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How to Start Track Training Dogs

by John McKenna

Overview

Dogs use their sense of smell more keenly than any other sense, and they can detect an array of vivid olfactory information where humans might barely detect any. Training your dog to work with this sense can be rewarding for you both. You will mutually depend on one another to accomplish goals, and your dog will enjoy employing his natural instincts and abilities.

Step 1

Use food, as with most training, to motivate and reward your dog. If dry kibble is effective, it is best because of its neatness and ease in handling. Train your dog when he is hungry, or even use his measured meal portions in training. This will improve his response to the food reward.
Step 2

Lay a track. Trample down an area of grass in a surface that has been untouched for a while--at least overnight. This track could be a square or a rectangle. It should be about one and a half times the length of your dog and should visible to you.
Step 3

Disperse between 5 and 10 bits of food throughout that area. Another reason dried kibble is best is that its scent is weaker than meat or hot dogs. The smell of the crushed grass should dominate the area. This is the scent--the disturbed surface of the track-- that you teach your dog to home in on.
Step 4

Teach your dog to sniff within the trampled area only. If he wanders outside of the track, gently direct him back toward it. Armin Winkler of the Police K-9 training institute recommends allowing only three chances at this, and if the dog is not showing a strong interest in sniffing only the trampled area, remove him from training and from all rewards for a time.
Step 5

Extend the track. Once you are certain your dog is showing some skill at homing in on the track scent, lay your next track with a similar size and shape, then walk outside of that defined area, making footfalls that are no more than 2 inches apart, to elongate the track. Place food bits along the track, and leave a small handful of food as a reward at the track's destination. Over time, always assuring your dog's repeated success, you can make the track as long as you wish, and you can add twists and turns.
Step 6

Decrease the food. Gradually reduce the amount of food you use, and allow your dog to follow the scent of the trail only. Maintain the food reward at the end. Eventually, your dog will follow the scent of the disturbed surface all the way to his reward.
Step 7

Age the track. As always, make small changes in the routine and gradually increase them. Work your dog on a track that is 10 minutes old, then 20 minutes, then 30 minutes, an hour, etc. Eventually, your dog can follow a trail that was made the day before.

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End each session while your dog is still enthusiastic, stresses trainer Pam Green. It's true in show business and in dog training: leave them wanting more. If your dog gets overworked or tired during training, you build an undesired aversive stimulus into the session. Each session should be full of reward.
End each session while your dog is still enthusiastic, stresses trainer Pam Green. It's true in show business and in dog training: leave them wanting more. If your dog gets overworked or tired during training, you build an undesired aversive stimulus into the session. Each session should be full of reward.
Intensive sniffing will make your dog thirsty, so be sure to always have fresh water available.
Intensive sniffing will make your dog thirsty, so be sure to always have fresh water available.