Seren tracking

 Dorey Park. Short grass, 60 degrees, 5mph wind, 56% humidity, sunny when track run. Track laid @9:30 & aged 3hr. This was a duration track, ~1100 yd total, with 2 left turns. 1st leg is at top of google earth screen shot. In addition to start & end articles, leg 1 had 2, leg 2 had 1, & leg 3 had 2. Each article had a food drop 20 steps after it. The last 1/2 of leg 3 had food every 20-40 steps.  Seren had some difficulty with the 1st half of leg 1, checking out all kinds of side scents & not staying on the track very well. Would have been very hard for me had it been a blind track. Got significantly better as we progressed. I didn’t think this part of the park would have been heavily used over the weekend, but that’s kind of how she acted, so I may have been wrong. Or it could have been something else…? I offered water at every article, she took a couple laps at the one on leg 2. Article indications were good. I think for our next track, which will be next wee...

 Windsor Business Park. Track laid @9:00& aged 3hr5min. Partly cloudy, 60 degrees, 8mph wind, 51% humidity when track run. Did 2 start tracks, each with 1 turn going from short grass up small hill into very tall (3-4’) grass. #1 had a left turn, #2 a right. Both times took a few seconds to find the start, & on #2, Seren had to work to find the turn. At the end article of #2, she did a little curtsey & then immediately started investigating the very fresh (not there when track laid) deer tracks - or deer poop - all around the article. The track was not nearly as visible as I expected it to be in the tall grass, so I was glad I had noted actual line-ups

 Pole Green Park soccer fields. short grass with some green to it. Overcast, wet from rain during the night. Track laid @8:55.  When track run, 65 degrees, 2mph wind, 82% humidity. XT exercise as on the last 3 days. Today main track aged 3hr, XT 90min. Also additional unplanned XT made by woman + dog ~45min before track run. Good start & articles, no imaginary articles. Overshot most turns 4-5 feet. Paid no attention to any of the XTs. Additional distractions provided by kids on playgrounds were relatively easy to overcome. Multiple chicken bones not so much - had to stop & clean out Seren’s mouth several times. Why don’t I ever see these things when I’m laying the track? Bottom line is I’m very pleased with the results of this exercise! Will take a couple days off, then work on increasing age, etc. I think the obstacle/woods entry exercise would be good for Seren to do using a road or the edge of a parking lot as the obstacle. She really likes to track on asphalt - wo...

 Courthouse Park soccer fields. Very short, very dry grass. 63 degrees, 5mph wind, 63% humidity when track run. Same track as last 2 days except main track aged 3.5 hours (sometimes plans don’t work out) & XT aged 1 hour Main track laid @9:30. Shortly after I put in the XT, 2 people walked across the main track twice in the vicinity of the 1st turn, couldn’t see precisely where from where I was at. Seren’s start was a little lackadaisical & she did have to think hard in the area of the 1st turn. She also started out on 1st 2 legs indicating inappropriate/imaginary/invisible articles until I quit playing along & told her to ‘leave it’ a couple of times & after that she was fine. She still indicated her real articles just fine. I saw no indication of any of the 4 XTs - no attempt to follow track, no head turn, nothing. She overshot most of her regular turns by 4-5 feet, but came back & made the turns on her own. This training exercise appears to be working! We’ll ...

 Soccer Complex near home. Sunny, 62 degrees (felt much warmer), 3mph wind, 59% humidity Same track as yesterday except XT aged 30 min. There was heavy machinery operating nearby, so for confidence & to keep Seren from going too far down XT, I kept line @ 10 feet or so most of the time. First XT she went to the left (?again) ~5 feet & came back on her own. Took a few seconds to find 2nd turn. Second XT head turn both directions, last two no indication that I could see.  Seren was really article happy today. In addition to nice indications of all her ‘real’ articles, she indicated every little piece of trash she could find along the way. None of it was too gross or too big, so I just pocketed everything. Our end article (raggedy old glove) was gone, I assume picked up by one of the groundskeepers, but she lay down in the EXACT spot where I had left it - didn’t hunt around for it or anything. So we lost an old glove, but got a cricket ball in trade. Dylan did 3 straight ...

