Page 27 - Demo

called stripping to regain line tension and prevent the dog from getting tangled in the line. Stripping involves drawing the line back through your hand as quickly as possible to take up the slack between you and your dog.
To strip line, loosen your grip but keep fingers curved with the tip of the thumb touching the tip of your fore- finger to create a channel for the line to move through freely. Grasp the excess line with your free hand and pull the line backward through your tracking hand until all the slack is taken up. Let the excess line that you’ve stripped through your hand drop to the ground at your side.
In order to strip line effectively you have to react quickly, and that takes practice. It’s easy to practice stripping line without the dog. Attach one end of your line to something: a fence or tree branch, for example, and put as much slack into it as possible, then strip it until it is taut. It’s also good practice to have a track- ing buddy pretend to be a tracking dog and mimic the moves a real tracking dog makes, so you can practice line handling under more realistic conditions.
No matter how good a handler you are it’s inevitable that the line will tangle on occasion, either around your dog or around an object in the field. The dog needs to learn that getting a jerk, tangled or stopped, is not a correction—so handle it calmly and reassure the dog if necessary.
I use “Wait” to signal that we are going to stop track- ing briefly, but will start up again. If my dog is tangled
in the line I calmly untangle it and give it my command to track when I’m ready to go again. I stand in place and let the dog track away from me until the 20-foot line marker reaches my hand, and then step in behind. If my line becomes tangled around a field object like a bush or tree I tell my dog to “Wait” before it gets a jerk, then calmly untangle the line. If it’s possible to simply pull the line to free it, I stand between my dog and the tangle and pull against the tangle. I also carry a spare line, so if my dog is hopelessly tangled, I use the spare, and go back for the tangled line later. Once freed, I start my dog as described above.
If you think your dog has indicated an article you will have to go up and look. You can drop the line, walk up to the dog, and check, if you’re sure your dog won’t bolt. Keep control of the line if you think the indication might be a false alarm—otherwise the dog may track away from you before you can grab the line. The rules require a handler to be in control of the dog at all times, so be aware. In any event, follow the line up to the dog. If it isn’t an article that has your dog’s attention, tell your dog to “Get busy” and retreat back down the line to the 20-foot line marker. Keep in mind that if you have not moved the line it will point in the direction you came from. If the dog has left the track to check something that is not an article, you can use the line to get yourself back to the actual track.
I hope this article will at least point you in the right direction for many days of happy tracking.
November/December 2009 The Australian Shepherd Journal 25