Restarting the dog after an article

Obviously, every time the dog stops and lies down on an article, it must start the track again. We consider each of these restarts almost equal in importance to the original start from the scent pad. It is vital that the dog put its nose to the ground and carefully move off down the track from footstep to footstep.

In competition, it is quite common to see dogs become excited by finding the article and therefore charge away from it when restarted, requiring anywhere from three to fifteen yards before they really begin to work again. If a difficult piece of terrain happens to lie right after the article, this habit can result in disaster.

Therefore, when the handler starts the dog from the articles, he takes great pains to make sure that the animal is calm and quiet, and puts its nose immediately to the ground. If necessary, he can also lay the track in such a fashion that the dog will find a small bait or two within the first twenty or thirty paces after the articles. The result should be that the dog will pick up the habit of tracking very carefully away from them.

Only when the dog is reliably finding all the articles and indicating them correctly, and also starting off from them in good style, does the handler begin to combine both turns and articles on the same track.

GOAL 4: The dog will complete tracks at least an hour old and approximately 1,000 yards in length without difficulty.

Up to this point in training, the handler has designed training tracks for his dog solely according to the lesson at hand. They have normally been rather short and simple, and seldom more than ten minutes old. Now, however, we have the trial regulations to worry about.

Our problem is to increase both the length and the age of the training tracks to comply with Schutzhund III regulations. (Ambitious trainers do not train for Schutzhund I and II, they train for Schutzhund III and pick up I and II on the way.) Furthermore, we must do it without detracting from the dog’s precision and performance.

Important Concepts for Meeting the Goal

1. Increasing length

2. Aging the track