# Basic time frame



## Zisso (Mar 20, 2009)

I am curious what most people find to be the basic time frame once they join and begin working in Schutzhund before you feel ready to go for SchH 1, or even for CGC? I know that I have a long way to go because I have only just begun. I do work twice daily with Z on training -I don't over do it, but I really can see him getting the hang of it. My club has trials scheduled for October - is it too soon to hope?


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## JKlatsky (Apr 21, 2007)

What I have found is that it really depends on the dog. It seems to me in general things move pretty slowly for a couple of months, even if you do have a good dog that's hard wired to work. It seems to take a little while for them to figure out the game. Older dogs seem to progress faster than little puppies too because they have more maturity and frequently you can add more pressure to the work because they are mentally able to handler the stress. 

I started my dogs early on, at 5 and 3 months and they were ready to give good performances at their BHs at 17 and 15 months. I did their CGCs a few weeks prior to their BHs. Some will disagree, but I feel that teaching and enforcing polite CGC manners are not helpful to beginning competition obedience. 

Now we just did a BH on our friends older dog after having him for 2 months. However, he had a basic understanding of the major commands (sit, platz, foos, hier) and just need reinforcement, repetition, and to learn some easier stuff like the finish and sitting at the stops. Because he was mentally mature and had that basic understanding, we were able to push him to go with less rewards and more pressure. Not the sort of thing you can do with just any dog. 

There's a reason the minimum age for the BH is 15 months. I think it takes awhile to train it, and you really don't want to rush it because it's the foundation for the rest of your Schutzhund obedience.


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## Zisso (Mar 20, 2009)

Thank you JKlatsky for your reply









My boy is already 19 months old and we started about 3 weeks ago. When I first adopted at 16mo him he was crate trained and house broken, but that was it. No leash walking, no sit....none of the basics. I have taught him a great deal in the little time I have had him, and joined the club primarily because I thought the discipline there would be a great benefit to him. He has come a long way in a short amount of time. He sits, downs, stays, has fairly good recall(not that I ever let him off leash-except in the yard). He is currently learning foos and heel. Still can't him to platz from a stand but I think he is confused about what I am asking of him. That one we just started working on during this past week. 

I am fairly pleased with the results at this point and we have plenty of time to perfect it all


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## Smithie86 (Jan 9, 2001)

Zisso,

To give you an idea with my male. 1st dog that I really trained myself in SCH.

I worked full time (45-50 hours), plus commuting. Club, once I started really training him, was 2x per week: scheduled protection during the week and scheduled Ob/protection on weekend. Tracking conditions were almost non-existent in the Bay Area, unless you travelled for a while, tracked at businesses or construction sites (which we did). Dirt tracking with CLODS of dirt that were huge! When he trialed, he nailed tracking! 

I stayed at the same club; did not jump around. That is a big thing - the consistency of the training and ensuring the support. Focus was to train to a higher level than you were going for, so that way the foundation was correct and you did not have to go back and re-train things

Did not really start anything with him until he was about 1. Did socialization, AKC handling, TT, CGC, fun stuff for the 1st year.

Started seriously training him. He was ready for his SCH 1 within the year, but I started traveling for work. He had a 8 month hiatus while I was traveling, then back into it in the spring and did Sch1 in the spring (May) after a few weeks of training, broke his canine in August and then trialed in Dec for his SCH2.


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## Zisso (Mar 20, 2009)

Wow Sue! That is impressive to me! So with an 8 month hiatus, you seriously trained for about 4 months?

I hope we can be that good and quick, but I have had no experience with AKC handling, TT, CGC...nothing...this is all new to me as well as my boy so I will be happy with anything we accomplish







If we can be ready in 5 months I will jump for joy and if not, no biggie cause all I have is time







Oh but we only train 1x / week too so maybe not ready in time. That's ok...we are having fun learning


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## Liesje (Mar 4, 2007)

Zisso, I am also training my first SchH dog and taking it slow. I work full time and do jobs from home on the side. I have three dogs, one that is an adult and trains and titles in many things sometimes pretty heavily (last spring we competed every weekend for about 1.5 months straight). Also, because of how my dogs live and what I expect from them I do require puppy class and CGC for manners (I do not let the healing and ob stuff interfere with the methods I'm using in other areas, but I DO require that my dogs be polite for petting, polite around other dogs, not freak out when I leave them tethered, etc). If that interferes with some SchH work or takes time away, then so be it, but bottom line is ALL of my dogs are house pets and travel with me and must be socialized and reliable with other people and dogs and that comes before anything competing they do on the weekends.

