I bought a 20 foot long line. I'm wondering if that's right to start, for Baloo, maybe should have gotten longer.
I put markers out in the yard yesterday, and this morning (an hour ago) I put out 8 items. As soon as it's daylight,
we're going out. I decided to teach NOT to heel before heel after discussing with the trainer, as his tendency is to stay close anyway. We're going to try this a couple of times this weekend and then the trainer will be out Monday to critique and correct. I'm pretty excited! He's eaten, been out, and is napping now.

Interesting ... This sounds very cool!!! Keep us informed ...

He did really well....other than being confused by the markers. He needs to get used to them though. He found all items well within 15 minutes! I didn't get a different collar yet, and will need a harness too. I'm hoping to talk to the trainer about the harness to see if it's terribly important to start early with it for tracking. I've known teams that never used halters but do understand the heightened communication factor.

He was still wanting to learn, so we spent about 2 minutes learning "down". He's literally throwing himself to the floor when he hears the word now. Since it's such a common word, I am teaching it in German also.

I wouldn't know for sure if 20 ft is long enough, never really looked into tracking...sound fun though!

Glad to hear that Baloo did great, I'm sure that he'll get more accustomed to the markers so he'll speed up his time. Keep updating us, I'd love to learn how this works ^_^

Hehe thats cool that you're going to teach Baloo some commands in another language...I've actually been thinking about doing the same with Junior. Spanish would be easy but we speak it around the house so it defeats the purpose... french was my other alternative

yeah definitely keep us posted! I dont have any advice on it.but find it interesting!

The trainer and I finally got our schedules to mesh today. I've been kind of anxious to have someone observe to make sure I was doing things the right way. And I cannot get Baloo to simply mark a find and sit beside it. He picks items up and runs with them like he's carrying the Olympic torch. She wasn't concerned with that....says he's acting just like a 3 month old puppy and that he will improve as he matures. She does want me to work with him on Hold and Release. I was thinking that it would be bad to ever let him start picking the items up, as that's definitely not something desired. She told me how to make a training dummy to work with him on these things and she suggested a 10 foot long line and a halter for better long distance communication between the two of us. The shorter long line surprised me, but she did say to keep the longer one handy, that he'll be ready for it soon. Other than that, she said she was VERY impressed with his focus.

It sounds like your little man is doing pretty goood! I would love to see some video of him at work!!!

Maybe the next time my granddaughter is here she could get some video. That would be cool to have....and I could look at it 3 months from now and feel even better about what we've accomplished!

I remember teaching Rom tracking and in some ways it was easier (he was 4), but other ways harder. We didn't have the puppy antics to deal with and he could train for longer periods of time, but he didn't have the sponge for a brain that Baloo has as a pup.

I'm glad its coming along well, I totally agree iwth your trainer, he's just acting like a puppy right now, but if he's come this far right now, I can't imagine how good he'll be when he's more mature! Keep up the good work!