BEGINNING STEPS OF HARD SURFACE TRACKING: BACK CHAINING DEMONSTRATED

This dog is starting to put the pieces together. The handler Jeff has done a great job teaching the indication and building on some duration. This is his first attempt at back chaining and it went fairly smoothly. The dog has had some free meals a few days prior to filming this, so the ignition wasn’t quite where I would have liked it to have been, but enough to teach and demonstrate the technique. Some things to consider when setting up these early teaching exercises are being very mindful of the environment, along with how the dogs perception, possible cues and memories are connected with certain locations, it matters!! I learned this dog uses this same location to take breaks during his tour of duty and he also plays ball during “free time”frequently here as well. This certainly contributed to some “checking out” during these sessions. This won’t matter in the future, as we will begin to overlay NePoPo® into the system to install a “you must” signal under high distractions. However; In the beginning, I like to train with as minimal amount of distractions as possible. Additionally, I like use a large area of hard surface terrain, with no grass being accessible if possible. The dogs will cheat and default into what has payed them well in the past, so better to not have this option in the beginning stages.