Nikon is 8 months and while he might be "behind" a lot of working dogs, he gets better every week at training. We go to SchH club once a week, Friday nights generally 7pm-midnight. We would like to work protection and have ob instruction twice a week and are trying to work that out with our trainer but it's difficult with money and we come 1.5 hours from the west, he comes 1.5 hours from the east. 

I'm not too concerned with where Nikon is at compared to the other dogs. Even though I am a noob, I can tell when I haven't done the homework and I can tell when I've worked hard and it's made a difference.

Currently we track once a day. We *just* started tracking because we never had anyone to show us SchH tracking and then waited till after the Sieger Show b/c we wanted the dogs' heads UP. We're doing three scent pads at at time, or two and a short track.

I do nothing as far as protection at home, I leave all of that to the helper. We did some tug, backtying, and prey drive stuff with him as a puppy but he's past that now, on the sleeve so there's really nothing we can do at home that would help him, only cause him problems.

We do obedience but right now a lot of it is ball stuff. We first developed his ball drive and now that it's there, we are working on showing him how this "game" works. So our ob session will look like 15 minutes of ball play with maybe 2 minutes total of actual ob, lol. We use the ball for drive and speed (fast platz, sitz, eye contact) and we use food for precision (short heeling, sit in front and basic position, finish).

Right now we have no time frame. Each week I pick 2 things to really focus on at home that week (this week is getting Nikon to come into my belly b/c he wants to rock-back sit away from me, and working on building an aus behavior with our ball game).

Nikon's taking the CGC in mid-June (almost 10 months) and he did the puppy STAR in Dec. when he was 3 months.


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## Smithie86 (Jan 9, 2001)

No, he was trained for 1 year straight. I was pretty focused and stayed with one club. Had 2 lessons in tracking and then worked on it by myself. Then would check back and have someone audit with what I was doing. Then would get a group of people (that was hard, people do not like tracking) to track as a group.

Then 2 month off, 1.5 months training and then 6 months off before back in and into the SCH1.

But, again, I did the traveling, Ronald McDonald House stuff, AKC handling, AKC OB, TT and CGC before we really started into the SCH work. Tracking did not start until after a year old. I really watched the 1st year, laid tracks for people and asked questions.


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## GSDextrodinaire (Dec 15, 2002)

With my first dog, I started her in SchH at 17 months old. I was a fanatic about going to club training, and worked on my own every day. At the end of 10 months, my dog and I did the BH. Three months later we did the AD, and two months after that she earned her SchH1. It does depend on the dog, your commitment, the support you get from your club, and most importantly, the training helper you have.


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## Sarah'sSita (Oct 27, 2001)

It has been a slow road for me especially being new. He got a CGC and AKC tracking title when he was 10 months old. Started in SchH 2006 at 15 months , BH 2007, no trialing in 2008, going for schH1 in a month. Being a new handler/trainer has slowed our progress the most. Nandi also slow to mature, he takes protection work more seriously now at the age of 4.
Let the fun begin.


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## jesusica (Jan 13, 2006)

If you work hard I don't think October is unrealistic for a BH. Your dog is at the perfect age to start REAL training. And it's just a BH. It's pass/fail. Flash got his BH 6 weeks after we really started training for it, the trial was short notice. All we had at that point was fussing, not even the halt and sit. Was it perfect? No. But it's just a BH. Do I expect more for our 1? Absolutely. 5 months later our BH routine would be MUCH better but we passed and opened the doors to bigger things, that's all that matters.


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## Mark B (Feb 3, 2009)

it's takes me about 3 months of training to get a real nice BH with a good dog. Maybe 2 months if the dog is real nice. Depending on the dog it can take anywhere from 6 months to 1yr for a SchH1.

Mark
http://www.ultimatekanine.com
http://www.kampkanine.com


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## Zisso (Mar 20, 2009)

Wow! I do work hard with Zisso every week. Even the lady running our club has noticed. Still, I don't feel that we have any one thing down pat. I feel like I am all over the place in what I am trying to teach him, so the idea of taking two things to really focus on each week will help immensly. 

One thing I am confused about is this: foos means for the dog to come to your side and sit? I guess I am just not clear on a few of the commands, and I don't want to give the wrong one and mess him up. We do seperate commands for sit to down(use down) and stand to down(use platz) What is the command to come sit in front up close to your belly? Our trainer takes us slower than this and it makes it really hard to put it all together to get the results we need. 

