Teaching Your American Pit Bull Terrier How to Track through Drive Part IV

In this final lesson on how to teach your pitbull how to track through drive we are going to focus on building their drive and taking the long track to a new level of difficulty.

Drive is your best friend when it comes to training your dog.

Drive can help you train your dog for anything. From basic obedience to competition jumping to tracking to sport protection work, drive is your pal.

Your goal in this training should be to build your dogs drive and harness it to make training fun and exciting.

So how do we go about building drive? What if my dog doesn't have very much drive for anything? What do I do then?

First, we build drive through small steps that build on each other. Each step is meant to increase the drive and make it more intense as time passes.

As for a dog without much drive, I can't help you there. Some dogs simply can't or won't have drive for much of anything.

Building Drive 101

I learned this from a German guy who trains Police dogs. He's a national champion and this technique is just what the doctor ordered for drive building.

You will need two things:

One: A ball on a string. You can get this in most pet stores.

Two: A long line. Again, pet stores have these.

What you are going to do is play keep away with the ball on a string.

NOTE: Always, move the ball away from your dog and never push it at your dog or hit them with it, even by accident. Pushing something toward your dog makes them turn away from it.

By showing them the ball and moving it away from them in a rapid manner your dog should start trying to get it from you.

Whatever happens, don't let them have it.

As they continue to try and get the toy from you, you will want to suddenly stop and ask them to sit. When they sit, drop the ball in their mouth. Don't stick in their mouth or push it toward them. Drop it from where it is.

Here's why you have a long line attached to your dog. They will try to carry the toy off and play with it. Let them carry for 30-60 seconds and then reel them closer to you.

When they are closer to you, snatch it from their mouth quickly by grabbing the string. Now you know why you have a ball on a string instead of just a ball. :o)

They should turn and try to get the toy again. This time their drive is a bit higher so they should be a little more intense. Repeat, have them sit, drop the ball, and let them carry it.

This is the important part so pay attention: Snatch the ball as you did before but this time stop and put the ball away. Do not let them have the ball outside of this training. Consider this toy your most valuable toy and allow them to play with it only when you are building drive with it.

Later that day or the next day go and get the toy and repeat the process. This shouldn't last more than 30-40 minutes. Watch as your dogs intensity for this specific toy builds over a few weeks.

The goal here is to have your dog hungry for this one toy. They should do just about anything to get it (short of biting you or acting the fool).

Now that you have built their drive and they are hungry for the toy, use it to your advantage

Show your helper how to play the keep away game. This time, the helper will snatch the ball from the dog and run the track.

Remember in part three when I suggested you get some gloves? Now you will see why I said that.

Start by allowing your dog to see the helper. Hold on, hold on tight because they will be straining to get their toy.

Then gradually move the dog around a corner and then completely away from the tracking field.

For the more difficult tracks where your dog doesn't see the helper they will get to play the keep away game when they find the helper and get to carry your toy around for 5-10 minutes.

Your dog will act high and mighty and strut with that toy. Well my dogs do. lol. They puff up and you know they are proud they your toy.

When the session is over, tell your dog to drop or out the toy and put it up.

That's it. You've Started Your Dog On the Road to Tracking Through Drive

If you want to continue training I highly suggest you get as much information about tracking from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. They have the best tracking dogs in the world and they train every dog using drive.

Tracking is fun that's for sure. Tracking also gives you a great way to get some exercise with your dog. You can integrate training commands like down, sit, recall and other things like heel, out, the quick down and more to the process as well.

Creativity is an asset when tracking.

Want to learn more about how to train your dog to track for real? Contact your local SAR group and ask them how to enroll for training.

If you have any questions or comments about this training series feel free to email them to me at Jason@PitBullLovers.com

Have a great day!

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