 Hanover Courthouse. 58degrees, 3mph wind, 59% humidity, high thin clouds. Did the crosstrack exercise on the website. Main track laid @8:55& aged 3 hours, XT fresh. Great start, all articles excellent. Overshot 1st turn by ~5ft, quickly recovered on her own. At 1st XT, Seren turned left (backtracking!🤷). I let out 30ft. of line & as soon as I quit playing out the line, she turned around, came back across the main track & went 30ft to the right. When she ran out of line she came back & picked up main track with no difficulty. Second turn was at edge of road, & Seren REALLY wanted the track to cross the road. This time I only gave her about 10 extra feet of line & she reluctantly came back to 3rd leg, which paralleled the road. All remaining turns were up to usual Seren standards. Second XT, she turned left, which was the way the track went this time, & came back after 20 feet, continuing down main track. Third XT, she turn her head in each direction but...

 Cool Water. Area of woods where multiple trees had been removed & copious logging debris remained-downed trees, branches, etc. Track laid @8:30&aged 65min. When run, 56degrees, 9mph wind, 69% humidity, sunny. Total length 100yd Simple straight line track over/thru multiple obstacles. In addition to start & end, 2 intermediate articles. Seren missed the metal article but otherwise did quite well. Next on agenda, work on crosstracks. Link for video:  https://youtu.be/i6NvWv9IOk0?feature=shared

 Judi’s field & woods. 50 degrees, high, thin clouds, 3mph wind. Track laid @8:35&aged 2.5 hours. Did the TDX obstacle exercise from the training exercises portion of the website, with woods being the obstacle. Seren did a nice job for the most part. For the article on the 5th leg, she just sat for a second, moving on down the track before I could even get there to pick up the article (metal can lid). She entered the woods very nicely but needed help with the exit as she was being a princess about the thorny vines in that area - this wasn’t planned, I just picked a bad path out.  Still need to do some crosstrack work before entering a test

 Klehr Field. Short grass, leaf-covered dirt, & a little bit of asphalt. Sunny, 72degrees, 3mph wind, 54% humidity. Track laid @10:10 & aged 3hr Working on problem solving (nothing novel for Seren) with some age. Leg 1 85yd to left turn. Leg 2 crossed from grass across a small area of asphalt then to leaf-covered dirt past some athletic equipment to right turn at corner of top of small retaining wall. 100 yd total w/ plastic article @70. Leg 3 across sparse grass, dirt, leaves, down earthen stairs to grass, 65yd. Right turn at open gate to chain link fence for leg 4. Close to chain link fence on 1 or both sides. Metal article @70, end leather glove @ 120. No food on legs 1 or 4, fair bit on 2&3. Sprinklers running on legs 1 & 4 when track laid, but had stopped by the time we ran the track Start & all articles excellent. Road construction nearby caused no issues. At 1st turn, checked right, then ahead, then left & went. As is common for Seren, took a few seco...

 Judi’s field & woods. 65degrees, minimal wind, quite dry. Track 2hr40min. old. Judi laid track Plan was to work on turns in woods with a semi-blind track. Leg 1 in hayfield with a right turn toward the woods. Leg 2 went into woods & on to a left turn. Leg 3 totally in woods, ending with a left turn. Leg 4 led to wood’s edge with an immediate right turn to leg 5 along the tree line. Seren had a nice start & 1st leg. 1st turn was good, but fairly quickly she began to veer to the left, ending up ~20ft off the track by the time she got to the tree line, causing her to miss an article on leg 2 in the field. She was very reluctant to enter the woods, & once she did, promptly got tangled in some multiflora rose briars. Once I got her untangled, she proceeded beautifully, making the 2 turns in the woods & indicating the article in the woods with no issues. Great turn at the woods exit & indication of end article. Clearly needs work on woods entry - will do the exer...

 Oak Knoll Middle School. Sunny, short grass. When track run, 65degrees, 6mph wind, 48% humidity. Track laid @9:45 & run @1:00(3hr15min) 2 short tracks, each with one acute angle turn & 1 food drop per leg. Start articles fabric, end leather. Seren took a few seconds to get on the track at the start of #1, from then on was lovely. At the turn (to the right), when she lost scent, she checked to the left first, got well behind me, but then turned & checked other direction without crossing behind. #2 was picture perfect from start to finish. This one had a left turn. Plan for tomorrow is to work on turns in the woods with a semi-blind track