Yesterday was his first time getting a feel for the sleeve. Our helper was not present due to being ill, but some one had a sleeve there, and it was laying on the ground. Zisso saw it and started biting at it, so he got to 'tug' with it(for lack of a better way to explain it) I think he will get to try some bite work next week with the helper. This guy is very good at getting to know the dogs he works with as he goes. I like him, but I don't know what kind of experience he has other than I know he was worked with another club members hard dog, and a few others, for quite awhile. 

To top it all off, Z is having tummy issues-just diagnosed with IBD so can't track for food, so we will be doing something different there too. He will still track my footsteps, but the reward will be his tug at the end of the track. I was told this is going to be a 'wilder' track with his nose not down a lot. Is this air scent? I know what I am supposed to do for this excercise, not what it is called. 

Overall, I am really getting confused....is this normal?


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## JKlatsky (Apr 21, 2007)

Foos is a position by your left leg, not necessarily an "action" command like sit or platz. If you are standing still, the dog should be sitting, if you are walking the dog needs to be moving to maintain the position. Coming around to get into that position is called the finish, but the command basically means "Get in position".

I use Hier for the close front sit. Once again it's a position for me. Hier for my dog means close sit in front of me. So if he's down field and I call "Hier" he needs to race to get into position...So for me it's different than Come, which just means get over here.


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## Castlemaid (Jun 29, 2006)

> Originally Posted By: Mark Bit's takes me about 3 months of training to get a real nice BH with a good dog. Maybe 2 months if the dog is real nice.


I think that can be achieved if one can train everyday, has the experience of having trained previous dogs to a BH, and has been inprinting their dog for the OB portion of the the BH since they were little puppies.

However, for someone new, starting out with an older dog, I think a year is more realistic, and a more fun and relaxed time-frame.


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## Zisso (Mar 20, 2009)

JKlatsky-thank you soooo much for clarifying this for me







I was doing it backwards.







I _Knew _I was messing up, but luckily it has only been this past week, so I'm sure I can easily change it. Your explanation definitely made it so much easier to comprehend







I guess maybe I shouldn't get my horses adhead of the cart, but how else to train him properly from the start?


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## Chris Wild (Dec 14, 2001)

I would say that the norm for most hobby level people is anywhere from 1-3 years for a SchH1. Depends on their own skill level, aptitude of the dog, age the dog is when they start training, how often they can train and other resources available.

For someone who's titled dogs before, has the schedule to allow for working in all phases several times a week, and has access to excellent helperwork and other resources, of course it can be done much quicker. But for most normal folks just a few months is completely unrealistic. Especially for a novice who is usually facing a huge learning curve (even moreso than their dog!).


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## Cassidy's Mom (Mar 30, 2003)

> Originally Posted By: ZissoWe do seperate commands for sit to down(use down) and stand to down(use platz)...


I don't do Schutzhund, but I wouldn't have different commands for going into a down from different positions.







Down or platz means to get into the position, not the process by which the dog gets there. There was a thread a month or two ago where someone had two different sit commands, to sit down from a stand and to sit up from a down, which doesn't make any sense to me at all. Sit means butt planted on the ground, no matter what the dog was doing prior to that or what position he was in. 

I do agree with having formal commands for training and competition, and informal commands, (such as JKlatsky explained with "come" and "hier"), where you might use "down" around the house to mean go lay down somewhere, and "platz" in training to mean dropping into an immediate sphynx like position. There are times when you just want your dog to lay down and hang out for awhile but you don't particularly care where or how, or have your dog come over to where you are, and a rocket recall into a tight front sit are not necessary, and I think it's easier and less confusing to the dog to have separate commands for each. 

But as I said, I don't do Schutzhund, and it may be that there just isn't a case where the dog would ever be required to "platz" from a sitting position in the sport.


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## Chris Wild (Dec 14, 2001)

Agree with Debbie (Cassidy's Mom) in that the dog should have ONE command for each position. Platz is platz.. it doesn't matter if the dog was sitting, standing, walking or running. Same for sit, stand and everything else.

In a trial, you are not allowed to have different commands for say a down from a sit and the down from a heel. It must be the same command.

From the dog's standpoint there is absolutely no reason to have different commands. If anything, that makes it more confusing. And when you get to trial it will not be allowed. So best to pick one command now and stick with it and throw away the others.

