Kleinen Wiese German Shepherds

Posted By Sandy Wilson on October 10, 2009

We started Delta on a scent pad when she was just 7 1/2 weeks old to build a solid foundation for tracking.  We did over 20 scents pads since then and Delta is now very solid in distinguishing the scent pad from the grass around it.  She looks forward to tracking with such enthusiasm.  As soon as she sees me with the long line and the marker flag, she gets so excited because she knows she is going to look for goodies, but not only that, she loves to work.

Delta is now 15 weeks old and is just so excited to track now, pulling me along very strongly for a very young pup.   Nothing has ever been forced on her – it has all been positive motivation, praise, and when she would make a mistake, we were quiet and let her figure things out for herself.   Once she had the scent pads down perfect, we moved on to a simple straight track first.

We started with several tracks about 15-20 steps long and she was able to follow the tracks without difficulty, but with praise to let her know she was doing the right thing and boy did she catch on quickly.

Today was really a major marker in her tracking training because she showed me some really dedicated work – all nose down and deep (this was her 4th of 5th track).  I put a smaller scent pad down with just 2 or 3 pieces of food and then placed 30 paces out from the scent pad with steps still touching and food in each step at the toe (straight track).   She only looked up once briefly as my husband was video taping her and then right back to work.  This was the first time she really pulled me so hard along the track, such that her body was arching up.  Below is a little video of her working.

 

Above:  Delta von der Kleinen Wiese (Arla v.d. Kleinen Wiese X Hawk v. Eichenluft)

We are so proud of our little Delta as she is learning so much.  My son is working on clicker training with her and has taught her some tricks along with very basic obedience commands and already she is doing so much.  She is a joy to train and so smart – she catches on so quickly!

We will start increasing the length of the tracks and I think I am going to start playing with some articles too and teach her to “Platz” when she sees them.  I will put lots of goodies on top of the article to make it extremely appealing!   I can’t wait – so many things to teach her and she is amazingly absorbing it all – puppies are like sponges at this age, you can really teach them so much at such a young age.

Category: Tracking
Tags: D Litter Pups, Delta, German Shepherd, Tracking