Don’t take points from your dog: Tracking notes

Perfect picture: A correct tracking start

Before you report in, get organised. Take your leash off and put it in your pocket or around your waist. When you walk up to report in, the judge will be standing probably 15-20 feet from the start flag. Report in with only the tracking line on the dog’s collar and no other leash. The handler reports in with the dog "in the basic position [and] with the dog prepared to track and the tracking line laid out.”

The tracking line must be 10 metres long, and the judge will take a look at the line and may measure it. If a harness is used, it cannot extend past the dog's ribcage. If you have a harness on, the tracking line should already be attached.

Give your name, the dog’s name, & level (eg: Sch1, TR3) and let the judge know whether the dog will “pick up or point out” the articles. Do not say “my dog will down at the article” because if your dog stops and stands over the article without downing, you can go pick up the article without any point loss as long as the dog doesn’t move.

After you report in, you may not give any further commands such as sit. "There is ... no heavy obedience after reporting in. The handler may not down or sit the dog before the start. The handler may stop while proceeding to the flag and if the dog stands or sits he can put the leash under the leg (legs)."

The only thing you should do after reporting in is to stop and place the line under the dog’s leg. Following the rules explicitly, you cannot call the dog to you, tell it to stop, or give any other commands.

So... stop the dog with pressure on the line and make sure you're more than 3 meters from the scent pad. To be safe, there is no obedience at all within 3 m of the start flag, so if have to use obedience to get the tracking line in the right place on your dog, do it far enough away from the start flag.

Once you've finished fixing the line on dog, stand up and go with the dog until he puts his nose on scent pad. In other words, don’t stand back and let the line play out, go with the dog. He’ll be sniffing — he knows he's there to track. Once he gets to the scent pad, stop and start to let the line out. You should be a couple of feet from the scent pad. Stay there — don’t move over and stand on the scent pad while you reel out line, because if the dog gets lost and comes back to you, you don’t want to have contaminated the scent pad.

Don't bend over at the start or show the scent pad. "The taking of the scent must occur without help from the handler except for giving the command ‘such’."

Worst case scenario: if the dog is just not picking up the scent, you might have to bend over and point out the track. The judge will take deductions... you'll have to weigh complete failure against handler help.

Can you hold the dog on the scent pad momentarily? Most dogs, if you stop them, will turn around and look at you. The dog should work out the scent pad with out any assistance from the handler. If the dog doesn’t take a scent, you can bend over and point out the track, but only at the scent pad and possibly with point deductions.

You cannot point out the track at any other point.

Article indication

If the dog stops at the article without downing, and you tell him down, the article is counted as not found. You might get away with steady pressure on the line to get him to down, but most judges will see this and call it handler help. If it’s excessive, it may result in total loss of points for the article. On the other hand, if the dog walks the article you lose all the points, too. So it becomes a training question; if you really think your dog will just walk the article and this is an issue for your dog, use the command and take the deduction.

If the dog tracks over the corner, what can you do to help? When the dog continues tracking past the corner, pressure on the line is the least amount of handler help. Stopping the dog completely is a lot of handler help. The rules say you must go with the dog, but don’t do that if you’re going to walk right off the track; wait for the judge to tell you you must follow the dog. If you find yourself at the end of the line standing on the corner and your dog is searching where he will not find the track, take the point deduction and call your dog. Do not move and do not reel in the line. Do not point at the track. Use only your voice. You can call your dog and tell him to such. You will get dinged for it, but if you point at track, you risk being told by the judge that pointing constitutes a restart which will end the track. Restarts are not allowed short of the FH1 level, and even in FH1, restarts are only allowed within 15 paces of the scent pad.

Rookie mistakes on articles: a lot of people still try to praise both before and after picking up the article. Pick one or the other. Handlers also make the mistake of touching their dog while they’re picking up the article or picking up the tracking line. You must show a three second pause between praise and any other action such as picking up the article or restarting the dog.

Perfect Picture: A correct article indication for the handler would be to come up to the side of the dog, reach over and briefly and quietly pet and praise; then stand back up, show a three second pause, bend over and pick up the article and show it to the judge, make another three second pause, and bend down and pick up the tracking line. Do not start the dog until you are standing up straight again. Starting the dog while the line is still below your knee is faulty.

You shouldn’t get dinged for anything if you follow that process. Of course if your dog is not secure in the down position, the deduction for handler help and starting below the knee, and the deduction for the dog starting before the command is given are about the same: basically both result in a drop of a category (e.g., SG to G or G to B, etc.) on the article indication.