Now having different commands for formal/competition and informal/around the house is fine. But having different commands for the same formal command is not.


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## Mark B (Feb 3, 2009)

Right, one command for each exercise. If you break everything down training is much easier and faster. Trying to do to many different things at once will backfire. Work on the sit until he knows it, work on the down until he knows it. Work on come and heir Etc. Then you can piece them together. Before you know it you have a whole routine. When you're new to it it can be confusing and frustrating at times. But when you accomplish something with your dog it's so gratifying and worth the hard work. As far as your tracking, you do what you have to do to motivate him. Not every dog will be mid 90's to 100 in all phases or in any phase. The idea is to learn from your dog, bond with your dog and have fun with your dog. As long as you do those things life is good. 

Mark

http://www.ultimatekanine.com

http://www.kampkanine.com


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## Zisso (Mar 20, 2009)

I want to extend a HUGE thank you to all who have helped me with this! 

Mark B...you are right, it is confusing, especially since our trainer had not given us the opportunity to connect them all together. She might be leading up to that eventually, but I am finding the need to connect them in order to get unconfused, if that makes sense. 

I will go back to using one command for his down, and now is perfect because he doesn't understand the seperate commands. Tracking has been difficult for us due to being limited to not using food to track. 

Our bond is growing







I see him looking to me more and more for 'what's next' and he is starting to understand when we are working and when we are just out to play(used to be it was all about playing with no interest in working/training)

I have a new question if that's okay....
Zisso has been good with dogs in general. A friend of mine brings his lab over to play and interact-no problem ever. Z can go to doggie day care-no problem ever. But when I take him to the park he is reactive to other dogs. Example: Yesterday I took him to the park and as a guy with his dog came around a corner I saw right away the dog was off leash(grrr) so we stopped to give him time to leash the dog. As he did he told me she is friendly. I have seen Z growl at other dogs several times when he is on leash, so I told the guy 'mine isn't' just so this guy would not come over to us. I wasn't tense or worried, just being cautious. As the guy and his dog walked past us, Z growled at his dog. Do you think I was tense and didn't know it so Z was feeding off of me, or that he is just being reactive....and either way, how can I prevent this from becoming a problem and prevent it from happening again? He only does this on leash. I really don't think it has anything to do with the Schutzhund training...the dogs are not allowed to socialize there.


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## Smithie86 (Jan 9, 2001)

"Tracking has been difficult for us due to being limited to not using food to track. "

Why not?


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## Zisso (Mar 20, 2009)

Smithie86-Zisso is on medication for Imflammatory Bowel Disease and vet wants him to not have anything other than his kibble for now. It was a 10 day dose so until we see how he does after the meds, he isn't to have any treats, hot dogs, etc. Ourtrainer was going to have us do the other (air scent?)track but we didn;t have a chance to last Sunday, for various reasons.


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## Cassidy's Mom (Mar 30, 2003)

Why can't you use his kibble for training? Keefer had SIBO as a puppy and I couldn't give him anything but the prescription kibble he was on. He was in a class at the time, so I just used that as training treats.


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## Chris Wild (Dec 14, 2001)

While they can be taught to track without food, it's usually not very conducive to the deep nose/footstep to footstep tracking needed in SchH. 

Did you consider maybe trying to use his kibble on the track? That way you can use food, but one that won't go against vet's advice.


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## Zisso (Mar 20, 2009)

I did try his kibble, but he didn't find any of it ... not even at the scent pad at the beginning of the track. I have been thinkng about soaking his kibble to make it softer so he can eat it faster while doing the track and then putting in a bag with a hotdog for awhile to get that scent on it. That might work. I do use his kibble for OB.


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## Cassidy's Mom (Mar 30, 2003)

> Originally Posted By: ZissoI did try his kibble, but he didn't find any of it ... not even at the scent pad at the beginning of the track.










Sorry, that just struck me funny! Maybe he was looking for something more interesting, lol?


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## Zisso (Mar 20, 2009)

> Originally Posted By: Cassidys Mom
> 
> 
> > Originally Posted By: ZissoI did try his kibble, but he didn't find any of it ... not even at the scent pad at the beginning of the track.
> ...


He must have been...and he must have been disappointed too...LOL he really flew over it, despite my efforts to slow him down as if to say 'this isn't workin for me ma' Makes me wonder how he will air scent if he acts like that for kibble.


