Echo Checks In Again

Yesterday we went tracking for the second time. Just little baby tracks but I think she is getting the idea. The orange flags mark the beginning and end of the track. At the end is glove stuffed with treats. You start by teaching the dog to put their nose on the ground and follow the food scent. Food is every few steps at this point. Pretty soon the dogs are moving out and starting to miss the food drops. At that point you increase the distance between drops and the dog is learning to track rather than just look for food. Somehow the dogs teach themselves that the funny smell(people scent) on the ground leads to a big jackpot at the end and hurry to get to it. I am going to try to post a video of her baby track-and then a video of Whisper tracking on a 3 hour old track with only a food cache on each leg to every other leg. I learned the hard way to never take all the food off the track-the only time my dogs track without food is on a certifying or an actual AKC test track. There has to be something in it for the dogs to continue with enthusasium-be it a toy or food. Hopefully Echo will be my 8th TD greyhound.