Fenzi Dog Sports Academy - TR210: Tracking Distractions, Contaminations and Crosstracks

Course Details

This class will focus primarily on an important and critical aspect of tracking: STARTS! A dog can be a fantastic tracker, but if he fails to get off the start, then all that skill is pointless. In this class, we will work short tracks and concentrate on shaping correct starts. In addition to working on smooth starts, we will take the opportunity to work through challenges and distractions. We will put these close to the beginning of the short tracks we do for the class but they will include many of the distractions or challenges that you may find on a track. We work these challenges and distractions by challenging the dog - but only in increments that he can handle. The goal is to create conditions that are challenging (and some occur quite often in trialing), set the dog up for success, and then jackpot him with the reward for completing the short track successfully. This class requires that the students be creative and enthusiastic in seeking out the correct conditions. We want to control the distractions and set up EXACTLY what the dog needs in order to be successful.

In addition to working through many of the common challenges and distractions you will find at all levels of tracking - we will also be covering training crosstracks. Crosstracks are obviously a deliberate distraction place on the track, which is everything that we will be doing in this class. However, I will also discuss a good way to setup crosstracks and train for them in a way that avoids error and allows the dog to learn to choose the correct track or the crosstrack.

Registration

There are no scheduled sessions for this class at this time. We update our schedule frequently, so please subscribe to our mailing list for notifications.

Registration will begin at 11:00 AM Pacific Time.

Enrollment limits: Gold: 12 students, Silver: 25 students, Bronze: unlimited.

Gold Level includes access to all course materials and the ability to post questions and videos to the course forums. Students will receive instructor feedback on written and video assignments.

Silver Level includes access to all course materials and the ability to participate in the discussion forum. Students may ask GENERAL questions about course materials and may submit two, one-minute videos for instructor feedback. Any questions specific to your dog MUST be accompanied by a video.

Bronze Level includes access to all course materials and the ability to read all questions and answers posted in the class forums. Students will not post questions or submit written or video assignments.

For more details, refund policies, and answers to commonly asked questions see our FAQ page.

Sorry, this class has been cancelled and will not run for the June session.

Syllabus

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Review shaping correct start routine without challenges.

Review starts from different directions.

Setting up tracking challenges - how not to overface the dog and what to do when things go wrong.

Each week we will introduce a series of challenges, handlers can pick and choose which ones they want to try depending on the areas and resources they have available as well as the dog's skill level.

Challenges will include (but are not limited to) tall grass, standing water, people standing nearby, dog contamination nearby, other animal waste, trash nearby, road kill/dead animals, edge of roadway, edge of water, weird start articles, very short grass, through ditch, people playing sports nearby, animals nearby (geese etc), along, up, down steep hills.

Prerequisites & Supplies

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The intention of this class is to shape a dog that confidently negotiates through a variety of challenges at the start of the track. Dogs enrolled in the gold level for this class should be confidently tracking an approximately 100 foot (~30 meters) track without any guidance or restraint from the handler. It is suggested that the dog possess a TD or have been through the Fenzi Dog Sports Academy foundation tracking courses. No prerequisites for silver or bronze levels. Contact the instructor if you are not sure if this class is suitable for your dog and would like additional information.

Sample Lecture

More Exercises You Can Do With Your Start

Please note that in this class there are a lot of different options on challenges that you can do with simple, short tracks. In the next lecture I will give you instructions on how to set up those challenges. But from then on, it is up to you to seek out challenges and design your tracks. So you don't necessarily have to wait for me to tell you to do a specific homework piece, as long as you follow the setup "rules" that I will be posting.

Now that we have the baseline start and everyone is working on approaching from different directions, here are a few more slight variations on things you can do at the start.

Keep in mind that you have to build up to some of these. Remember the layout rules I covered in Lecture #1. If you try something and you have a high amount of error, then immediately change the setup. Don't just keep attempting the same setup over and over again, hoping for it to finally improve. We want no or, at most, a small amount of error as we add these challenges to the track.

Option One: Switch sides when you walk your dog up to the start. If you always have him on your left when you approach, try putting him on the right. Some dogs are more tolerant of this than other dogs but in all likelihood, most of us probably unconsciously control the angle of approach a little bit by the way we lead the dog up to the start.

Here is a clip of me switching sides with Indy. You can't tell too much from the video but Indy is in a SNIT. Belgian breeds don't appreciate having their routines messed with!

Option Two: Once the dog is comfortable working approaches from different directions, try using the food you reward the dog with on the start article as a means to direct the dog in the wrong direction. Again we are creatures of habit - we might be bringing the dog up to the start at an angle but then rewarding on the article in a way that aims the dog in the correct direction.

Here are some clips of me doing this with Jill.

Here I bring her straight on to the start article and then as I reward her at the article I aim her towards the right.

That went pretty well so I do the same thing again but this time I bring her in at a 90-degree angle:

That had some error. Not a huge amount but it was still error. I opt to give her the same layout again. Had this second track had a similar amount of error in it, I would have stopped. We do, at most, two attempts. Then we have to decide that we are asking/hoping for too much and we need to build the skill up more before we challenge the dog.

Here is the same track the second time:

This is exactly what I meant in Lecture #1 when I said that if I had error in the first attempt I want it to quickly resolve itself. The dog might be confused at first, but then she quickly figures out the new way to get reinforcement.

Option Three: Try "forgetting" a start article. For some tracking venues including the CKC, there is no start article. There is just a scent pad and you start from there. The difference really isn't as significant to the dog as it seems to us. Either option should be a place for you to direct the dog and to tell him that "the track starts here". In switching my dogs from having a start article to not having one I treat the start spot as if it were an article. Bring the dog up, reward on the spot and then let them track.

Option Four: Put the flag on the "wrong" side of the start flag. In your track laying routine do you tend to place the article on one side of the flag or the other? For some venues (schutzhund) the flag has to be on a specific side. Sometimes being creatures of habit we routinely do the same thing and the dog learns to look for the start of the track on one side or the other.

And finally, just for fun, here is a clip of me starting Indy in the wrong direction. I bring her up as close to 12:00 as I can, without actually walking down the track. I would not do this normally because there isn't much purpose to it and she has to circle the start in order to do it correctly. However, for law enforcement or search&rescue tracking, this skill is important because the track direction could be any point around the start article.

TR210: Tracking Distractions, Contaminations and Crosstracks