Lying down upon the articles

Because we will use compulsion in association with the articles, we do not introduce them on the tracking field. Instead, we introduce them as an obedience exercise, and we often simply do it at home in the backyard.

The handler downs his dog and leaves it. He walks out a few yards in front of the animal and scatters about on the ground several leather articles that he has impregnated with his scent by carrying them inside his shirt or clamped under his arm for a minute or two.

He returns to his dog and takes it on leash to each of the articles in turn. He points each one out with his hand, so that the dog smells it, and then he commands the dog to “Down!” Once the dog is down, the handler kneels with it and, picking up the article, he makes a great production of showing it to the animal and praising it in association with the article. At the same time he slips a bait from his pocket and feeds it to the dog.

Over a period of several weeks the handler does this again and again, walking the dog up to an article impregnated with his scent, downing the dog upon it and then feeding and praising the animal. His goal is to associate finding the article with food and praise.

It might seem far simpler to use a leather object such as a glove, and place the bait inside the glove. This method will certainly have the dog eagerly searching for articles and downing on them in short order. However, by doing so, we can create two training problems.

First, the dog does not learn to find and indicate an object impregnated with the handler’s scent. It is simply searching for food, as it has done during much of its early tracking training. This means that at some later date the handler may have trouble getting it to search out the kinds of articles that are used in Schutzhund III competition, which are flat and small and definitely do not smell of food. The dog may eventually overrun an article or two at an unanticipated and inconvenient time (that is, on a very difficult track during which it has done everything right, except the articles), and the handler will be forced to correct the dog for it.

Second, when a dog is taught to indicate articles by using gloves containing food, it invariably mouths and chews at them. This often results in the habit of mouthing the articles. If the dog is an extremely proficient tracker, scoring in the high nineties, his scores will be hurt by mouthing, especially in major trials where the judging is severe.

After several training sessions, the dog will automatically and happily lie down when it finds an article. However, at this stage the handler must ensure that the dog also feels a sense of obligation where the articles are concerned. Therefore he begins to pressure the animal a little bit, perhaps even slapping it on the back with the leash if it does not down quickly enough (we assume that we are dealing with an adult dog that already knows basic obedience). It is far better to get the issue of the down settled here in the backyard, rather than be forced to correct the dog later in the midst of an actual track because it is reluctant to lie down on an article.

Once the dog is down on the article, the handler spends thirty seconds or a minute with it, praising it softly and feeding it, so that the articles come to represent for him a haven from stress, a place to relax. The handler also practices picking the article up, holding it above his head as though he were showing it to the judge in a trial, walking around the dog, adjusting its collar and so forth while still keeping the animal down.