IPO Training Order - Page 4

Forgot to say that you are able to see the judge throwing the article in front of the tree.

Your words are really very encouraging for anybody interested in IPO sport.. .
About cross tracks - how do you teach the dog to follow the scent of the judge instead of anybody else? The dog can't know...There is no introdution...

@Susie, the dog can absolutely tell the difference between the track layers skin rafts and the cross tracks, as long as they are not laid down at the exact same time. As the skin rafts age they smell different. So, if the track layers steps are aged 1 hour and the cross tracks are 30 minutes, a properly trained dog will not be mistaken about which track is which. Same goes for inadvertent wild animal cross tracks.  Once the first article is the found the dog should know exactly which "skin rafts" to follow to the remaining articles.

Also, as I mentioned, the video does not show the judgesfull path of travel. Seeing him drop the article is not sufficient to compare the path the dog eventually took.

my patent method for starting dogs to track, copyrighted and trademarked;

 

 

Not able to open the video...

@susie, I had a chance to study the video and watch it a few times. The dog does, in fact, retrace the judges steps (based on the few steps that we do see the judge take in the edited video) and the dog clearly indicates the articles location at the 1:20 minute mark (that's pretty fast BTW). However, the dogs does not do a proper down, at the article, but its very clear that the dog knows where the article is, early on in the test and points it out. This dog used the decaying skin rafts to work out the location of the article. The dog just decides instead of immediately doing a down, to take a quick romp around the search area, doing some double checking along the way. So, in conclusion, the video you posted actually supports much of what I have tried to convey here.

@vk4gsd, I do agree that people should use the methods that get the best results for IPO and I actually said that in my first post.  The reason we got into this drawn out discussion is becuase susie took offence when I said, "Pending on your goals, you may want an obedience tracking behavior and not a true scentwork behavior".  As I have said many times on this forum, my issue with IPO tracking is the use of the word "tracking" to descibe what is being judged and what club trainers are claiming to teach.  What is being judged and taught is NOT tracking, it should be renamed the "Body Posturing and Foot-Step Retracing Phase".

 

It’s not completely off base that the majority of people don’t know how to actually train a dog to track. IPO or otherwise. The truth is though, that most “working venues” also don’t know how to teach a dog to track and don’t actually provide the true statistics on how often their dogs fail to find anything. I know of a recent news story where a toddler ran off from his grandmother in Kentucky or something like that, I actually know the trainers/handlers of one of the PAID private search companies that was called in to find the child. After three days of searching, a HUMAN found the child less than a mile from the home…the dogs who were trained by professionals who regularly sell these types of dogs to law enforcement at five figure price tags couldn’t find the child. But you don’t get to see a news story about the dogs failing, just that the boy was found dead. What you do see though is any news story when dogs do actually find what they’re supposed to be looking for.

In this case, the type of commentary you see from momo is very popular among people that can’t train the type of tracking necessary to get V tracking scores in IPO. Their dissension is based on the fact that they can’t compete with people that can get those scores, so they grasp for reasoning as to why another method is better. Another method is usually easier to teach and the success comes much easier because the scoring isn’t as strict as what we see in IPO. It's like comparing a multiple choice type test to an essay question test where your work is also being judged for correctness. Getting to the right answer is just part of the grade, it could happen through skill or just plain luck...so in IPO you have to grade the work up to the "right answer" in order to separate dogs and handlers apart from one another. I do agree that completion/success based tracking is “more realistic” in regards to what most people imagine law enforcement is doing. Problem is…most people have no idea what law enforcement is doing and are just repeating what some trainer that claimed to have trained a few police dogs at some point in their life is telling them. Other tests claim to test “real life” scenarios and be more realistic than IPO…but that doesn’t matter, I haven’t met a single person that seriously does IPO that claims that IPO tracking is realistic, oh and then the fact that even if you train more real life scenarios…you’re never going to actually be called in to do any real life tracking. Also, those that attack other methods as a way to try to sell their own, are clearly not the best people to get advice from. Just like a salesman…one who can only sell his product by attacking the competitor knows that their product is inferior.

Unfortunately, as a new person to IPO, you’re at the whim of the closest available trainer you have and it’s hard to discern who’s methods are better than others. This is not something you can learn through the internet or from watching DVDs. I don’t think there is anyone out there that would have more success watching YouTube clips and trying to implement them than working with a real live trainer who might have lesser methods but still be there in person to get the person through issues seen on the track.

