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to CyberHound I've said this before, but you've got to be very careful not to overtrain a hound. If he thinks tracking is something YOU want him to do, rather than something HE wants to do, you might experience a loss of motivation. This can come from training too often, making him wait too long before tracking, or pushing through an unpleasant experience without rest and relaxation. Remember, the name of the tracking game is M-O-T-I-V-A-T-I-O-N.
When Kay and I trained our first tracking hound with classes full of other, more energetic breeds, we made the mistake of training too often. After the Denver seminar by Glen Johnson in the late seventies, many of us started training every day. What a mistake!
Our first tracking dog soon told us to STUFF IT! He stopped tracking, and gave us dirty looks every time we would go out into the field after tracking the previous day. We quickly learned he didn't want or need to track every day, and soon went back to once a week. Occasionally, with other dogs, we attempted to train more often than once a week, but almost never found a dog where this would produce more positives than negatives (our Border Collie was an exception).
Although we train beginning tracking dogs about three times a week at first, this is just so they get the hang of the activity while it is new and exciting. As soon as they have the basics down, we go to once a week and almost never go back. An exception is after a long layoff, when the dog might enjoy going out a couple of times a week for a couple of weeks, before returning to the once-a-week schedule. If your dog is not hungry and excited about tracking, you're probably going to have motivational problems.
Recently, I judged a Basset Hound in TDX whose owner called a couple of weeks before the test, concerned that the dog had given up her starts. My wife took this call, and found that the dog had to travel about an hour to the tracking site, and then wait for several more hours while several other dogs tracked. This is the same thing that happened to us when we first started tracking. We worked for a tracking judge teaching a class, and our dogs were always the last to work. Our hounds almost stopped tracking altogether, because it was such a pain for them to sit in a car without attention for several hours, for a few lousy minutes of fun.
At the recent tracking test, the dog came up to the starting flag and looked like she had never tracked before. Then, after a few minutes of fooling around, she got started, made a turn, a crosstrack, and flunked at the next turn. I suggested the dog not be tracked for a while, to try to restore its interest in field work. (I also recommended that the handler not complete the track, since the dog was not having fun). The handler had taken my wife's advice a couple of weeks before the test and stopped tracking the dog except for a couple of short starter tracks. However, it was too little, too late. I think the dog will be fine after a layoff and a new schedule designed to keep her interested and hungry for tracking. The handler was encouraged to stop working in groups where her dog would have to wait to track. I suggest going to the field, tracking, and then doing something fun (like a walk and/or a Dairy Queen).
It is fortunate that the dog mentioned above has not been turned off for very long. A friend of mine systematically taught a dog to hate tracking--Forever! She made the mistake of doing the same old thing, repeatedly, even though the dog was getting worse and worse. It's amazing to me that so many people think repeating what doesn't work will magically produce good results in the future. Like I've said before in this series, the best thing you can do when you can't figure out a problem is to quit tracking--at least for a while. In the case of the Basset who recently failed its first TDX, now is an ideal time to do this. It was the last local test for the season, and the next one isn't until next spring. The handler has wisely chosen to rest the dog for a month or two, and then start training again a couple of months before a spring trial. This gives the dog a chance to miss going out in the field, gives the handler a chance to think about what to do differently, and still allows plenty of time to get back up to speed for the next test.
When this dog starts tracking again, every effort should be made to see that she is happy, enthusiastic and stimulated by the whole tracking experience. I recommend short, fun tracks followed by walks in the field off lead. Then, perhaps a trip to Dairy Queen on the way home (more about this next time).
Our first TDX dog lost all motivation, flunking his first TDX trial. We had about a month before another test, and racked our brains to figure out what turned him on. Finally, we decided to put a leather chewie at the end of the track, and sit down for 10 or 15 minutes when he found it so he could completely finish it. The only time he ever tracked again without this special motivation was when he passed his TDX a few weeks later, becoming the breed's first and only Champion UDTX (CH Winnwars Brandywine, UDTX). Brandy taught us more than all the tracking experts who never trained a hound.