Seren tracking

 Hanover Courthouse Seren did a 3 turn track, L,L,R, with 2nd turn as a hangman’s turn. No article on leg 2. She struggled a bit with the 2nd turn, did not particularly want to check left but finally did & found 3rd leg. I could read LOS easily. Didn’t want to play with articles (or down for that matter), wanted to keep tracking, so I let her. Needs to work more with hangman turns to the left, hope decent weather lasts a while. link to video:   https://youtu.be/jMlo2CThxPo?feature=shared Had planned for Dylan to track beside a hedgerow again, but he had diarrhea this morning so I didn’t want to use any food. Instead I did a short straight track with end article hidden behind a tree. Took him a few seconds to find it. I predict next time he locate it faster. link to video:   https://youtu.be/jKqy9SeukMk?feature=shared

 Courthouse Park. Wet grass with a fair bit of standing water. Seren had a 4 turn track, was supposed to have an article on every leg but I forgot the one on the 3rd leg. Her challenge was cover change from short to tall to short grass. Age 1 hour We planned to play with every article, but she seemed to want to keep tracking instead, so I didn’t push it. Attitude was good, no issue with cover changes. Her article indication is broken, but I think it can be fixed easily enough. I was pretty happy with the session. link to  video:   https://youtu.be/6gEwx_h0Eq0?feature=shared Dylan had a 3 turn track, age 1 hour. Challenge here was track went past multiple things that he would be inclined to lift his leg on. There was extra food & scuffing, especially on second leg. As anticipated, Dylan wanted to pee on everything, particularly the hedge row. I think I was successful in preventing him from doing so without shutting him down. By the time we got to the soccer goal near t...

 Windsor Business Park. Recently bush-hogged weeds, wet. Sunny, 75 degrees, 5mph, 72%. Seren had a 3 turn track (L,L,R) with a toy (fabric or leather😊) to play with on each leg & a food drop 10-20 steps beyond each article. Age 30 min. She did a competent job on the track, but her enthusiasm for playing with the articles diminished with each one. Some blackberry branches in the mowed weeds may have been a factor, or just the heat link to video:   https://youtu.be/Xhg96NFqxIE?feature=shared To me, track looked better on video than it felt while running it Dylan had a 1 turn track with the end article in a shallow ditch containing 1-2 inches of water. Age 45 min. He had a lovely start after a verbal reminder to down at article. Nice turn. Didn’t particularly want to lie down at end in the ditch, but was convinced to. Link to video.  Battery ran out in middle, but at least the start can be seen. https://youtu.be/kAuKswv10v0?feature=shared

 Courthouse Park. Seren had another ‘play with the article on every leg’ track. 3 turns - L,L,R Not great. Partly my poor choice of articles - metal lid was ‘ok’ to play with, plastic eyeglasses not at all. Fabric & leather good. Start so-so, 1st turn very good, 2nd turn ok. Seren tried to cut over to end article after the one on the 3rd leg - maybe legs were too short?  video not useable Next session, age track no more than 1 hour Dylan had a short track with 2 hangman turns. 1 food drop on each leg. Did a great job! Verbal cue to down @ start article, the  dead on start. Veered off to right a bit on 1st leg, got back on track immediately when I stepped behind him. Indicated LOS immediately when leg ended, circled behind me to the right to pick up next leg on both turns. I was using a 10’ line so I had gone with him past the turn. Very calm & business-like about finding the turns. Downed on his own at end article. Video worthless due to rain gear interference 😢

 Chamberlayne Elementary. Seren had a 3 turn track (L-L-R) with article to play with on each leg. Scuffing 5 steps after turn, food 10-20 steps after articles. Did not age track as long as planned as it was getting hot faster than anticipated. Seren acted like the track had been contaminated by another dog running on it while we were away letting it age - it is a popular spot for neighborhood people to bring their dogs to run. Start didn’t look as bad on video as it felt. She is handling mild pressure on the line better today. I was pleased with turns, especially 2nd one. Don’t know what her issue with the running track was today - she has crossed it dozens of times in the past without blinking. Main problem with today was it was too hot! Link to  video:   https://youtu.be/gXwicV2BJCo?feature=shared

 Courthouse park.  Seren -  experimented with playing with intermediate articles on the track, one on each leg. 3 left turns, then a right. Scuffed 5 steps after each turn. Playing with the articles certainly seemed to improve her enthusiasm, seems like a good plan for a while. Also, the track design appeared to answer the question of 2nd turn vs left turn. At least for now, she definitely prefers to go right. Will repeat the same thing with R-R-R-L & see what happens Link to video:  https://youtu.be/K6K5cUTxptY?feature=shared   Dylan had a 2 turn track with changes of cover - short/tall grass. 1 food drop/leg, scuff 5 steps after each turn. Age 45 min. Observation - Dylan ?.almost? always checks my ‘walk up to the start flag’ track before heading in the right direction. Today he had to think about the tall grass entry, but figured it out pretty quickly. Link to video:   https://youtu.be/fdqLCYG-RjM?feature=shared