We use a third type of motivator with a dog that is a natural retriever. In this dog’s training program its reward for tracking is finding an article or toy at the end of its track.
A fourth type of incentive is used infrequently. It involves motivating the animal by allowing it to find and bite an agitator at the end of the track. This bite-motivation method is only effective with a small percentage of dogs. The most instructive reason for its effectiveness is the phenomenon of too much motivation.
The Yerkes-Dodson law of psychology states that the most effective level of motivation for a task will depend upon the difficulty of that task. As expected, animals or people engaged in simple tasks profit by very high motivation. However, the performance of animals engaged in complex or difficult tasks is actually disrupted by very high motivation.
Because tracking is a very complex task depending upon concentration, and because bite work produces intense motivation, we should not be surprised that bite motivation usually disrupts performance in tracking.
The question of bite motivation illustrates an important point. The best tracking dogs are calm and methodical while they work. Not only is this the style that produces the most reliable, precise tracking, but also it is the style that will most favorably impress the judge. The emphasis in much of tracking training is therefore to slow the animal down and get it to concentrate, and the trick is to motivate it well but not too well. The Yerkes-Dodson phenomenon also helps explain why attempts to train dogs for tracking by forcing them are so often ineffective, because fear can be thought of as the most intense motivator of all.
However, all the abovementioned training styles can and do work. The important thing is to select the right incentive for the particular dog.
The now classic method for training competitive tracking dogs combines two of these incentives—retrieving and food. Most Schutzhund trainers use a more or less modified Glen Johnson food-drop approach to teach the animal to make use of track scent. In addition, they invariably associate the end of the track with a ball or some other retrieving toy such as a kong (an irregularly shaped and erratically bouncing dog toy), either by leaving the ball at the end of the track where the dog can find it or by simply pulling it out of a pocket when the animal has finished its task.
It should be clear that the dog has little innate motivation to arbitrarily follow any trail of disturbed ground. It does, however, have powerful innate desires for food and for the ball. The central concept the dog must learn in tracking is that the seemingly unrelated odor of track scent will guide it from one food drop to another, and ultimately to the ball, and win for it its master’s praise.
It is fascinating to note that von Stephanitz, in the early 1900s, had already realized that bite work should seldom be joined with tracking. In many ways this man was a visionary, and he espoused a training philosophy that is still adhered to today. He was a strong advocate of starting a dog in tracking work when young in order to “form and sharpen its mind through nasal experiences.” He insisted upon the use of a leash in training as a way to correct the dog’s faults and to teach it correctly. And it was he who suggested starting the dog’s schooling on its handler’s track and then switching to strangers’ tracks. As a final suggestion he stated:
In the development of the use of the nose, care must always be taken that everything is done in love and kindness, without any perceptible constraint. The track dog itself must, however, be trained very carefully and must be continually worked, for it is an artist, and an artist can only retain prominence when practicing and continually trying to improve on past efforts.
Many of von Stephanitz’s ideas have formed the basis for modern training practices. However, beyond his broad generalities there has been relatively little literature written on the art of training the tracking dog. One useful book on the subject is Glen Johnson’s Tracking Dog: Theory and Methods. It must be noted that the method presented in his book is geared to passing an AKC or CKC tracking test (TD), rather than to teaching the animal to use its nose in actual police or search and rescue situations. However, Johnson’s progression is systematic and discussed in a thoughtful, easy-to-follow format and can be adapted for Schutzhund tracking.
Tracking plays a critical part in the success or failure of the dog in a Schutzhund trial. As in the other two phases of sport, obedience and protection, a failure in tracking (less than seventy points) means no Schutzhund title. However, proportionately more dog-handler teams fail the tracking test than any other phase.
Frankly, tracking can be baffling. In addition to good methods, the trainer also needs a feel for tracking. In addition to feeling, he needs a little luck. As if it were some arcane act, or a kind of black magic, some people seem to have the touch and some do not.
The uncertainty of tracking breeds superstition, and sometimes unusual behavior. At the trial, handlers often wear lucky jackets, boots or gloves, or use lucky tracking lines without which they would not dare to compete. They engage in rituals, arranging their lines just so, or preparing their dogs just so, as if to appease some capricious and ill-tempered god who reigns over the tracking field.
The difficulty of tracking is that the animal must work on its own. The handler can give his dog only a minimal amount of help during a tracking test—particularly in Schutzhund II and III—and he is forced to rely entirely on the animal’s desire as well as its ability.
Tracking therefore requires a great deal of good, consistent training time; if good scores are desired in competition one must spend a disproportionate amount of this time initially in the basic teaching phase of tracking. We know that almost any dog can track regardless of even extreme adversity. Whether or not it actually does is a function of the training it has received and its motivation to do so. It is the handler’s responsibility to give the dog a series of tracks it can learn on as well as the incentive to learn.
The degree of similarity between an AKC tracking test and a Schutzhund tracking test is high. A dog ready to compete for its Schutzhund III degree is also ready for its TD. Both require that the dog track a stranger approximately 800 paces through a few turns. The advanced Schutzhund tracking test, the FH, is approximately equal in difficulty to a TDX. Both tracks are very long and well aged, and laid on difficult terrain with obstacles.
Whether training a dog for an AKC title, a CKC title or a Schutzhund degree (or schooling a tracking dog for actual service work) similar training techniques are required. Each desired behavior on the part of the dog must be scrutinized in detail. Each small part of the task must be taught to the dog until the animal has mastered it. Just as we would not expect a young child to know how to read a book simply upon being given one, neither would we expect a dog to know how to track because we have taken it to a scent pad and told it “Track!” It is not that the untrained dog does not yet possess the ability to detect and differentiate scents—in truth its skills are phenomenal in this area. However, this animal does not yet know what it is that we expect it to do with a scent. It is here we begin our instruction.
In some respects human beings and dogs learn tasks similarly. Both need to have what is taught them broken down into small increments. In this book, remember, we have organized Schutzhund exercises into increments for the reader and called them “Goals” and “Important Concepts for Meeting the Goals.” Just as in the obedience and protection sections, we have built them into the tracking section, breaking each skill required for the Schutzhund tracking test down into a series of goals and concepts. Each concept requires much practice. Each must be fully mastered before moving on to the next, and for each concept that the dog is in the process of learning, the animal will need success and reinforcement.