Dukino and I headed out on a rainy Sunday morning to participate in a beginners tracking workshop with Scent Dogs Australia. It was a fantastic day with some fantastic people.
We started off with a bit of a getting to know you session where each person played a game with their dog and taught someone else how to do the same. Dukino's choice of toy for the day was bits of ham and chicken loaf. Lunch is fun when the silly humans throw it to you! The next step was introducing the dogs to the food bucket and having them chase the track layer that they played with earlier in order to get a free meal. After the dogs that this section worked out a couple of socks with food were added along the way to encourage the dogs to stop and sniff (and eat) at these locations.
After lunch we moved off to the field and started laying tracks for each others dogs. Dukino thought this part was great as food was dropped at intervals along the train with a sock marker along the way. After she made it to the second sock she began to realise what the game was about and started heading more directly between each sock in the direction of the track layer. Her second track was extremely successful with her even ignoring some bits of food along the way to get to her prize at the end. She finished up by tracking her way back to the start line.
We started off with a bit of a getting to know you session where each person played a game with their dog and taught someone else how to do the same. Dukino's choice of toy for the day was bits of ham and chicken loaf. Lunch is fun when the silly humans throw it to you! The next step was introducing the dogs to the food bucket and having them chase the track layer that they played with earlier in order to get a free meal. After the dogs that this section worked out a couple of socks with food were added along the way to encourage the dogs to stop and sniff (and eat) at these locations.
After lunch we moved off to the field and started laying tracks for each others dogs. Dukino thought this part was great as food was dropped at intervals along the train with a sock marker along the way. After she made it to the second sock she began to realise what the game was about and started heading more directly between each sock in the direction of the track layer. Her second track was extremely successful with her even ignoring some bits of food along the way to get to her prize at the end. She finished up by tracking her way back to the start line.