Seren tracking

 Chamberlayne Elementary School, 3pm, right after school let out. Sunny/shady, short grass, earth damp but grass dry, lite wind. Put in a 2 turn track, right, then left. Each leg ~30 yards. Scuffed the entire track, food every 10 scuffs. Chose an area of the grounds that almost certainly had heavy foot traffic, in fact a teacher walked across the track as I was returning to the car. Ran the track immediately. Seren had to think a lot on this one, but she stayed pretty much on track & made the turns nicely. It was slow going, even for her, because of all the food. She did not try to follow the path the teacher took (all set for cross tracks😂). She had trouble locating the end article - actively searched a 6 foot radius a while before she found it, then poor indication, I think because she was looking for more food. I’m not going to stress over that, though, unless it happens again. Clearly we need to repeat this exercise, but we have other areas to firm up that are more relevan...

 Hanover High School. 41degrees, cloudy, no wind, short damp grass. Track laid @ 9:35 & aged 55min Did a reverse (i.e. starting from the right) stairstep track. Seren did a lovely job with all aspects. Tomorrow I’m going to try to get to the elementary school right after classes are dismissed & try to put in a track as easy as possible. After that, pick up the rotation again

 Pole Green Park. Light rain, no wind, short, wet grass, 50 degrees. Track 1 laid @ 10:25 & aged 45 min. Did 4 start tracks today, with starts scuffed & approached at an angle  #1 had 100yd  1st leg, food @ 60, right turn to 50yd 2nd leg. Indication of start article not great, bur because I didn’t bring enough  ‘real’ articles with me, it was just a small random ball of cord I found in the car. Making excuses? - yes. Might be a fun exercise to see what kind of indication we get with various random objects of varying sizes, held & scented for varying times. #2 had 50yd 1st leg, food @ 30, then left turn to 100yd 2nd leg. Seren didn’t want to make the turn, I think because the end article for #3 was too close & she was smelling it (I could see it). Bad track plotting on my part, but good to know that she would go to an article that far off the track #3 - 1st leg 70yd, then right turn. 2nd leg 60yd, article had fallen out of my pocket @~20, food @ 40. Th...

 Klehr field. Clear, no wind, short grass, lite frost/dew, 39 degrees. Track laid @ 8:40 & aged 30 min. Intent was to create an easy track in a relatively uncontaminated area. I have never seen anyone using this particular field, & certainly no evidence of anyone having been there before us this am (no tracks in the frost). However, as we were finishing up - good timing - a group of young men came & set up stuff for soccer practice, so it does get some use. Each leg ~50yds, 1st 2 turns were to the right, 2nd 2 to the left, all 90 degrees. Food about in the middle of  3rd & 4th legs, no intermediate articles. Good indications at start & end articles. Approached start flag from the right, & Seren made a 180 degree arc from flag before choosing a (correct) direction in which to go. She did a bit of checking out off-track scents all thru the track, but never lifted her head or tried to go in a wrong direction. Overshot right turns, but not the left ones, by...

 Chamberlayne Elem. School. 59 degrees, no wind, sky clear but entire track in shade. Short grass, green & brown. Wanted to work on turns involving woods, tho the wooded area available is not all that impressive. Track laid @ 3:15 & aged 25 minutes. Started out paralleling woods 40yds to right turn, which maintained the paralleling for another 50yds, food drop @30. Then left turn into open field with a bluestone running track. Food drop after crossing the bluestone track. After 60yds, right turn back toward woods, crossing the bluestone again (no food this time). Hit edge of woods at 66 yards, made left turn which I scuffed out of, into field. Food @ 35, end article @ 65yd. Great article indication at end. Seren had no difficulty with any of the turns, but she wasn’t as dedicated to the track itself as I would like - lots of checking out scents off to the sides. However, she always came back to work without prompting. School had just let out when I laid the track, so possib...

 Closed church. Track laid @ 9am & aged 90 minutes - longer  than I had planned due to encounter with chatty neighbor, though intent was to work on increased age. Sunny, 48 degrees, 8 mph wind. Mostly short grass, dry but green. Track 1, no food. 1st leg 86 yd, then right turn. 2nd leg 60 yd with large area of bare dirt just before end article. Not as precise as usual on 1st leg, took small detour to eat some poop. Overshot turn by 2-3 feet, looped back to 2nd leg which was much better, even the bare dirt part,  perhaps due to being sheltered from the wind. Both articles ‘okay’, but not as good as I would like. Track 2, first leg 70yd, crossing over asphalt entrance to parking lot at 50, which I scuffed all the way across & placed food drop right after the crossing. The turn, which was to the left, was right before an intersection of 2 roads. At the time we ran the track, this intersection was busier than I have EVER seen it, & Seren was enchanted by all the c...

 Crump Park. 48degrees, clear, no wind, light dew. Track laid @7:35 $ aged 45 minutes. Goal was to work on turns for both dog & handler. First leg 100yd. 90degree turn to right. Second leg food @ 30, article @ 50, 45 degree turn to right after 65yds. Third leg food @ 25, article @ 45, 45degree turn to left after 60 yards. Fourth leg 65 yards to 90degree left turn, then 65 yards to end article. At both 90 degree turns I stopped watching Seren & looked just at my feet ~ 20 yards from the turn, to see if I could detect loss of scent & regaining scent just by the feel of the line, without using my eyes. At the 1st turn (to the right), I never felt any slack in the line, it just veered to the left for about 10 feet, then arced back to the right 180 degrees & went forward there. When I looked up after letting the line out to 30’, she was on the track. At the first acute turn, she again checked left briefly, then arced back around to the right to pick up track & went. ...