Seren tracking

 Surry County Park. Short, wet grass, lite wind, 68 degrees. Track laid at noon & aged 30’. Three turns, R-L-R. No food first leg, one/leg next 3. Total length 320 yards. Blind track laid by Judi Result: Excellent! Things to watch for: is L turn stronger than R, or is 2nd turn stronger than 1st? Next track: 2 turns, not aged much, distracting environment 

 Crump Park. Cloudy, light wind, short wet grass, 59 degrees. Track laid at 7:10 am & aged one hour. Same goal as last time - short, motivational track with age as the only challenge. First leg 100 yards, food @80. Right turn for 2nd leg of 60 yards, metal article (crushed can) @ 45. Left turn to 50 yard 3rd leg, food @25. Result:  WOW! A knowledgeable observer may have been able to detect errors, but since we were alone, I’m going to say it was flawless! Straight approach to start flag, down at fabric article, got up, put her nose down, headed down the track like a train on a railroad track.  I stayed at flag until the line had played out to 20’. Seren did not pick her head up until I went forward to praise her for dropping at the metal article, then it was right back to work. Again, I stayed 20’ back. Second turn also right on with no cutting the corner, overshooting, or casting for scent, directly to final article, which we played with for quite a while. Mind you, ...

 9-13-23  Crump Park 7:25am 69 degrees  Short, wet grass. Sunny day but most of track in shade. Aged 1 hour This was meant to be a short, motivational track with age as the only challenge. Start article leather belt. First leg 100 yards, food at 60. First turn to left, 85 yards, with metal scrubber at 55. Second turn to the right, food at 25 yards, total leg 50 yards. End article leather glove. Total length of track 235. Result:  Straight approach to start flag, nice start after down at article. I had meant to stay at flag until line was 20’ out, but when she got to about 10’ a noisy construction vehicle came by, followed immediately by a school bus. Seren thought it was too dangerous to continue & it took a while to convince her otherwise. I kept the line at 10’ for a while as that seems to give her confidence. Overshot 1st turn by ~5yds & looped back to 2nd leg. Stopped at the metal article but did not lie down. Second turn & end article excellent Since...

 9-10-23 Chamberlayne Elementary school. Cloudy, ground wet, 72 degrees, minimal wind, short grass Began laying track @ 10:30am, started running it @ 11:15 4 turns, 465 yards total. 1 food drop/leg except 4th leg had 2. Metal article (dish scrubber) on 3rd leg. Goal was to get back in the swing of things on a day with reasonable weather at a place I could easily get to. While putting harness on, moderately hard rain began. We started anyway, the rain lasted about 5-10 minutes, then quit. Sun came out while we were on 4th leg. Approached start from the side, so the start was essentially a left hand turn. Started nicely after indicating article. I kept the line at 10’ for a while, gradually letting it out to 20’ by the 3rd leg. Seren had to think about a cover change from grass to pine needles about halfway down 1st leg, but no similar behavior when going back to plain grass. Checked both directions, primarily right, before proceeding straight. First 2 turns were open & to the ri...