 I want to talk about advanced tracking and motivation at this point. How do we continue motivating the dog to keep this exercise interesting for the dog? So, why are we talking about it when we are so much advanced in the process and the dog seems to do it pretty well? Well, the reason is, think about it. We have different goals than our dogs. For us, the goal is maybe to score high in a trial and for that we need to rely that the dog will do the exercise because there is not much we as handlers can help the dog on the track. And then for the dog, it's still an activity to do with the handler and it still needs to be rewarded. And so, for me, the motivation should always be in our minds as we work with our dogs because this is their reward. Even though they seem to be doing it because they get used to it for whatever reasons, but we still need to reward the dog. And so, dogs are very different. For example, the dog that I currently have, he's not too crazy about food but he does like tracking exercise. He actually enjoys it. And I had a dog before him that had absolutely crazy food drive but he hated tracking. It was too boring for him, he had an independent mindset and so we struggled a lot with a lot of things with him despite the excellent food drive. So, they're different dogs and I think rewarding them helps build the program and helps train them in tracking a lot more smoother. And so, where are we at currently in our progress? So, the dog tracks obviously, they know what it is, they know the setup and they know the command, they know the pattern so they go from left to right, they check every food step and this is important for IGP tracking. I don't know if it's a requirement for any other type of tracking. We also work through the corners and the dog knows the corners and we work with a variety of patterns, we work on the straight lines, sharp corners or rounded corners or serpentines so the dog has seen a lot of things and learned a lot of things. And if you remember from my troubleshooting video I used a reward, I used a ball on the track so my dog tracks for this and even though at this point I still bait every step in the track, the reward that my dog wants is this so my rule is that the ball has to be always on the track whether it's one time or several times I vary this but my dog knows that at some point he will find the toy. And so, my dog doesn't know articles yet, specifically articles, but my dog knows when he finds the toy he knows to indicate it, so he knows to lie down in front of it so for me I'm not too worried about teaching my dog to indicate articles at some point and so where I'm at in my training is that I need to start to fade out the bait and so my track will become less with less food than my dog is used to so for the last maybe year or so we've been tracking with lots of food on the track and the dog knows to look for it and that's how I made sure that he knows the patterns it becomes really ingrained into him to check every food step I'm also baiting corners and so at this point what I will have to do next is that I will continue baiting corners but I will start reducing gradually the amount of bait in my food steps and so what it does is that as I reduce the amount of food on the track I don't want the drop of interest in my dog I still want the dog to be motivated and so to me introducing a new kind of treasure hunt for the dog is a way to balance right I'm reducing the food on the track the dog might become less interested in it and I want to give something back to the dog to increase that interest in a way to balance what that is I will show you in a second it's those food containers so I would place my food my reward I use hot dogs for tracking so I would place hot dogs in these containers I would close the containers I usually cut a tiny little hole with the knife on the lead of the container and I place containers on the track just like I do with my toy and so because the dog knows pretty much to indicate this it's very easy to show them that you need to indicate those as well but it brings the excitement back there is something new they need to look for and as I fade out the bait in the food steps this balances the excitement of the dog and in the video that follows you will see that this is one of the I think this was our second time when I used containers on the track and you will see that he kind of lost track at some point but he is still excited he is searching he wants to find the food and the toy and so we didn't lose the performance of the dog and so I think this is very important at this point to continue so how I do this so what are my steps of the progress so as I work on this the very first track that I lay with the food containers and then one thing always remember the bowl should be there always at some point on a track so this is given so containers are new so what I do is that my first track is usually straight because I want to teach the dog that when you find this little container you also need to indicate it just like you indicate the toy and it usually takes one track and you want to disrupt kind of dog's thinking with corners and anything else so I just lay a straight track and I introduce those containers I ask the dog to lay down to indicate the dog learns that I come up and open it and so he knows the routine and so after that when I lay my tracks for practice I start to reduce the food and I usually do this first I skip maybe three or five steps for example if I skip the food on the right foot so I lay the track I had food in every step and then on this right foot I didn't put the food back in so then I make five steps and then I want my food to be in that food step that I missed always this will be forcing the dog to keep going and looking so if he's had the food on the left foot and then you went and didn't find anything the food eventually appears on the right so that's kind of the only pattern that I follow but I randomly do this between three to nine to seven to five so random amount of steps that I skip and then I place the food containers also randomly so it's not necessarily if I skipped the five steps or ten steps without the food it's not necessarily that I place container after that I just pick up with regular bait in the food steps but containers become something new that the dog looks for and so this is how we are going to progress and I want to get to the point where eventually I have no bait or nearly none bait in my food steps maybe one or two here and there but the dog is searching for those food containers and the bowls and so this way, so pretty much what we are doing at this point is that we are kind of, we are upping our reward our motivation because we are bringing a little bit down the level of interest on the track for the dog and so this balances the two together and in the following video you will see how we did this I think this was our second time with the containers so I'm helping him a lot and then I was a little bit distracted by filming it but you will still see how he does the corners and how we work with this happy tracking good zooc, zooc, good zooc very good, he's lost zooc, zooc, good zooc lutz, good zooc he's lost and I lost attention good boy, you should have watched it see what you lost, that's yours and you lost it yeah, you didn't find it you didn't find it pay attention next time and I have to pay attention next time as well I was watching other dogs not him good boy zooc, good zooc another corner, I have my marker there yeah, good boy, good zooc very good, good zooc I made too many corners, I don't remember where they are good zooc it's likely coming up on the corner good zooc I'm letting him get lost good zooc, very good, he found it very good very good, lutz very good very good very good, lutz very good, good zooc good zooc, good zooc so he likes finding toys but he knows not to play with them he doesn't really play with them on the track which is nice, good boy good zooc good, no, lutz lutz lutz zooc zooc good boy and I have another corner I have a marker for that right after this corner good, he found it now I don't know if he's lost or not okay, he's not good boy I bait all my corners lutz, lutz very good gonna go on the other side now flips over good boy, that was good that was good that was good, he liked the treasure hunt he do, very good very good very good very good, lutz lutz good zooc good boy we need to clean this up and he gets up without the command good boy he's lost and I'm waiting him to find the track on his own good boy so at this point in tracking I try not to help him and not to correct much unless he's totally lost he missed the corner I think he's lost he's lost atos, zooc good good zooc good zooc good zooc that's not my object very good you're done you're not done, keep looking his way off track good boy, platz platz good boy platz platz good boy my kids he found the finish, it was not perfect and he was off track a lot at the end but it was a challenging track so next time I'll have to give him a break with slightly better track easier track good boy, you did well, finish, yeah finish where we got here where we got here, yay, good boy