More puppy training with Boone, the Hanoverian Hound

Boone continues to make progress on all fronts.  He is about 12 weeks old now, and is really soaking up his training like a sponge.  Over the past couple of weeks, we have progressed with the age of his training tracks.  Most of our tracks are now aged 4 hours when my schedule allows.  He has run a couple of overnight (10-12 hour) tracks because that was all that my hectic schedule would allow.  He required some encouragement on those tracks, but got to the end of both of them.  I don't like to advance too fast because I want a pup of this age to be really excited on track.  Older tracks take a dog with more focus than most pups possess.  Boone showed good motivation on the tracks, but had to search hard to move down the line.  We will hold off on any more overnight tracks for awhile because I don't want to encourage blind searching over deliberate tracking.  

We have also moved from doing hide and hoof drags to tracks using the scent (hoof) shoes with plenty of blood dribbled along the trail.  This has been his hardest transition due to the greatly reduced scent with the hoof shoes in comparison to the drags. The scent is also somewhat different, so a little extra patience is required.  He has now completed 4 hoof shoe tracks, and is getting more solid with each one.

One word of caution for other trainers... In my opinion pushing a dog too quickly can lead to a "searcher" as opposed to a "tracker."  I have mentioned this in past posts.  A dog that covers a lot of ground searching for the next bit of sign can be useful, especially off lead, I imagine.  However, such a dog is typically a less effective tracker on lead.  At the very least, a wide searching dog will cause a lot of leash entanglement and frustration in thickly wooded areas.  There is a fine line between pushing your dog's limits and stretching it to the point that it develops "bad" habits that are hard to break.  How fast is too fast?  That is a decision that each handler has to make as he assesses his dog's working style and ability.

In addition to tracking training, we have also gotten started with some basic obedience.  After just a couple of short sessions, Boone is showing great promise.  He is eager to please.  He responds well to correction.  He is sensitive enough to respond appropriately to the pressure, but is stable enough that he does not cower to correction.  In fact, this dog has incredible nerves.  He is pretty much unafraid of anything; be it the noisy lawnmower, the vacuum cleaner, or big grouchy dogs!  He approaches each new experience with vigor and solid nerves.  It has truly been a delight to work with him over the past few weeks.

Here are a couple of short videos showing some of our early "sit/stay" training.  These videos were taken a few minutes apart.  This was literally the second time Boone had been worked on the leash.  In addition to the nice sit/stay response, we also worked a "heal" command just prior to this video.  In just two brief sessions, Boone went from a dog that was doing the puppy roll to escape the leash, to a dog that was healing nearly perfectly at my side.  I typically use a pinch collar for these training sessions, but I found it unnecessary with this little guy.

Notice in the second video how he responds to the correction.  Nice, solid puppy!  Most dogs that I have worked with required 10 or more sessions to get this level of understanding and obedience to the sit/stay command.  This is especially true with distractions or the handler "walk around" which makes nearly every pup break the first time or two.

We continue to work on recall with the "come" command.  He is doing well, but this takes weeks of reinforcement before transitioning to the ecollar to make it fool proof.  I have also introduced the "place" command which I use to put a dog in place for longer periods of time.  I like to use an article of clothing such as a shirt or jacket for this, but a rug works fine as well.  He is catching on quickly.  The length of time will be increased over the next several weeks.  These commands don't make for very interesting videos, but we may post a few clips in upcoming posts.

All of the obedience training is important to the foundation and development of a great tracking dog, but what everybody really wants to see is tracking performance.  The next video is a short track that we ran this evening.  Again, because of my hectic work schedule, I was only able to get the track down a couple of hours before dark.  The purpose was to introduce a new element, namely tracking in the woods.  Up to this point all of our tracks have been in short grass.  This track was primarily in very thick woods.  The forest next to my house is choked with honeysuckle, buckbrush, and gooseberries.  This makes for a difficult environment for a rather small pup.  

This was also the first time that I put the long lead on Boone during a track.  I don't like to introduce multiple variables at one time, but I was fairly confident that he would handle it fine.  As you can see in the video, he wasn't hindered by the lead at all despite my terrible leash handling (I was trying to take video with my phone).  Do not use this as a tutorial for proper lead handling!  There were a few times where Boone's lead became wrapped up in the brush, but he just kept on plowing through.  This dog will not be deterred.  He also got hung up in the vines on a couple of occasions, but never lost his focus or motivation.

The track was about 75 yards long with several twists and turns.  It was laid with hoof shoes and a trickle of blood.  I added a few short transitions with only the hoof, which he seemed to navigate just fine. Additionally, there were several obstacles that he maneuvered through.  The final obstacle was a large log which he chose to circumvent rather than jumping over.  Next time I may encourage him a bit to get him to work over the log.  Here is the track.

All in all, I am very well pleased with the progress we are making.  This little pup is truly a delight to work with and live with.  I hope you enjoy watching him grow half as much as I do.  Also, it is my understanding that there are still two of Boone's littermates available to tracking homes if anybody is interested.  Send me an email or text, and I will put you in touch with the breeder.

Good hunting!  Brady