>>>The truth about tracking for versatile dogs is that every dog
can track with phenomenal accuracy and speed... the only question is
will the dog track for you. The totality of track training is
your ability to show the dog what you want tracked and that you approve of
it........ I await the acrid responses.
{  Cj>>>
Not too acrid from here )) Today Briz followed
your proposal precisely!
As I mentioned in an earlier message it was time to
make a tracker out of Briz, now that Foxy is not with us any more. She is 8
years old now and was introduced to blood tracks ages ago but has not been used
as a tracker since then. So I believe it was last Friday or Saturday that
it struck me that we must check if she remembers anything about it. With
"it" I mean if she tracks what we want her to track.
The first test track on
Saturday showed that she had no idea of what we wanted her to do, but
guided to the end of the track she liked the sausage I had placed there as a
reward. I thought, from her rather wishy-washy performance, that she will have
eaten a lot of sausages before we are pleased with her
tracking..........
On Sunday we made the second blood track. Now she
held her head low at least part of the track and did not care too much about the
reward at the end of the track. However when offered from hand she ate
it.
Today we made the third track and now the coin had
fallen down. She worked perfectly well and enjoyed the work and at the end of
the track she did not care at all about the black pudding I had placed
there. She did not even take it from hand but tried to find a continuation to the track. Apparently she liked to work for us
and our praise was reward enough for her. When it comes to food she
is not much of a lab or spaniel anyway.
Now we know that she will track for us and the
following training tracks will be to give her a little more experience in all
kinds of terrain and weather. The best thing would be a roe-deer that runs a
couple of hundred meters before it drops dead. After one of those they will not
hesitate anymore, if they ever did so.
The recent ammo I have for the 243W, I loaded last
summer with the American Nosler Ballistic Tip 95grain bullet. Last autumn I
killed 5 - 6 roe-deer with the ammo and none of them moved a single inch after
being hit. Not a good bullet if you want to train a dog to track )) However
with the physical condition I had last autumn, right after the by-pass
operation, it was perfect!!!
Well, there are alternatives of
course.
Torsti
Borta Med Vindens Kennel "Ask not what your dog can do for you. Ask
what you can do for your dog." www.rospigan.net |