Within this series of articles I have been covering the beginning
work relative to raising a competitive working dog. The goal of our foundation
work is to raise a dog that is strong and confident, active in his drives
and highly motivated.
We left off in the previous issue with our hypothetical dog tracking about 200 pace straight line tracks in various conditions and weather. We’ve begun moving the bait around and have introduced articles at the end of each track. The next logical step is to begin teaching corners.
Schutzhund tracking requires the dog to work against his instincts in scentwork. All dogs are born knowing how to use their nose but they don’t know how to track the way our sport requires them to. As the sport has become more competitive over the decades, the importance of training over natural instinct has become significantly more obvious.
The rules outlining the laying and scoring of the corners shine a spotlight onto this disparity. The rule changes for 2004 indicate a "natural corner" as opposed to a sharp 90degree angle. A minor head check to verify the direction of the track is allowed in the rulebook, circling by the dog is to be penalized by degree of the behavior. In reality whether the corner turns in a manner considered natural by a human or not, it will be quite unnatural to any historic prey our canine ancestors hunted. And although there are judges that acknowledge the logic of a dog making a quick check to verify the corner, many times this will result in point loss, however minor, especially at large trials.
In order for a dog to ‘pencil’ corners on a regular basis, the dog must have clear knowledge of his job, confidence and excellent problem solving skills. For a corner is merely a loss of scent. How the dog reacts, responds and resolves this loss of scent is dependent a little on the dog’s tracking drives and mostly on our skills as teachers.
Before we get into teaching the dog corners, the handler must be able to locate the track she laid. In order to lay a straight line the tracklayer should line up two objects as a sight guide. A post against a pole behind it for example. Many novice people will place a second flag at the end of their straight line. Although on the outside this seems like a good idea, in practice it doesn’t teach the handler what they need to know for later on and it may cue the dog visually and encourage them to get to the end. When choosing where to put a corner down it is ideal to use markers already on the field. Athletic fields are wonderful of course with lines and corners already drawn out for you to choose from. But rarely is a trial track held on an athletic field. Dirt tracking frequently also lets the tracklayer relax about where their track is. However dry clumped dirt can be very difficult to see foot prints in. And again your trial tracks might not be in perfect soft dirt fields so you’re not learning what you need to know for the future by avoiding this issue. Your dog should learn how to track every cover conceivable and the handler should learn how to lay and find tracks in all covers.
Among the options many people choose for marking their corners would be utility or construction powdered chalk, washers with neon tape tied to them, additional flags, and natural markers like rocks and plants. The powder chalk should be used with caution as it contains silicone and should not be inhaled. The washers wash out in deep cover. The additional flags may be too visually interesting to a dog and break his concentration. Natural markers work the best when possible but beware the lone flower that suddenly turns into many flowers when heading down the leg with your dog. What looked like an obvious yellow flower may not be so obvious an hour later and if your sight line is off or unknown for your leg, it will make it even worse.
Having said all that I must add that the world does not end if you lose your corner. And as you progress in your dog’s training it is sometimes perfectly fine if you don’t have an exact knowledge of where your corner is. After all from SchH2 onwards we don’t lay our own tracks and may have no visual aid at all on our trial tracks. So it is equally important to learn to read your dog, to understand how he indicates loss of scent and cross tracks and how he resolves them. But when introducing and teaching corners it is very important that you know where they are. We want to teach our dog good skills and habits from the beginning so later on we can relax at the end of the line and just follow our dog around the track.
First Corners
This article arrived last minute into the hands of our trusty editor because I have struggled with how to approach this subject in the written word. There are many different types of corners one can put down, many different approaches to teaching the concept of a corner and essentially loss of scent. I hope to cover all those various methods throughout future articles but first I needed to decide on the best, most trustworthy method for the purposes of this series.
The choices in overview are serpentines, step offs, box corners, sweeping curves, straight leg to an obstacle forcing the dog to turn, even being specific about which foot turns first. I like and use several of these options, but in my experience the simplest way to introduce corners is with the box corner.
Essentially every time you put your feet together it should signify something to the dog’s nose. Feet together on the scentpad, feet together when placing the article. Following this train of thought feet together for a corner should help the dog take note that something is different here.
We lay our track as we’ve been doing, at about 50 paces out stop with your feet together. In the same spot pivot right or left keeping your feet together. Don’t bait the track within 5 paces of your corner, make your box and then put the next 5 paces off the corner in heavily. Double lay it if you like. Resume normal tracklaying after 5 paces and bait heavily at that point. Do not bait after a corner for at least 5 paces. We want the dog to commit to the corner before being rewarded and reassured that they’re correct. Build confidence. In addition when a dog is used to straight lines they will frequently head check a corner with food on it, eat the food and continue straight.
Put down the next corner at another 50 paces repeating the above guidelines. No food within 5 paces of the corner, feet together, pivot with feet together, lay the next leg’s first 5 paces heavily and bait after that point. I strongly suggest alternating right and left corners. This allows for a balanced initial introduction and frequently how a dog first perceives a concept is how they will respond to it for most of their lives. Humans of course favor one side or the other and so then do their dogs. I personally tend to lay far more right turns then lefts and only become aware of it by reviewing my tracking notebooks. Alternating left and right turns also keeps the dog working and not just turning in a direction they’re taught.
In addition we want about 50 paces in-between corners to allow the dog to settle back to something he knows well but not for so long that a corner is brand new each time. So we’ve put the corners down in a specific manner that best sets the dog up to solve a problem and gain confidence. As the handler our job is to help in that goal, not hinder or complicate it.
The corner was laid and marked well, as your dog tracks up stay fairly close to his body. Allow him to go past the corner box to no more then his chest, we want him to recognize the loss of scent. And then we want to teach him the most successful way of solving that problem which is to stop and check with his nose. So we are close to him, we are supportive in attitude but not distracting. Allow him to check where the track went within the span of his nose to his chest. Because we laid the next leg heavily it should be a simple problem to solve. Once he commits to the next leg and finds the bait praise him well.
In the future we will cover more lessons on loss of scent working more difficult problems. But as with every other lesson you teach your dog, always start with simple, rewarding, clear guidance. The corner we put down does that for us by being simple, rewarding and very clear. Our handling should merely support those goals not accomplish them.
Some dogs because of their temperament, possibly a little possessiveness over their food and thus track or because we have given them reason – some dogs do not respond in a positive manner to their handlers being close on their body. Usually this type of dog tends to become hectic or very active when the handler is close rather then calming down. If this is familiar behavior to you try allowing the dog to negotiate the corner without you immediately near him and allow him more line to work the loss of scent a bit freer. Not a lot of line, perhaps up to a body length. If the dog has good drive for his track he will learn his lessons on his own based on the track we lay down for him. And this dog will gain confidence independently solely through his drive for the track. Ideally we want to see that behavior and result in conjunction with a support role from the handler. But if necessary it is no problem to remove the handler from the work as much as necessary. In theory. In practice most handlers tend to over handle and interfere with their dog’s work. Just as we are learning about our dog every day forward in our life and work with them. We are also learning about ourselves, and how our behaviors directly relate to the behaviors of our dogs.
We will continue to explore corners and teaching loss of scent in the next issue.
