Seren tracking

 Surry P&R. Short grass, 53degrees, 15mph gusty wind, 45% humidity. Track laid at8:25 & aged 65 min. This is an excellent location for training road obstacles (2 lane paved road with almost no traffic), so I decided we should finally take advantage of it. See google earth photo for details, but did some paralleling of the road, crossing it, bouncing of it, etc. In addition to fabric start & leather end articles, I put a metal one on leg 2 & a plastic one on leg 5. Food drops 30 yds after 1st turn, 10 yds after intermediate articles, immediately after road crossings, at 25 & 70 yds on leg 3, & at 15 yds on last leg. Realizing that this track was only an hour old, I was pretty impressed with Seren’s performance here. Start & all articles excellent. At 2nd turn (the ‘bounce off’ one) after she lost the scent she checked into the road a few feet, didn’t find it, then checked left along the edge of the road, then caught the scent to the left going away from t...

 Taylor Park. Short grass. Sunny Seren did 4 start tracks of increasing age. All of my training tracks start with 10 scuff steps. #1 laid @ 8:50&aged 2 hr. 1st leg 65 yd, food at 30, to right turn, then 50 yd to end. 46 degrees, 38% humidity, 11 mph gusty wind. This was nicely done. Both articles good. Started in wrong direction (the direction at which we approached the start flag) but corrected onto the track after a couple steps. The occasional wind gusts would blow her downwind a couple feet off the track but she quickly corrected  #2 laid @8:55& aged 3 hr. 1st leg 75yd with food at 25, to left turn. Scuffed out of turn. 2nd leg 60yd, food at 20. 51 degrees, 37% humidity, 9mph with gusts. Seren didn’t show loss of scent at the turn until about 2 feet beyond it. Checked right first, then turned to the left & quickly picked up 2nd leg. Start & articles good #3 laid @9:00 & aged 4hr. When laying the track I alternated 5 scuff steps or a food drop every 10 y...

 Crump Park. Short grass, sunny. Track laid @8:05 & aged 2 hours. 45 degrees, 5mph, 54% humidity when run.  Track 1 had some tire ruts in it about 2/3 of the way down. Track 2 had a lot of frozen goose poop. Both had multiple human & dog cross tracks.I thought the park would be sparsely populated in the early morning cold, but I was wrong. Seren had a good start on #1 but struggled a bit a short way down the track. Got back on the track on her own. Very interested in the tire ruts - didn’t try to follow them, but stopped & sniffed for a long time, to the point I reminded her to get back to work. No difficulty at the turn. #2 seemed easier for her in spite of all the goose droppings. Again no issue with the turn. All 4 article indications were good. I’m not sure she got any of the food drops, as most of the (off lead) dogs who ran over her tracks were Labradors😂 I’ll try to use a quieter area for the 2,3,4,5 hour old exercise. Dylan did a 15min. old 2 turn track wi...

 link:  https://youtu.be/NRycnLPY3L8?feature=shared

 Tracking class at Judi’s. Track laid by Anne, at 8:05 & aged 4hr 5 min. Sunny, breezy, 37 degrees, 38% humidity when run. Multiple cover changes (grass, harvested soybean, snow, ice, woods, dirt ‘road’). Food after cover changes & other challenges. Two intermediate articles. Seren’s start & up to beyond 1st turn did not inspire confidence in handler who had just sent in 3 entries. However, once she got beyond 1st turn things looked pretty good. Definitely indicated all articles, but didn’t really want to lie down, Next session we will do some 2hr start tracks, then on to 3hr, then 4hr. (separate sessions) Dylan did a 20 min old (meant for it to be 15 min) 2 turn track at 12:55. S5, W5, F, W5, S5…. Turns scuffed 5 in & 5 out with food every 2 scuffs. 40 degrees, 41% humidity, 8mph wind, sunny. Used portion of hay field with no snow or ice. I used a start article for the first time & in retrospect should have used a food drop after the initial scuffing as he was ...

