Preparing for TDX tests

This post is for Anney in Florida and Judy here in Indianapolis and several others who have asked me how I train for the TDX test. As I said when Page passed her TDX, I think training for the TDX is the most enjoyable tracking training. The dog has a full understanding of the game, and in my case with both my girls, they were up for challenges. They enjoy working out new scenting problems, and I love watching them work and learning how they problem solve.

However, the TDX test itself grueling. It’s long (800-1,000 yards). It’s mentally exhausting to have your mind focused for that long a period of time (both of my girls took between 25-30 minutes to complete their tests). And on both Devon and Page’s passing tracks, we had a challenging problem to work out that took about 10 minutes alone.

You also can’t rule out the mental “downer” watching dog after dog fail TDX tests. Devon failed her first test, when four of six passed that day (an usually high pass rate). Luckily she drew the first of four tracks the day she passed; she was the only pass that day. Page was the third track, and we watched one dog fail on the first turn and the second dog suck into the cross tracks on the second leg. Not an encouraging start.

And finally the test is physically exhausting, with long walks up and down hills, through trees and occasionally over obstacles. I nearly fell on my face going down hill in the woods on Page’s track, and I’ve been a tracklayer at a TDX test where a judge hit the ground following a dog.

Since I enjoy the training so much, but don’t cherish the test, I want to make sure my dogs are very well prepared when I send in that $100-110 entry fee – especially for a test that has less than a 20% pass rate! The best advice I’ve received for being prepared (credit goes to Steve Ripley for this) is to successfully “pass” a full, blind track three times before you enter a test.

Passing a full, blind track doesn’t necessarily mean finding a judge to lay it. Find someone else to lay you a test track and put in cross tracks. Most seasoned trackers will be wiling to help you get ready for a test. As I’ve said before, this sport is full of people willing to give back to new trackers, even if you have to drive a couple of hours to find them.

When I train for TDX, I train my concepts in parts (or puzzle pieces and the credit here goes to Cathy Hawkins of Camp Jigsaw). I don't run full length tracks all the time; I work 400-550 yard tracks most of the time. The first thing I do is teach age on TD-type tracks. Once I get the dog up past 3 hours, I rarely drop them below that mark. After the dog passes a TD, he/she will never run a track less than 3 hours in a test, and cross tracks are newer than 3 hours. I don’t want to fear age, so I’ll run tracks up to 6 hours just so I know my dog can do it. When I’m training, I’ll routinely run tracks between 3-4.5 hours old.

Next I start working obstacles and tracking concepts. One track will be about woods, so we'll work woods obstacles three times on a 400-550 yard track. The next track might be about changes in cover so we'll do that several times. If you re-read my August 16 post about TDX training in woods, you will see a list of things to prepare for when training woods. This is my philosophy for all types of TDX training (changes of cover, other obstacles, etc.).

The track here is a good example of a woods training track. Page ran this track 5 days before her TDX test. It was 470 yards long and aged 3 hours and 15 minutes. It was in an area where she tracked well. The blue line is Page’s track. The yellow lines are well worn “roads” where hay wagons pulled kids on hay rides through the fields up to the end of October. While the wagon path wasn’t a true obstacle, it was a good challenge with lots of extra scent.

The white markers show how I was presenting training on woods that day. If you look at the track, you will see that I hit four of the seven things on the list for training woods in that one track:

• Tracking toward the woods and going straight in
• Tracking toward the woods and making a turn (not entering woods)
• Tracking toward the woods on a diagonal and entering on an angle (and I gave Page a turn right before the diagonal woods entrance)
• Making no turn at all and going straight through a woods

You will notice I also gave Page two other challenges. First, I took her straight through a woods line just to the left of a vegetative break in the tree line. Devon had this on one of her TDX test tracks, and then she angled out of the woods onto the path. It really made me question as a handler if she was correct, but I trusted her and she was right on the track.

Second, I gave Page a vegetative path between two sets of woods. Again, sometimes you are in the woods and sometimes you are on the grass next to the woods. The dog needs to learn how to follow the track and not go where it might be more comfortable to track (on a path and not in the woods beside the path).

While I’m concentrating on training obstacles, I work in areas that are full of other types of scent, like deer and dogs and humans. This teaches the dog to start to ignore cross tracks or contaminated tracks on their own. Again, when you run marked tracks (and all my training tracks are marked) you know where the track is, so you let them work the cross tracks but not go down them. This teaches the dog to rule out tracks that aren't what they are supposed to be working.

When I’m ready to actually work purposeful cross tracks, I lay my own. At first I lay them immediately before I run the track. Then I work backwards in 15-30 minute increments so they are of "legal" age related to the track (cross tracks go in 1.5 hours after the track is laid). My dogs have never been confused by me laying my own cross tracks. The dog is told by the start article who they are tracking and how old the track is. Quite frankly after learning to ignore all the other cross tracks (deer, squirrels, raccoon, etc.), I usually only train human cross tracks 3-4 times and the dog gets the concept.

Finally I work on length. By laying shorter tracks, I can usually track about 3 times a week. When I start working on length of track, I drop back to 2 tracks a week. I don't work length often, and I never work it the week or two before a test. Remember the beginning of this post: a TDX test is a grueling test for dog and handler, so you want the dog to be very fresh the week of a test. In tracking, you aren’t going to teach the dog anything new the week of a test.

When you run full length tracks, you are looking for your dog to a) have the stamina to go the distance and continue to work, and b) what changes in their tracking behavior as they tire. Also, most dogs hit a wall around 600 yards, and they must push through that wall. Keep this in mind as you are working length and put articles/rewards after this distance. You can also make the track "easier" after 600 yards the first time or two you run a long track to reward the dog for working past that distance.

In working length, I learned that Page is less precise the longer she tracks. She's a precision footstep tracker, but with length and fatigue she starts overshooting turns. I needed to learn this and watch for her to indicate the turn was behind us and trust her. Knowing that Page overshoots turns with fatigue allowed us to recover from an overshot turn on our TDX test that likely would have sunk other teams.

Janet and Steve Ripley have a saying that every time we go out to track, the dogs are putting experiences in their mental Rolodex. At a test the dog will come upon a scenting challenge and flip through that mental Rolodex and compare it to what they’ve done in the past and then react. I really like this analogy, and it’s our job as “coach of the team” to give our dogs as many experiences as we can to prepare them for the test.