Wanting Lassie

So, you thought this week’s article would be about dog training?  Well, in essence it is, but I am sharing with you a personal experience to help reveal what it’s all about. 

This past weekend, my favorite little character, Kalidor and I traveled to Hamilton, Montana to perform before an AKC judge the AKC Tracking Dog test to earn his certification that will allow him to compete in AKC tracking performance events.  In the glory of rolling, grass covered pastures under black dramatic skies and high winds and drizzle, Kalidor shined in all his glory tracking a person to the finish – a dark, cotton glove with cut off fingers hidden in the deep grass.  Had he not followed the correct pathway of hidden footsteps and found that inconspicuous glove, he would not have passed the certification.

As many of you know, I started tracking Kalidor when he was but 9 weeks old, imprinting him with looking for scent on the ground that followed footsteps of a specific person in any direction.  That was over 18 months ago!  Kalidor, now 20 months old, began his man tracking career the minute he came home to me.

Learning to search for scent on the ground, finding every footstep someone takes, is a painstaking process.  We started with a short “track” about 25 feet long with every closely laid footstep filled with food.  As he learned to connect food with the scent of a person, I gradually took food out of the footsteps.  First, there would be food in every 3 or 4 footsteps, and then increased to 10 to 15 footsteps and so on, until eventually, he no longer needed any food in the footsteps at all.  Then we changed the people he was looking for.

Then, Kalidor would find food at an article left behind by the person he was tracking. Articles can be gloves, a wallet, cell phone, or any object someone might typically carry with them on a walk.  At each article, Kalidor learned to “indicate” that he found an article.  His indication was to lie down at the article and wait for me to approach him.  When I approached he would earn a VERY yummy reward for staying down until his command to track was given again! 

After months of practicing and gradually increasing the difficulty in the track with less and less food, more difficult terrain (everything we could think of – dry, wet, snow, long grass, short grass, dirt, pavement, etc.) we added distractions like barking dogs, horses, wild animal scat, strong winds that blew the scent away, and time making the scent less and less on the footprints.  This is called “proofing”.  Once Kalidor learned the behavior, we gradually increased difficulty with distractions.

Essentially, it has taken us 18 months (and I took 4 months out for my knee surgery) of training to get to this point where Kalidor could successfully perform the requirements of his certification.

Driving home the point of this article, training, ANY training, is not something that happens in 4 lessons, or one class, or even in 2 or 3 months.  It takes TIME, COMMITMENT, CONSISTENCY and a GOAL in order to have the dog YOU want to live with.  There is no such thing as a Lassie Pill.  If there was, I wish I had invented it!!!  The second point of this article is to update so many people that ask me weekly how Kalidor is doing!  He is one FANTASTIC dog and I am so proud of him!!!  Our next goal is to go to the AKC TD tracking test north of Missoula, MT in June! 

Caption:  “Kalidor, very happy to find his glove.  So was the judge!”