Tips for Tracking for Success

Traveling from Arizona to Kansas, panhandle of Texas, Houston and San Antonio area over past few weeks has given me some insight on challenges our banner families have experienced as they begin Tracking for Success.

First and foremost, I can say, we love having the opportunity to work with amazing clients and great dogs. Understandably, there is a learning curve when learning something new. This challenge is multiplied when you are a new handler, with a young dog, and livestock that have been raised in a barn, without any natural fear of a predator.

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Because of these factors we have set up a system that has been proven over and over again. Building a strong relationship with your dog is first and foremost. Your new dog should trust and respect you before you even introduce animals. Then there other factors that can challenge your immediate success.

Here are a few tips that we believe are worth discussing.

1. Track size does matter. We love working a 70x30 track and feel like it is the right length for a novice handler to be success. The alley needs to be 4 ft wide and have 6 ft corners for banking. It is very hard for a dog to work in much wider tracks, similiar to blocking 3 linebackers running in 6 ft verses 4ft. Also we like a short interior fence so you can comfortably address issues. Animals that try to jump 98% of time are going to jump on outside corners not coming into the interior of the track.

2. Using covering on track should only be on the outside, if rough edges need to be covered on inside fence; strips of rubber zipped tied is much better. The dog needs to be able to see you and you need to be able to see the dog and animals, so covering the inside wall of track is not a good idea.

3. Dog breaking in a small flexible pen is in our opinion the only way to introduce a track dog. Using the small pen, leaving a lead and bell on dog, and handler with flag being in the center of pen to begin teaches animals how to move from the dog. If you have an animal (sheep or goat) that is extremely aggressive, always stop and add a breaking collar to the sheep or goat. (Call us for more information)

4. Dog breaking and tracking the same dog is more challenging than waiting till the following day. The dog has been ramped up on adrenaline and tends not to listen as well after dog breaking.

5. After dog breaking, it is beneficial to place animals in track and walk behind them with bell and lead on dog. If animals keep turning and facing you and dog instead of running, we recommend dog breaking again.

6. Starting tracking- first it is ok to go slow at first and get the animals to learn to move away from the dog. To slow a young dog with animals that arent really running, we recommend a short chain added to their collar that pops their legs. This slows a dog down because they do not like how it feels when they stretch out to really run.

7. Stopping dog every lap does a few things. Like running lines, we believe the start, stop helps animals bulk. Constant running is more like a marathon and is great when loosing a chest floor.

8. Dog passes animals in track. This can be a few issues. Dog might not feel secure taking on a fight in a tight alley since Border Collies like to circle an animal to get them to move from dog. But it could also be your dog is moving to fast or you are not coaching dog. We normally give a command when dog is about 15 ft from sheep, either an easy or “get out of that” to let dog know they need to slow down. If dog still doesnt rate down stopping on opposite corner or adding short chain to collar can be beneficial.

9. Use the Bell! When dog breaking or in the track the 2 inch (not bigger) bell needs to be on the dog. Sheep or goats can not see behind them while running but can hear the bell. This prevents accidents and lets you keep your dog off the animals as much as possible.

10. A few other suggestions: it is easier to start a new dog off with the smaller animals not the old ones. Think about scaring a six year old verse 21 year old. If we have to start an older animal, we use automatically use the training collar in dog breaking and tracking; knowing they will fight.

11. COMMUNICATION is key! Whether you buy a track dog from L2 or someone else, be sure to contact the handler you acquired dog from if problems arise. As with anything it is easier to correct on the onset of a problem before a bad habit starts.