesn't. So I was wondering why use one method over the other?

[jesusica]

I am pretty sure it depends on what type of tracking you will be doing (AKC v. schh, for example). I am not aware of any other way to teach the dog to track schh style.

[nitetrane98]

I'm just gonna ramble a bit on what I can remember about our training in K9 school years ago.
We didn't use any food rewards for obedience or tracking with the exception of a reward for a succesfull track and finding the right guy. I can't offer an pros or cons, only that the actual tracking training can be done without food.
The reasoning was simply that you didn't want your dog distracted by a half-eaten Twinkie in the middle of the track and think the game was over. Of course the majority of the K9 tracks were oriented to "badguy" catching. If you want to track for fun, I guess it really wouldn't hurt anything to track from treat to treat.

The biggest challenge for us was to get the dog out of bullet proof obedience mode into tracking mode. We used tracking halters and long leads and once they realized that they were free when they had these on they soon learned that a different game was afoot and relished in it.

We were taught the GSD's were not "dedicated scent" trackers like a Bloodhound, etc. but rather tracked on the difference in a disturbed area of vegetation and an un-disturbed area. This was why it was critical to have a known starting point. Where with a Bloodhound, you can use a known article to imprint the scent.

When we graduated up to longer tracks laid by other people we used a tracking jacket that had hotdogs in the pocket. The dog had to sniff out the hotdogs to get one.
The purpose of the treat at the end of a successful track was actaully court inspired. If the dog tracked a suspect to a group of people the idea was to discredit the notion that the dog could have been tracking anybody in the group. Well, not if the dog singled out a specific person looking for a hotdog.

[sleachy]

When I first started tracking training, I was using food as per the advice of friends/trainers/club members. It couldn't figure out why my dog was having so much trouble until I STOPPED using food. Tracking with food was like browsing thru the magic hotdog growing field for her. Perhaps she thought the point was to find the hotdogs not follow the scent?? She did much better WITHOUT the food! It was as if a lightbulb finally went off and she said "oh THAT'S what you wanted...I get it!"

[phgsd]

Generally for competitive tracking people will start out using food. This will teach the dog to search every single footstep which is what's required in a trial.
There is also force tracking for Schh, but I don't know of anyone that would start a beginner dog out this way - it's more for very advanced dogs and high level competition, and not everyone will do it.

The S&R people do a different style of tracking (correct me if I'm wrong - I am not very experienced with S&R) where the idea is to find the person itself and not necessarily to track every single footstep - that wouldn't be practical.

I think you should figure out what style of tracking you'd like to get involved with (S&R or competitive), and then it would be easier to point you in the right direction

[Kayos and Havoc]

Tracy I am the adamant NON food user!!!!

Reason - cause that was the way I was taught.

Now let me explain why. The trainer I started with simply said why use it to bait a track when you can't use it on a test? You have to fade it pretty quickly and it can actually distract the dog.

That said, sometimes it is helpful. I did use food for a few tracks to pull Havoc around the corners as he was stressing there. My thought was to lower his stress level and it did work. I faded it quickly and now he does his turns very well with no food.

Instead of using food I use lots of articles. For a puppy track I will drop an article every 10 baby (heel to toy) steps. I will reward with food from my hand at each article. I actually walk the pup down the track with my hand on the T strap on top of the harness while using my other hand to "pull' his nose down and forward by wiggling my fingers a little ahead of his nose.

As soon as the pup figures out that the junk on the ground equals food and "gosh, there is a trail of scent that leads right to it" then you can give them a little bit of leash and let them work a little on their own. They get it pretty quickly.

I can recommend a book for you that is pretty cheap and it is a pretty good description of how I start. It is "Novice Nosework" by Ed Presnall and it can be ordered from dogwise http://www.dogwise.com or Ed's site http://www.pawmark.com

I did have Oxsana put a tiny piece of food between the articles for Anton when we started him a few weeks ago. The little pup had the idea and actually figured out the turn on his own.

As for teaching SchH tracking and needing food for that style of tracking..... don't know about that as I do AKC tracking. But I have been told Kayos has a very deep nose and tracks like a SchH dog by several judges and by several SchH people here. She has NEVER seen food on a track.

[BlackGSD]

Thanks everyone.

Kathy, I am PMing you.

[Kayos and Havoc]

Here are a few pictures. The first on is HAvoc's very first track on my lawn. We are at the start flag but you can see how I hold the harness and my other hand to direct him down toward the track. ou don't have to do this very long as they get it pretty quickly.



The next picture is probably his 4th or 5th track. You can see I am standing but still have him on a 6 ft leash and he only has about 3 feet of it. I use the leash to control how much he can move left or right of the track.



He is finding an article here and his articles by now are spaced at about 10 half size steps. Not a baby heel toe step but about half my normal stride.



And here is Kayos with a nice nose. She has made a turn and I am actually still on the previous leg approaching the corner.



And on the asphalt....

[BlackGSD]

Thanks for the pictures. Are you going to do a VST with Kayos?

[Kayos and Havoc]

Hoping to. We are probably still 6 months away from testing. The pass rate is so low (like 8 percent) it is almost discouraging but we are going to give it a shot.