 Courthouse Park. Short grass & frozen goose poop. Sunny, 19degrees, 11mph wind, 50% humidity. Track laid @9:15 & aged 1 hour Seren did a straight line article track using 10 articles of fabric, leather, plastic, or metal - article, 10 yd to food drop, 25yd to article, 10 yd to food drop, 25 yd to article, 10 to food, etc Seren did just fine with this, indications were excellent. Next time I do an article track I will try to include some changes of cover Dylan did a straight line track with slightly increased distance between food drops. S5,W12, F, W12, S5… for 200 yd. He was stellar, dead on the entire length of the track. Stopped in place a few times to look at traffic, then right back to it.   Conditions same as for Seren’s, but his was aged 15 min.

 Chamberlayne Elementary. Short grass & open woods. Track laid @8:30&aged 3hr. When track run, 43degrees, 7mph wind, 80% humidity. Overcast with light drizzle. This was a turns & articles in the woods track. See map & Google Earth photo. Good start, nice tight turns. Only flaw was I had to tell Seren to lie down at all articles except the end one. She didn’t even really indicate the metal one in the woods. I see an article track in our near future. Dylan did a 2 turn track, aged 15min, S5, W10,F, W10, S5…. Scuff 5 in & out of turns with food every 3. 38degrees, 4mph, 89% humidity. Overcast with very light drizzle Wow! There were some challenges for a beginner dog that I didn’t anticipate when plotting the track (bad trainer!), but nobody told Dylan that tracking on pine needles or near buildings or on contaminated grounds, or past pine cones (one of his favorite toys) was hard. He was stellar. Used novel end article & he downed on his own. I think he’s good ...

 Klehr field. Short grass, snow covered in places. Seren’s track was put in @10:20&aged2hr10min. 42degrees, 4mph wind, 51% humidity when run. Sunny This was a different kind of scent re-aquisition track, with articles right on the turns. After downing at the first article (at the 1st turn) she got up & went straight about 5 feet before indicating loss of scent. Checked left first, found 2nd leg & went. Found food drop @25 yd & then ~5yd further on picked head up & stopped. I don’t know if she was air-scenting something or hearing something or what but I had to tell her a couple of times to get back to work before she did. At 2nd turn she had the game figured out & started checking around for the track as soon as she got up from indicating the article, found 3rd leg easily & went. Last 3/4 of 3rd leg was snow covered, which was no problem, but Seren really doesn’t like to lie down in the snow so I had to verbally cue her for that at end article. Dylan had...

 Chestnut Ridge Farm, Charlottesville. Pasture grass with snow covered in fairly thick ice. Track laid @11:00 & aged 4 hours. When track was run it was sunny, 42 degrees, 6mph wind, 49% humidity. Snow was beginning to melt. Since I was working on age here, I just made a simple 2 turn track. 85 yd to left turn, 75 to right turn, 100yd to end. Large food drop every 30, no articles except start & end. Seren did well, nice start & turns, but frequent side excursions (5-8 feet) to snack on deer droppings. I don’t know why deer poop is such a gourmet item compared to all the other species which she is around all the time & ignores. She wasn’t keen on lying down in the snow, but did when asked. Dylan did a straight line track of about 200 yds, aged 15 minutes. S5,W10,F,W10, S5, etc. Field conditions same as Seren’s except 30 degrees so no melting snow & there were more patches of grass w/o snow. Only problem with this one was me trying to walk on the lumpy hard snow. H...

 Surry P&R. Sunny,28 degrees, 15mph, 48% humidity when run. Track laid @ 8:30 & aged 75min Seren did 2 start tracks. #1 first leg 100yd to left turn then 2nd leg 60 yd. #2 1st leg 90 yd to right turn then 2nd leg 80 yd. One food drop on each leg. She did fine, very businesslike Dylan also did 2 starts, 1st with turn to left, 2nd to the right. His were aged 15 minutes. Pattern of S5, W10,F, W10, S5, etc Turns were scuffed 5 in & 5 out with food every 2-3. He also did fine, increased age did not appear to matter. I need to start using a bigger variety of articles. He had a glove & his slipper today - indicated the glove, but was very happy to find the slipper

