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Teaching A Seekback


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First off for my dogs I use a proper s/b article. Once they have learnt the retrieve excersice they are then taught seek back.

I start in a paddock with fairly short grass, no start peg and leave they dog in a sit stay. I walk ahead in a straight line, turn around and show the dog the article and then place it on the ground. I walk back to the dog and around to the heel position. Build drive in the dog and let him/her go. Usually the dog will race out so far and upon not finding the article strainght away will then use their nose to track it down.

I continue with this type of training until I am walking(by myself) a complete seekback heeling pattern, but I pretend to place the article in different places along the track. Even when I have placed it, I will keep pretending to place it so the dog will not know where it is. Again return to the dog and build the drive then release.

As you have probably guessed this only continues until the dog is really keen and finding successfully. Now you start heeling with the dog and dropping the article behind you, but you must go back to the straight short tracks and build back up to full length ones over time.

Most of my dogs, once they have started trialling, teach themselves to go back to the start peg and track from there.

Good luck I hope I have made some sense of it.

Cheers Leanne

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Hi Leanne,

Yes that makes good sense to me. I find that walking around while the dog watches me and pretending to put the s/b down a number of times builds a great lot of drive.

She sits there whining and almost jumping out of her skin to start the seekback.Sometimes I place the seekback in long grass to increase the nose work and decrease the eye work. And when I do seekbacks at night this really increases her drive and her nose work.

Cheers,

luvsablue & Beckie the Bluey,

(Jan F),

Mornington Peninsula,

Vic

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Ok so we've officially started seekback training!

Today was our second SB training session and I placed the SB article around the house and then bought her in and got her to find it. At first I made it obvious then when she got really confident with that, I stepped it up and started putting it behind the dining room table, behind her food bowl, next to something the same dark colour etc. She LOVES playing the new game - I love seeing how excited she gets when she finds it and bounds back to me because she knows she got it :thumbsup: will be interesting to see how we go from here :D

Edited by huski
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  • 2 months later...

Well I haven't really graduated to formalised seekback training just yet, but still been doing hide and seek stuff with Missy K.

She does really well around the yard and will search forever to find the article.

I guess my question is that sometimes - it doesnt' seem like she's using her nose - as in she'll be a few meters away from it and then turn away from the scent. Other times it's obvious she's using her nose.

Anything I can try and do to encourage her to 'use' the nose, or should I just stop fluffing about and set it up as a normal exercise?

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I just started Kenz on seekback again yesterday and not really worrying about if she tracks it or not. Never was to fussed about Ness and she has never had to many issues. They eventually learn to use there nose to find the article. I find if you train it methodically enough they do learn the game and work out what you want.

I though it interesting that we haven't tackled it in months and yet Kenz took to it as though she has been doing it every day of her life. The only issue I had was with one over zealous grab at the seekback and it went flying and then she realized she didn't have it anymore LOL.

ETA. If you want to encourage her to use her nose - play the game in long grass (a little difficult at this time of year) or at night :thumbsup:.

Edited by ness
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Now with UDX in mind I would be teaching her to scent and scent match.

Well I haven't really graduated to formalised seekback training just yet, but still been doing hide and seek stuff with Missy K.

She does really well around the yard and will search forever to find the article.

I guess my question is that sometimes - it doesnt' seem like she's using her nose - as in she'll be a few meters away from it and then turn away from the scent. Other times it's obvious she's using her nose.

Anything I can try and do to encourage her to 'use' the nose, or should I just stop fluffing about and set it up as a normal exercise?

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:thumbsup: yeah I dunno - Ness wasn't slow to pick up on it but she was a little more methodical about it. Kenz seems to tackle it at a million miles an hour so a little worried but so far she tackles scent discrim the same way and does actually use her nose so I guess I am not totally worried yet. But her seekback is now back on hold again as I feel I am rewarding her crabby OTT heelwork by sending her for her seekback so need to get back on top of her heeling.
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:laugh: yeah I dunno - Ness wasn't slow to pick up on it but she was a little more methodical about it. Kenz seems to tackle it at a million miles an hour so a little worried but so far she tackles scent discrim the same way and does actually use her nose so I guess I am not totally worried yet. But her seekback is now back on hold again as I feel I am rewarding her crabby OTT heelwork by sending her for her seekback so need to get back on top of her heeling.

:rofl: Leo sounds like Ness and Kinta like Kenz. I take it all back.

Just did a session with Kinta tonight and she was awesome :(. she was definitely using her nose and was right on the marker!

Goooo Kinta :D

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Wahoo clever Kinta. Kenz did 3 tonight and I was in shock I got 2 full length ones - relatively simple but even when we headed down to the far end where I had the box set up and I sent her she raced off to the start peg at a million miles an hour even straight through the box as though it wasn't there and threw herself on the seekback.

What I was even more in shock by was the fact we then did 3 sendaways immediately after and she didn't skip a beat. First one I sort of let her offer going to the box - revved her up and released her as she was already on the way. Then within another 2 repetitions we were all the way back at the start peg which was around 30 paces from the box.

Got to wonder if my little midget dog hasn't walked this planet before and is already trained. I am seriously wondering. UD isn't suppose to happen this easily.

Made for a world shortest training session I figured 3 seekbacks and 3 sendaways all error free I should quit while I was ahead.

Edited by ness
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God its scary - we went back out tonight to a different oval repeated 3 seekbacks and 3 sendaways and they were perfect. I am convinced it will all go pearshaped when I eventually get to trialling her but at the moment Kenz just can't put a foot wrong with her UD work. Scary!!!!

Especially since this little girl only has 1 CCD pass to her name so far LOL. She is doing it better than her sister who has been trialling in UD for years with still no pass LOL.

Edited by ness
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