posted 02-17-2004 05:14 PM         

Hmm, this is a tough one. I'm not that experienced with tracking as its fairly new to me. I have a few puppy people who track with their dogs and are much more experienced than I. Are you sure you aren't missing her acknowledging the articles? It may be as subtle as a slight look which she thinks is enough. Sometimes its hard to tell with smaller dogs. How old is Annie? Sometimes its an age factor. I hear you about the laying on wet ground, my dogs have good "downs" but put them on wet ground and they look disgusted - "You want ME to lie there?" haa

I know i always mention clicker training, but have you tried it with tracking? I find the whole clicker concept really changes the way they think. When it works it really sets that lightbulb off in their head and you know they "get it". I can't think of a more positive approach than clicker training. Is Annie food motivated? Do they allow you to use food? Can you use food jackpots on some of the articles? I think this is a prime motivation for some dogs starting out and once they understand I'd eventually wean off food.

posted 02-17-2004 05:32 PM         

just a thought! I think I'll go look that up on the web.

posted 02-17-2004 05:48 PM         

Train a Dachshund? Many would laugh. Many more would just ask, "Are you training the Dachshund or is the Dachshund training you?"

Dachshunds rightly have the reputation of being self willed and intent on achieving their goals. It is these exact characteristics which made their help so valued by hunters. Independence during the hunt was required by these little dogs and although this leaves many with the opinion that they are difficult to train, regular sessions will be rewarding to both you and your dog.

posted 02-18-2004 02:02 PM         

She's almost 6 yrs old. I let the problems with the down go for a long time because it's not a command we use a lot anyway (when you have a dog that stands 7" tall, you don't put them in a downstay at one end of a grassy field and walk off to the other side, at least not if you want to be able to find them to return to them, lol). She's a quirky girl, doesn't even like to walk in wet grass, but once it warms up a bit here, I'll have a hard time keeping her *out* of the water when we go to the beach.

I've trained her with regular marker training (a short "good!") in place of the clicker, but did buy a clicker last time we were out to give it a try. They know what the click means, but we're just starting to work on learning new things with it, so I'm not sure how I would even go about teaching her to indicate using it?

She's food motivated, and that's what we'll use when we start training for indications again (I generally use toy/tug as a reward, but that brings her really "up", and we don't want her forgetting about the track when it comes time to put the two together).

I'm pretty sure that Dachsies are primarily scenthounds, but I've also seen that Annie works off both scent and sight when she's left to do her own thing and is looking for soemthing, usually scenting until she sees it, then heading off after it, so I'm not completely sure.