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## Mark B (Feb 3, 2009)

Hard to tell why the dog did that because i wasn't there. Can be a number of things. When dogs are resitricted to a leash it can make them react that way. The dog could of fed off your emotions/energy. You said you weren't tense or worried but you did Grrr in the post along with you were being cutious. That's not being calm and normal. It can be because your dog is reaching a maturity state. So hard to tell. Probably you anticipating for something to happen when he's on leash. As far as tracking use raw food for the tracking. If your dog can eat kibble it can eat raw. We sell raw beef, tripe, chicken etc for dogs. Find a place by you that sells raw. 

Mark

http://www.ultimatekanine.com

http://www.kampkanine.com


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## angelaw (Dec 14, 2001)

I use frozen biljac,hotdogs, stuff that smells so they can find it.


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## Zisso (Mar 20, 2009)

Mark B- that is true, I did feel like grrr about the dog being off leash so he probably did sense that and feed off of it. Another time about a week ago he growled at another dog at the SchH Club-the owner wasn't paying attention and let her female get a bit close. 

My vet wanted him to have no treats or anything but kibble, until the meds were finished. When all of this came about I was using hot dogs and she nixed them too. I will call the vet and see what she thinks since he seems to be so much better now.


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## Zisso (Mar 20, 2009)

Mark-I just looked at your website...WOW! I wish you were in WA







I want to thank you for taking time answering my questions and such...Know you are probably awfully busy.


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## jesusica (Jan 13, 2006)

The wet kibble is a good idea. Really, you don't want to use solid food anyways because any food used on the track should be quickly eaten to encourage the right kind of tracking behavior we want to see in schh. 

Also, is there a canned version of the special kibble he is eating? Try putting balled up pieces of the canned food in the freezer. By the time you lay the track it will be soft enough for him to quickly eat it as he tracks.

If no canned version, 10 days is not long in the grand scheme of things.







And really it sounds like you shouldn't be tracking on your own right now anyways. Better to do quality training a few times than to do poor training many times. Until he is on the right track, so to speak, I would only track when you have someone much more experienced to help guide you. Let him blow past the beginning scent pad too many times and it is now habit.


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## Chris Wild (Dec 14, 2001)

The frozen balls of canned food is a really good idea if there's a canned version of what he's eating.



> Originally Posted By: jesusicaAnd really it sounds like you shouldn't be tracking on your own right now anyways. Better to do quality training a few times than to do poor training many times. Until he is on the right track, so to speak, I would only track when you have someone much more experienced to help guide you. Let him blow past the beginning scent pad too many times and it is now habit.


Agree with this 110%!!!


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## Liesje (Mar 4, 2007)

Could you pick an ingredient from his kibble and use that? For example, if he's on a chicken/rice kibble could you use bits of boiled chicken breast?

Our trainer is having us learn tracking basically the same ways as described on http://www.schutzhundtracking.com. But now that site is down, however the links for the first steps (scent pads) are still available on the Wayback Machine (but the pics and videos are missing). Might want to have a look:
http://web.archive.org/web/20070903174709/www.schutzhundtracking.com/index.html


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## Zisso (Mar 20, 2009)

Okay...first, there are no canned version of his food. My vet wanted me to put him on a sensitive stomach kibble and the choices she gave me were Science Diet, Iams, Nature's Recipe or Nutro - with venison and potato. I could not find the right ingredients in the 1st two, could not find the 3rd dry kibble at all, and (please don't flame me here) wound up getting Nutro because they had the right ingredients. As for tracking-I only did the dry kibble one time and gave up cause I don't want to teach bad habits. 

Best of all, of the ten days, we have only 4 left. I imagine she will say to wait after that to see how his stools look without the meds. Who knows what she will want him to be on for tracking, but she is aware that I need to get him back to it asap.


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## Smithie86 (Jan 9, 2001)

While you are waiting, try what I did. Watch other people track, lay tracks for people, play the "judge". Great foundation and helps a LOT when you start working on tracking yourself.


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## Zisso (Mar 20, 2009)

Took a day off from it all today and took him swimming and for a bath. 

Thanks for all the wonderful advice







Vet will let us know what we can do tomorrow!!


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## Mark B (Feb 3, 2009)

Hey Zisso,
No problem helping out. And yes i am very busy. Been trying to train my young dog and run a boarding kennel/doggie day care business that me and my girlfriend just purchased May 1st. So time is tough. Not to mention making time for my training clients. Like i said earlier. Raw diet would be great for dogs with stomach issues. I would use it for tracking. But you do what you're comfortable with.

Good Luck,
Mark


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