Today, Stacy, Robin, and Crystal sit down with competitive tracking extraordinaire Emily Lawrence!

Having gotten her start in the sport in 1989 at the tender age of 11, Emily has had many years to hone her craft. Listen in as she shares her training strategies, with a particular focus on the unique challenges in training her Border Collie compared to your traditional German Shepherd.

She discusses the ins and outs of Schutzhund-style tracking, comparing it to other forms of tracking such as search-and-rescue.

“There are three basic phases to this sport: tracking, obedience, and bite work. In order to be successful in this sport, you have to be good at all three phases.”

Emily explains that we often don’t give enough credit to our dogs when it comes to conquering the challenges we set up for them. To her, one of our main responsibilities as trainers is to instill within our dogs the confidence to be able to solve problems.

Key Topics:

• How Emily got into the sport and her approach to tracking and agility (01:30)
• Training a Border Collie versus a German Shepherd (06:41)
• About Schutzhund-style tracking (10:14)
• Terrain changes (14:58)
• Giving your dog enough credit to find the track (18:03)
• Ensuring that you place food in footsteps instead of near footsteps (20:59)

Resources:

• Emily on Instagram
• Emily on Facebook (to access BIGFOOT DOG TRAINING)
• Bigfoot Dog Training Website (currently under construction)

We want to hear from you:

• Check out the K9 Detection Collaborative FB page and comment on the episode post!
• K9Sensus Foundation can be found on Facebook and Instagram. We have a Trainer’s Group on Facebook!
• Scentsabilities Nosework is also on Facebook. Here is a Facebook group you should join!
• Crystal Wing K9 Coach can be found here!
• You can follow us for notifications of upcoming episodes, find us at k9detectioncollaborative.com to enjoy the freebies and tell your friends so you can keep the conversations going.

Jingle by: www.mavericksings.com Instagram: @mavericktastic

Audio editing & other podcast services by: www.thepodcastman.com Instagram: @the_podcast_man