Tracking article indications

This is one of those things that lots of people have trouble with in the tracking sport. I’m still working on it with Amika, but I was really pleased when she picked up the last sock on Saturday’s track, and carried it a few steps. Last season (tracking season is winter, it tends to be too hot in summer) we worked at article indications on a few fronts, so thought I’d share.

With our new rules for tracking trials, the dog has to indicate the article it has found on the track clearly, so the judge can see and has no doubt. Prior to that, if the dog sniffed it, and the handler signaled the judge, it was counted. So of course, lots of handlers probably spotted the article first and just said the dog indicated it etc. Now we need some obvious change in behaviour like a retrieve or sit etc. So getting Amika to acknowledge articles is important.

There are three ways I have tackled the issue. One was shaping a behaviour, cued by the article, that gets rewarded. Two was preventing her from continuing on the track until she made some indication she knew the article was there. Three was just plain getting excited over articles.

I picked this up on the web someplace last year (wish I could remember where): To shape an article indication, pick what you want the dog to do ahead of time, and get some item to use as the article for training purposes. Start out in your regular training spot at home (kitchen in our case). Once the dog knows some training is going to happen, drop the article. Click before the dog investigates- you are capturing their interest. (I’m assuming the dog is going to notice! If not, no C/T just pick it up and waggle the thing around and drop it again.) Do a few repetitions where you click / treat the dog for going towards the item after you drop it, closer and closer. Then you start to wait for nose touch etc. You then go step by step into shaping the desired indication when the article is dropped. Last year, I wanted Amika to do a down with the article between her forepaws. Give the behaviour a cue that is given BEFORE your dog sees the article (like “where is it?”)

If you’re new to clicker training and shaping, there are lots of good resources. Here’s another blogger talking abut article indication on “Doggie Dog Blog”.

Once the dog starts looking around for the dropped article when you say the cue, start getting sneaky by dropping it at odd times and places when they don’t expect it. You might have to review the shaping in new places. Once that’s good, take it out tracking. Do this ‘game’ prior to a track, and then do a pretend track that is very short and all you do is the article game- with several articles close together (like a few metres). Stop using that cue word after the first couple of goes. You do not want a tracking dog that only looks for articles after you’ve asked! And it goes without saying that you use super rewards when you bring this into the tracking game.

Method two that I used with Amika was that I planted all 50 odd kg’s of me against her 27 or so kg’s as soon as she got to an article on a track. Putting the brakes on her is not easy, but I managed. AS SOON AS she showed any kind of indication, I let her get on with the track. That is the number one thing on her list when she’s tracking. It didn’t take too long for her to figure out that straining to get to the rest of the track wasn’t working for her, taking a token interest in the article was.

And number three is just getting excited. – Play tug with this sock after a track. Shake the sock to death after the track. Watch your owner get really excited and happy with you every time you so much as look at a sock on the track. – You get the picture. And this is all I’ve done this season and it is working. We need to review the shaping and pick something less difficult than the down, but we’ve got bigger fish to fry at the moment. When I can get her to the start with her head on, I’ll worry about bringing her article indication up to snuff.

There is heaps of tracking stuff on the web. If you’d like to see my club’s web site (or join the forum) you can visit them at TrackWest