 Holly Ridge. This was a fence obstacle exercise, track laid by Judi. I lost original map, the one posted here is drawn from memory & may have minor errors. Video recorded in fast forward mode, don’t know how to fix it🤷‍♂️ But Seren did a great job. Knew 2nd leg went thru fence, took her a few seconds to decide she could do that & then she did. Wasn’t crazy about downing for a couple of the articles, but did when cued. Had a tendency to drift down tire tracks, but came back to track for article.  Turns were very nice. Worked mostly on a 20’ line.  Link for video:  https://youtu.be/oAOLN-jZvwA?feature=shared Dylan did a fresh, 2 turn track laid by Judi. Same scuff/walk pattern as last few sessions. Tracked enthusiastically & accurately, but needed some help with his article indication at the end Link to video:   https://youtu.be/9PkgzOJwBxs?feature=shared

 Oak Knoll Middle School. Short, crusty snow covered grass with some ice patches from previous day’s melt. Multiple cross-tracks from humans & dogs. 30degrees, 13mph, 50% humidity when run. Track laid @8:45&aged 2hr Picture of track, then of turn Did a 2 turn track with 2 articles tossed to the side (R,L,R,L), about 6-8 ft off the track on legs 1&3. Leg 2 had an article directly on the track. All were fabric or leather. Large food drops ~10 yds beyond articles, on the track.  Seren enjoyed this exercise. At the 1st article, she downed & then was up & back on the track before I could get over & pick it up. 2nd article was at an ice patch, so she would have preferred to not lie down, but did so with prompting & was quickly back on the track. Nice tight turns (see photo). 1st article on leg 3 similar to previous. At the last one before the end article she 1st checked left for a couple of feet, then went right & took a few seconds to find it, & ...

 Seren:  Klehr Field. Short, snow-covered grass, starting to melt in sunny spots. When run, 31 degrees, 12 mph, 64%. Track laid @10:15 & aged 1 hr. 20 min. Repeated the step to the side exercise, this time with 4 sidesteps (L,R,L,R) in 170 yds, food jackpot 15-20 yds into new portion. Only start & end articles. Crossed a few human tracks & hundreds of small bird prints, all there before I put in the track.  Seren did really well with this today. I used the line at 20 feet, but she never got close to that far off the track. At each sidestep, her head came up at less than her body length beyond the end of that portion of the track. She always checked right first, then left. If next portion was to the left, she went with it, & came back to the right only if that was where the track was. By the 3rd sidestep, she was really getting into it, chugging along in a way atypical for her.  Didn’t mind lying down in the snow to indicate the 2 articles. At the end ...

 Soccer fields. High thin clouds, 41degrees, 45% humidity, wind 10mph with gusts. Tree trimming crew working ~150 yds away. Track laid @10:55 & aged 30 min. Laid a 100yd straight track. After ~30 yds took 2 big steps to the left, then continued in the original direction, with food jackpot after 5 yds & article 5 yds beyond that. At about 60 yds, 2 big steps to the right, article at 5 yds, then food at 15.  At 1st sidestep, Seren checked to the right, then laid down in response to very light pressure on line. Got up with mild encouragement, found the ‘new’ track, & continued. Did better with 2nd sidestep.  I don’t recall her having any issues with this exercise when I did it before - maybe 2 years ago? Was noise from tree crew making her uncomfortable?? I will definitely repeat it, along with the other one. Dylan did the same track as yesterday, but with turns to the right. Did equally well. Missed a few pieces of food at the turns, but none on the straightaway...

 Courthouse Park. Track laid @8:55&aged 3 hours. Sunny. When run, 51 degrees, 50% humidity, wind 16mph with gusts to 30 This was a ‘change of cover’ track, with 1 or 2 turns in the new cover. Google Earth’s photo is out of date, so I had to improvise a lot, but the spirit of the exercise was still there. Wind was blowing from left to right on the map. Start & leg 1  was in a strip of short grass between parking lot & tall grass.  Seren had a terrible start & 1st leg. She kept going off to the right, & stepping over behind her did not make her come back to the track like it usually does. Could have been wind effect, contamination, or the lure of deer poop in the tall grass, who knows. I was using a 10 foot line. She made the 1st turn early & gradually got further off to the right munching on deer poop the whole way. I never saw a loss of scent indication, I think because she never was actually following my scent. When I realized how far off the trac...