@ Bavarian Wagon, are you taking a shot at me?  "Can't" and "Won't" are not the same thing.  I've made the choice to teach my dogs tracking for problem solving, so as to compete in other dog sports, with top FH performance as a secondary benefit.  I do the RH, where IPO style tracking is a hinderance and not a benefit.  Here are the rules for your reference:

http://www.fci.be/medias/SAU-REG-IPO-en-513.pdf

I have successfully competed in the IPO-FH and two years ago came one trial score shy of being eligible for nationals (work conlficts). I'm not making excuses, I'm giving a viewpoint that is ignored here on this forum. Pending on whom you ask, its easier to teach IPO1-3 tracking than it is to teach problem solving based ability in a tracking dog.  I'm also not selling anything, I train my own dogs and have seen why the top IPO folks can't move onto the FH, nosework or AKC tracking when the dog is too old to continue in IPO. 

If you read my my earlier post, you'll see that I never claimed to be a top IPO contender, but have certainly done my share to get top IPO folks to think a little differently about how to train tracking, especially if they intend to keep the dog past its prime IPO years, but may still wish to continue to train and trial.  If you read back on my old posts you'll see that I have also been involved with FEMA handler/canine certification as well.  I train scentworks dogs, not IPO dogs, but at the same time, having done the sport, I can see why top IPO folks can't make the transition to the FH with thier older dogs.

Bav, thank you, I really felt lost...

What Momo doesn´t understand is that "normally" IPO tracking dogs are well trained ( for months/years on grass/on dirt/on snow several times the week ). It´s neither my fault nor the fault of IPO that nobody in her area seems to be able to teach IPO tracking style accordingly. I am really no fan of tracking ( I think it´s kind of boring ), but even my lazy trained dogs have been able to follow a IPO3 track at dark night ( me using a flash light on the way to the track - simply because I wanted to participate on a trial in March, and I have to work the whole day - no daylight for months )...Don´t tell me about visible foot steps, that´s ridiculous.

Last night I watched youtube videos for hours, I read about StP training advices for hours, NO GERMAN StP TRAINER  EVER talks about his/her dog tracking the scent of the article layer ( in StPr it´s the judge ), but all of them started their StPr training by training how to indicate articles, how to make the dog crazy about finding the articles, how to teach the dog to follow the direction THE HANDLER decides about, how they make the dogs used to the kind of articles used on trials, but NOBODY talked about human scent tracks - contrary a lot of people talked about difficulties when training for StPr and IPO tracking, because in this case during a StPr trial the dogs used to loose too much time by trying to follow human scents, whereas during a IPO track the dogs tended to loose points because they LEFT the track, simply because they smelled the article.

By thinking about the North American training community as a whole I can´t believe that on the other side of the pound you are more efficient in training than the Germans are.

It´s a totally different kind of "sport" - why not???

I asked this question yesterday, but now once again: The trialing dog is NOT introduced to the HUMAN scent of the article layer, the dog simply can´t know whose scent it would have to follow, a lot of people are crossing the field to the same time as the article layer - does anyone of you REALLY believe in miracles?
Do you really believe in a dog knowing on its own  "This has to be the scent of the track layer" - all the other people don´t smell like track layers..."

Dogs are smart - as soon as the first article is found, an experienced dog will know WHICH scent out of all these people may be the most prolific, but the dog still doesn´t follow a step track, but will try to find the most intense scent ( article + human scent, not a STEP TRACK ).

Momo, you tried to compare this kind of sport with "real" tracking, while naming IPO tracking "obedience" tracking - no, it´s just a totally different kind of tracking, with totally different goals ( articles - track ).

In case of using the term "real life" tracking you are correct, because drug/bomb detection dogs are trained similar, way more professional, but similar. They are trained to find specifically smelling articles by using their nose, but NONE of these "real life" drug/bomb detection dogs is trained to follow a human track ( useless, wouldn´t make sense, simply because it´s not the goal. Tthe goal is to find a certain scent, no matter WHO put the article where it is found later on in the best case).

An expereinced dog will know the track layers scent from random cross-track scent, even without a start article from past training experience.  So, STp trainers with a background in IPO don't train that way, fine, but that doesn't mean what I have said is not true.  Why would someone who trains for IPO events know anything about training for skin raft trailing?  I'd surmise that they would not know anything about it and would not need to know because what they do know already works.

You guys want to win so bad, I'll just concede and let those who come here later, read this post a decide for themselves. The peer reviewed research is out there, backing what I have posted. I am fully aware of the "old ways" and its easy for people to get that kind of advice here, on this forum and there's nothing wrong with that. I was trying to be an alternative voice to the status quo.

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1556-4029.2011.01773.x/full

http://chemse.oxfordjournals.org/content/39/9/749