I know we all have our own ideas of training, but I would like too hear your ideas,

At the moment I am at the Blood mix on the ground and a treat at th end, and Tessa goes like crackers, it worked on all my previous dogs as well.

What do, you do

hi walter

when she gets good at the trail of blood, you start to make it more exiciting.

longer distance

longer distance between blood drops

bends in the trail

double backs on the trail.

letting the blood trail set for longer time.

my gsp sako can, when he is at his best, take a 48 hour 5 bend 2 dbl back 1000 meter track.

best regards

peter

Before starting with artificial blood trails we train puppies by pulling dead animals like doves, ducks, rabbits, crows or parts on fresh animal skin through the woods.

This way it's easy that the puppy finds a nice reward to play with at the end of the trail.

You can vary the degree of difficulty, practice the "fetch" command and might even start with food for the very young ones.

Rescue tracker dogs train with the scent "image" from the trainer and the "object" gets hidden in the field. Work teaching them to "cover an area."

Then praise when they find the object.

I'm working to teach Ginger how to watch my hand signals to show her where the object is. Want to teach signals to work her around barriers, through gates . . .

Red Heeler . . . hell of a nose! *S*

quote:

Originally posted by Zedo:
Rescue tracker dogs train with the scent "image" from the trainer and the "object" gets hidden in the field. Work teaching them to "cover an area."

Then praise when they find the object.

Does this "free searching" possibly confuse the dog who should stay as tight as possible on the animal tracks?

How do you communicate your dog that it's the tracks of a specific and most likely wounded animal you are looking for and not the other many tracks which might be there? If you take him to the "Anschuss", the place where you hurt the animal, there is a blood, hair, bones and other matter to produce that image you mention.

I know from my own dog that the most challenging task for him is to find a boar shot at among others in a group, f.i. over a bait site. I was told to wait 2 hours because the tracks of the unwounded animals seem to dissappear faster than the (hopefully) blood trail.