In the first two parts of this series, an introduction to our tracking philosophy was presented, along with a discussion of goals and priorities. This final part discusses motivation and observation. Well, since you had the courtesy to ask, I would prefer to find a big leather chewie at the end of the track, and I would like to sit there and finish it. When we learned to let our dogs tell us how to train them, we made a great leap forward in our tracking philosophy. Finding that special, unique, perhaps even goofy motivation is the key to getting a tracking dog to want it as much as we do.
Some dogs naturally track for the sheer love of tracking.
Some prefer food. Some are natural retrievers, and just want to play with the glove or some toy at the end. Others may want something neither you nor I ever conceived of. Your job, Sherlock, is to find out what this is. Many training methods attempt to fit each dog into a preconceived mold, which often creates unnecessary training problems.