 Okay, so how do you trouble should begin in tracking? Beginner tracking? I think sooner or later every one of us who practices with the dog tracking encounters kind of lack of stimulation in a dog and some dogs consider it kind of boring. Once in a while it happens, not with every dog, but then what do you do? It is better to find the remedy rather sooner than later because if the dog doesn't enjoy tracking and you keep forcing the dog to do that you're losing motivation is much harder to recover later. You might need to restart the dog which is you know takes much longer and it's more difficult. So about at this point in phase three you might start getting noticed that the dog is not very excited to do the long track and kind of search for food will start quitting or not to motivate it. So if this is the case this video is for you and I want to share a couple of tips of what I do with my dogs. So first of all if you remember in my previous session I explained to you that you can use food motivation meaning that you deprive a little bit of food prior in the evening prior to tracking and the dog is naturally a bit more hungry so it's naturally more motivated to track. But the problem with this remedy is that you need to it's a command right so the dog needs to listen and if you tell them to track he needs to track and then if the dog is not hungry what he doesn't do the job then it's not gonna work right but you start with that just to see if food motivation will be enough because that's the easiest you do and I explained in the previous videos that I don't starve my dog at all I don't think it's the right approach it's not correct don't starve your dogs but what you can do is that the evening before or maybe the morning and the evening before so the day before just cut the food the portion of dog's meal in half and that's about it as far as I go I don't think if the dog if this doesn't motivate the dog enough to a successful result in tracking then you need to look for some other options what I want to share with you what I do is I use ball, ball motivation so my dog my dogs usually have dobermans are usually very high drive on toys on balls and so what I do is that I hide them on the track and when I encounter a problem with the dog that he's consistently time after time he needs to be deprived of food to track and if he's not hungry he doesn't do well then I switch to a different motivation which is the toys so first of all the toys I choose they're smaller so if this is my regular training size of the ball the tracking ball is much smaller the reason being is that later on if this trick works with your dog which most most likely will work you will have to when the dog advances you will have to hide the ball in the ground so you need to kind of dig little hole and hide it so for that reason you need a smaller one second I want to make sure that you guys use balls with the string any type of string because the balls is too small if the dog is too motivated to grab it I don't want the dog to swallow it so make sure it has a string and then so what do you do you start your tracking regularly so you lay your track but when you want to switch dog to this motivation what you do is that play with your dog a little bit before starting the tracking just a little bit don't throw the ball no because you don't want too much of a drive but give the dog the ball and tug with him a little bit maybe for like I don't know 30 seconds just very little and then take it away and hide it and then tell him you're going tracking bring the dog to the tracking flag and put the dog down for for a little bit to kind of concentrate to come down from the drive from the ball but concentrate on the tracking maybe for another 30 seconds or so maybe one minute but no more than that make sure that the dog is kind of calm laying down not trying to bounce around and so and then you start tracking like you usually do but in your track at about a 15 step 10 to 15 step you lay your first ball when you were laying the truck you put the first ball and so when you start the tracking the first few steps the dog will find the toy and it will get excited and so the motivation so the stimulation for tracking will raise up because now he thinks oh wow I'm looking for toys and so you again he grabs the ball you might maybe tagging with him for like once or twice but that's it you take the ball away and you hide it and then you again you plot the dog you put the dog down and make sure the dog is calm and then you restart the dog again and then at that point let the dog track for about 30 paces and find another ball so make sure you plan ahead and so you you kind of you don't do a long track this time but that's pretty much how I did it I'm just sharing what I've done so 15 step you hide the ball then the 30th step you hide the ball and then you do about 20-25 paces more and you lay the end of the track with the ball again sorry with with the tracking ball and also I usually do the food hot dogs so it's the end of the track he knows that that's the end of it and so at that point when the dog reaches the end and grabs the ball then you reward it and you can play you can say good track finish track so the dog knows that the track is done and he did great and then you tag with the dog you can throw the ball just play a little bit to kind of show him that it's also fun and then see how he's gonna do next time next time he's gonna be more motivated and so you can start changing how often do you lay the balls it has to be every time has to be different sometimes you can do it after the 10th step very at the beginning sometimes on the scent pad at the very very first step sometimes let the dog track for 50 steps with no toy and then the first toy will be there but always remember to so if you're doing 100 paces about 100 paces lawn tracks which that's what i'm doing at my phase three i i don't go more about about this so it's about 100 to 120 steps i use about three balls on the track two in the middle and one at the very end to reward the dog and the very end one the end ball can be a larger one that you use for training and that's okay and so what one other thing that you do with the dog after the first try because the first try is pretty much just to show the dog that it is still fun to do and so you don't kind of force to do any command but in further tracks what you do is when the dog approaches the ball you tell the dog plots you don't give the correction command but you just pull on the dog and say tell him plots plots to make sure that he lays down what it helps you with is later on when we go to the article the dog knows that whatever is laying on the track he needs to lay down and so we don't do articles yet we won't do it till later but you will use this command to teach the dog to lay down if there is anything on the track and then you will see eventually he will find the ball and he will lay down he might grab it might wait for you but that's pretty much their procedure and this is this has been working with my previous dogs and with my current dog it makes tracking a lot more fun for them and so it means that they're no longer dependent on how hungry they are they can track any time of the day because they think they're gonna find toys and you're gonna interact with them and play and so that's that's what I do in terms of the shapes of my track at this point I I do serpentines I try to wave not regularly and not symmetrically but I can do one time I can turn to the left a little bit and then kind of we know often then maybe go straight another time I can do the right but I do like really like a serpentine it's not a corner the dog is not ready for the corner is yet one thing in another troubleshooting point is that if you notice that your dog tracks only one leg it means that you you've done too many serpentines and the dog keep kind of weaving and losing it started doing straight tracks so the dog needs to notice that it's left to right left right and he he's following your steps that's another trait and then one last thing that I do at to troubleshoot this at this point is that I put double line on my dog I have my dog on a flat color with the long line just like we always do and I put it under one arm and I put the choke chain on the dog and I connect to the choke chain my shorter leash and put it under another armpit and I steer the dog a little bit so if you remember my previous video I explained to you that we introduce corrections so I use my left hand the one that it is attached to the choke chain I use it for correction so if the dog tracks I he only feels pressure from my right hand and he keeps moving but if he's not on the track he got kind of distracted or something then I correct them and correction should be kind of short not too strong just you need to feel your dog but in a way you hold in the dog and it helps the dog it helps you navigate the dog so if the dog is going off track you can always pull him back and correct and so that also helps the dog to learn that you actually still have control even though you're behind and I guess that's at this point that's pretty much what I wanted to share with you I use corn balls there they last forever and they're small size and try it hopefully it will help your dog become a better tracker and enjoy it more happy tracking