Arash's Dog Blog

Have you been wondering how to teach your German Shepherd to track? Teaching your German Sheperd to track is actually a lot simpler than you might think. German Shepherd Dogs (GSDs) are naturally good trackers. They are working dogs, meaning they love having a job to do. Tracking fits that perfectly. There’s a good reason why agencies all over the world use GSDs to track and sniff for various substances. Speaking of which, I’ll be covering bomb sniffing dogs in a future post.

So let’s get into the nitty gritty. Here’s what you need:

1. Treats – Small, rewarding treats. Breaking a few hot dogs into small pieces will be the cheapest way to do this. Rewarding your GSD for tracking is by far the best way to teach them to track.
2. Pole flags – You’ll want 20-30 of something you can stick in the ground to signal the path your German Shepherd will be taking to track. The flags will also signal where each treat is. If you don’t have anything like this, you can use any object that the wind won’t blow away.
   
3. A harness – This one’s not absolutely necessary, but very helpful. I don’t normally recommend using a harness with a GSD in your every day activities. However, when you want to track, a harness is perfect. A harness will encourage your dog to bring his head down into the ground at all times with nothing pulling on his neck. The pull can discourage him from having his nose on the ground.

And that’s it! You’ll want to go to a large field, preferably with some cover somewhere (like a tree or a wall). You’ll use the cover to hide what they’re tracking. I highly recommend taking another person to have your dog track. If that’s not an option, take something with an interesting smell such as some old clothing you don’t wear, a piece of fruit, or whatever else you have at your disposal.

Place your pole flags in the direction you want your dog to track. Do something other than a straight line to make sure your dog is actually tracking and not just going in one direction. Leave moderate spacing between your flags, perhaps 5-10 feet. If you want your dog to find something behind cover, then have the path lead to behind that cover.

Next, smother the ground along the path you’ve made with the scent you want. If it’s a person your dog is tracking, have that person walk in a straight line and really dig their feet into the ground as they are walking along the entirety of the path. If it’s an object, rub that object into the ground really well all along the path.

Now place the treats at every flag. Get your dog ready to do this! Start at the beginning of the path and give your dog a command, such as “go find X!”. I track with my significant other, so I say “Go Find Momma!” Lead your dog to the first pole where there’s a treat. Then the next. He’ll start to pick up on the fact that he’s getting rewarded for following a certain path, and coincide that with finding a scent. When he puts his nose on the ground to sniff, tell him how good of a boy he’s being! Encourage him to keep his nose down there.

Make sure he picks up all the treats. If he misses a treat, point it out to him before going to the next flag. Once you get to the end, and he finds the person/object, act very excited, tell him YES! and how good of a boy he is. Repeat this a few times, but I wouldn’t do it for more than 15 minutes.

That’s all there is to it! Try it once or twice a week. In no time, you’ll find that your dog will be an excellent tracker. Our dog, Midnight, can find a my significant other, or me, in a very crowded area full of people. He will even go through all the areas we’ve been through–in the order we’ve been through them–and find us behind walls and all sorts of obstacles. It’s really quite remarkable how good of trackers GSDs are.