anyone teach there dog to track ?

T

Tikka6xc

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got some tips n tricks ?

I got a beagle/boxer mix. Shes pretty dam good with rabbits but its more or less when she comes across it. her tracking sucks.

I got some rabbit sent that I use to teach her but she has a problem with maintaining the track. finds it, snifs, moves off left or right and does not stay on the trail.


im checking youtube n stuff,,, but any tips ?
 
Tracking is usually taught by using the game that the dog is hunting, dragging a fresh carcass on a cord for instance. Put the dog on the track, help him find it if he wanders off, lots of praise when he does good. Maybe a food treat when successful. However, Boxers have had the nose deliberately bred out of them for the show ring. Perhaps you are working with a dog that is not equipped to track? Just a thought.
 
I have a French brittney that I use for deer /elk .
I feed it elk / deer bones . And directly after taken a elk / deer
I feed it a leg with hair on it and some direct fresh meet from the deer .
They seem to very quickly pick up on the Oder and go crazy for it .
So after a shot deer I release the dog to track . That's the easy part .
The tuff part is getting the dog to bark once he finds his prey .
Being a natural pointer mine points and chews on the legs
 
I taught my doberman to track timbits. I let him smell the timbit and then put him in the far bedroom. I then rolled the timbit across the floor all the way to the other end of the house and rolled it to a hiding place. When I let him out of the bedroom, I held my hand down to where the scent trail started and he put his nose to the ground and went along sniffing it out. After a few times doing this, he knew exactly what was at the end of the scent trail and could find them in less than a minute.
 
Your dog has no problem tracking. She can smell things you can only ever read about. The problem is you need to communicate to her that when she is tracking a rabbit for example that she is doing the CORRECT thing and that you are very happy with her.

Currently she is smelling the rabbit and then moving on to see what other interesting scents are around. You need to make her aware that when she is tracking a rabbit (that is the example we are using in this instance) you are VERY VERY happy with her. When she discovers that this particular behaviour is pleasing her master that will make her happy as well and CLICK....you now have a partnership.

Make the right thing easy and the wrong thing difficult. Praise, reward good behaviour. Ignore, scold bad behaviour. It really depends on the individual dog and its personality as to how much praise/ignore the dog requires. I have seen trainers simply turn their back to a dog misbehaving and that dog was crushed. On the other hand I have seen dogs ignore shock collars and run right through them to chase flying ducks before they have been shot at by the hunters.

Your first step is to establish a partnership so you understand how your dog thinks and she understands what makes you happy. Whatever form of praise you choose needs to really make her happy and get her tail wagging. Petting the dog and verbally praising her, a tug toy, a ball, a small food treat, whichever method connects her brain to understanding you are happy with what she is doing at that particular moment.

Many small steps connected together over time and one day she will surprise you and string it all together in her own brain.
Hope that helps a bit,
Dave​
 
Update !

Success !

Working with her more she got it. I knew she had it kinda but i did not know how well till last night. I found some fresh rabbit tracks and brought her over, BAM! she caught on right away and even to my surprise in the correct direction. We did not go all the way to the rabbit but she did make it all the way to where I put down a treat for her.

I was pretty dam happy for her for sure. We are going to keep working more sents in and I would hopefully like to get her going on human sent trails when all the snow melts.


also good tips dave.
 
Tracking Dog Theory & Methods by Glen R. Johnson is a pretty good book if you are interested in having the dog track people or finding articles. Allot of the info transfers over well to blood tracking as well. Have fun!
 
I trained my deer hunting dogs with a dragged deer hide, they chased deer!!! Now I have an Australian Shepherd I train her to track wounded and archery deer with deer blood diluted in a spray bottle. Eureka she will only chase deer with a blood trail. USUALLY. Respectfully Jim. Now she lays on the back porch and watches deer in my feed pile 30 yds. From my kitchen window. If she jumps a deer from its bed, she will give it a short chase. This breed is VERY intelligent.
 
get a house cat, preferable on the wild side. best to use farm cats. Let the dog see the cat at 30-40 yds and then release the cat into the woods. Give him a good 5-10 minutes and make sure the cat has run into the woods so the dog has to track and not go by sight. Then release your dog. If she can follow the cat and put it up a tree then he has good enough trailing instincts to work with. We trained cat hound pups like this and works good. seeing the cat gets them excited and the track is fresh. starting on a track which may be cold is tough for a dog starting out.
 
Longwalker said:
Boxers have had the nose deliberately bred out of them for the show ring. Perhaps you are working with a dog that is not equipped to track? Just a thought.
Click to expand...

Just because a dog has a nose that appears to work doen't mean it's good at tracking. If it doesn't have " drive" which usually
keeps it focused then you are wasting your time.. If it's a dog from working lines you should have a decent base...if it's show lines...don't waste your time . Scent up a tennis ball or object and throw it into tall grass, let the dog watch. Then spin the dog so he's disoriented and then point him in the general direction the object was thrown. Give him a command to find it or let him go and see what happens. If he noses around until he finds it or goes for a long time but can't find it unless you give him a little help by going upwind.....he has potential...if he noses around for 30 seconds or a minute and loses interest in the hunt, he's a waste of time
 
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