 Today we're doing tracking. When puppy grows I like to play with the puppy by dropping some treats on the grass on my lawn to teach him sniff and that's a really fun exercise for him and I do it occasionally so naturally when they very little they just learn that it's fun game to do and then later on when the dog is ready I start teaching proper tracking. Tracking is great with doberman's they have great nose sense of smell they like sniffing and I think if you have a pet and you want to do any type of training for nose work this is really interesting and challenging at the same time thing to teach your dog because we humans we don't know we don't use nose for something but for dogs it's the major sense and so we humans have to figure out how to teach a dog something that we don't understand so for that it is very important in tracking to take your time do not rush first let the dog figure it out secondly never progress too fast repetition is the key you have to repeat and do it and over and over and over again and if you see that the dog struggles step back in your process and start repeating again so unlike with my obedience exercise when I see when the dog is ready I move to the next step with tracking I really like to practice and practice and practice repetition when we track it's better to go in the morning you want to find maybe a park or another place mornings are usually best because over the night nobody was running on it there were no footprints so it's fresh and it's easier for the dog to start figuring out what you want from him because if you go to the public park where there are a lot of smells and sense it's very distracting to the dog plus they won't really understand what what you're doing with him especially when the dog is so young so we start usually early in the mornings if for example depending on the season of the year if I start with grass which is what I'm doing with my dog currently I stay with grass for a while until the dog knows what we do in until he understands to follow my scent not the grass and that takes a while if you live in the area where you have the plowed dirt and you start in that just stick to that until the dog understands before start changing the terrains or changing the sanding area that they have to work with so first the treats they always have to be soft because you don't want your dog to choke when they are excitingly searching for it and and eating so I use hot dogs and it has to be a high reward for the dog something that they will eat for sure will love to eat also another reason why we do it in the morning because the dog is not fed yet and they they eager to have their food but instead of breakfast you kind of go and do the tracking first and then you go home and give the dog his food I I'm showing in the video how I step on the grass so the idea the very first exercise that we have to do is scent pads because that's the way how we transfer our knowledge to the dog that the scent that the sausage associated with the scent of the grass where you stepped on the kind of stepped on grass and so what you have to do is that you can see behind I have four flags I usually select a right kind of an area of six feet in radius about six feet in radius the Indian diameter sorry and then I try to cover this whole area with my steps so every grass has to be kind of stepped on because it changes how the grass smells and that's what we need to for the dog to learn eventually to identify the grass that is untouched versus the area that was suppressed by the step that's what they follow they are able to identify that and so at the beginning we obviously try to stimulate it was with the reward which is hot dog and then later on you fade it out and then the dog follows that son that they understand so I always do two sand pads every day or not every day every training about the same size I cover the whole area and then I drop the hot dogs and I step on hot dogs a little bit because I don't want them to be on the top for the dog to be visible because I want the dog to use nose not not his eyes and I always have a little beginning pad right there it's right by the flag it's the size of my two footprints and I put four or five pieces of hot dog there that's my starting point so the dog is always eager to start that teaches the dog it's fun here it is and then the dog starts then goes and search when the dog searching you will see I do not say anything I do not help the dog I don't control the dog I let him figure out let the dog do do the natural work and then when I see that he's nearly done with the hot dogs because I know how much are there or when I see that he's getting distracted I pull him off the Sun pad immediately because I want the dog to be only concentrated if the dog lost concentration I move away that's it and that's for that reason I always have two sandpads because puppies are small and they get distracted easily so if I see that the first one didn't go well I always have the second one and at the same time if the dog is happy and excited to do one I stop it I never wait until the dog is ran out of rewards and he's searching searching there is nothing you don't want that you want to pull the dog of the tracking pad before the here and out of rewards and then if the dog wants to continue then you use the second pad and my dog is very happy to do this so I always do too and so it's a double exercise for him every time we do this he loves it and then one other thing to keep in mind before you start send but make sure you take the dog to do his business to party because again you want the dog to have very good positive experience and if the dog was sitting in the car while you do in the sand pad and then you pull it out to do the nose work but the dog needs to pee he'll pee on the sand pad that's not a very good experience for the dog plus it's not what you want your dog to do so make sure his needs are taken care of if he needs water give him water and then let him concentrate on this work let's see how my dog at us will do today you can see that the dog is wearing flat color and I have him on line you can see he's eager to start I'll help him find find the first pad which is right here usually hold him to make sure he picks up everything and then I let him go you can see four flags that's the boundaries of my circle you'll see how the dog steps out of the boundaries but then he gets back he figures it out by himself I don't give any commands and we'll be doing this probably five six or maybe a dozen of times just the circles before we move on to the next step okay he's very off he figures out good boy I'm gonna pull him off because he's nearly out of treats good that's good that's good good boy you did well you did well good boy you did well you know there's a second one you do oh good boy good boy good boy what you want to start your second one yeah yeah and on him and come on just hey hey no pay attention pay attention pay attention here here sometimes I give him a break in between but I figure it all just film it together so you guys can see how he does and if you if during the training the dog got distracted by something like another dog running or a bird or something do take a break between starting the second circle because you want the dog to be focused and concentrated not distracted and he's got excited by something different than he needs time to come down he's on fire today likes it when this is done I always praise him okay that's not good good boy good boy he quit by himself that's not what I wanted but he's since he quit I'm not letting him finish it so that's it good boy good boy you're finished now you did well good boy good boy and I usually if the dog is very excited then he's already happy you don't need to do much you just walk him and let him sniff around or play maybe a little bit and they usually put him back in the car so he knows that this is the routine the exercise he keeps sniffing thinking there is another one and so for us in the morning that's the routine you do tracking and that's it so that's why the dog kind of by default he learns that if you're going somewhere in the morning that's gonna be tracking so he's already excited so hope you can teach your dogs to track training