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Tracking

4372 Views 4 Replies 3 Participants Last post by  1notenough, 
M
For a couple of weeks now I have started introducing my 10 month V to tracking. From the day I got her she has always been sniffing everything like mad which was really annoying when she was younger, especially when walking her on a lead. When we did puppy training she really stood out from the other breeds as she was always nose down smelling the other dogs scent on the ground in a world of her own. I know that they are a scent hound but I often wondered if she was unusually interested in scents?

Anyway now after a lot of obedience training I have started to add tracking to her arsenal. Wow, after only a few half hour sessions (with some help from my police dog handler buddy) she is off. Their sense of smell is incredible. I have been using a bit of deer skin to lay a track. I make her Stay out of sight while I lay it. Then I put her on a 18ft lead and make her Seek. She is so mad keen to follow that scent trail that she just about chokes herself out to get to the end of it. I am going to have to get a tracking harness this week so she doesn't put her neck out when attached to her normal collar!

Took me a couple of sessions to get her to follow the track with just her nose. The first couple of times she would run around and use her nose/eyes about 50/50 and keep losing it. Once she got the hang of following her nose she's onto it everytime. Next it's onto a blood trail and then a trail using just scent made up from the scent gland in the deers tail.

Anyone else tried this? I would say out of all the activities I have done with her, this is the one that lights her up the most.
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V
That's really interseting. I would never have thought to do something like that. Our guy is the exact same way. Nose to the ground everywhere we go. I had thought of coming up with some "games" where I hide the scent to have him find it...but nothing specific like tracking.

Unfortunately, we never got around to hunt training our guy which crushes me since I know he'd be a great hunting dog. That's why I thought it would be fun to introduce some "games" to bring out his instinctual side and maybe throw in some basic hunt training, even though we don't hunt anymore. Maybe I can try some tracking! Are you in the States? Are there local "clubs" that can teach someone, or do you just make it up as you go?
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I hide their cookies.make them wait then I leave the room, once hidden I call them in if they give me a chance to hide them it is hard with two. they get the hang of it pretty quick.then move on to other things it is a process.No madabout vizslas lives in a warm climate.where if it gets to be 40 it is cold.brrrrr.lucky dog.no ice fishing for him.by the way vlicked try starting their sniffer training with beef jerkys it will be easy to find.
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M
Another game I have started playing with her is Hide & Seek. I make her sit and wait and then go hide somewhere on the property. Then I give the come whistle. She runs around all over the place and whines and carries on if she can't find you. It was halarious to watch her. This worked well for the first couple of days but now she has learnt to use her nose on the ground to track me, so she now just about runs straight to me. She really goes nuts with these sort of games.

The next thing I will try is making her wait and get one of the kids to run and hide.

If anyone else has any of these sort of games I would be interested to know.
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that sounds like it would be a fun game.I will hide on my dogs in the tall grass when they are not looking i will just drop down and hide.There is also a small building that i will hide behind when they are busy sniffing moles then I call them it is a good time.
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