Seren tracking

 Taylor Park & Hanover Courthouse Seren did 4 short 1-turn tracks. all with frequent scuffing. #1 had 1 food drops/leg & was aged 1 hr. #2 had  2 food drops/leg & was aged 2 hrs. #3 had no food & was aged 3 hr. #4 had 1 food drop/leg & was aged 4 hr. This went great - good attitude, very precise turns, good article indications (even the belt). Quite encouraging going into a test!

 Soccer/cricket fields. Seren did not track. Dylan did a 4 turn track aged 45min. He was very enthusiastic, going so fast that he overshot 2nd turn by about 10’, even tho he was only on a 10’ line. Still seemed to pick up all food drops. Downed on command at both articles when I was 8-10 feet away

 Judi’s field. Seren had a 200yd straight line track with an article every 30yd. Alternated food drop or scuffing 15 yd after each article. Track laid @8:30&aged 3hr. Seren showed great enthusiasm throughout. Got sidetracked once early on, came back & got to work. I had to tell her to down at a couple of the articles, & one (belt) she just walked right over. I didn’t see it until I felt like it was too late to call her back, so we kept on. Obviously wouldn’t do that at a test. Back to the 4 start tracks day after tomorrow. Dylan did a 3 turn track which alternated food drop or scuffing every 30 yd. Track laid @9:15&aged 45 min. Short line held 5-10 feet. He took a minute to find the first turn-?-, otherwise did great. Downed at articles with verbal cue from me being ~6 feet away.

 Cool Water. Sunny, moderately windy. Temp varied from low 40s to upper 50s. Seren did 4 short, one-turn tracks, with no food on them, but with other augmentation such as scuffing. 1st was 1hr old, 2nd 2 hrs, 3rd 3 hrs, 4th 4hrs 20min. Objective was to increase her enthusiasm through better handling I think objective was achieved. She seemed much more confident with the later tracks video of #1:  https://youtu.be/_u9a6Bx1hXk?feature=shared video of #2:  https://youtu.be/1VpMY2pGq4o?feature=shared video of #3:  https://youtu.be/6M7wCP_ikVg?feature=shared videos of #4(I think):  https://youtu.be/CN1uD_eKDdk?feature=shared https://youtu.be/6M7wCP_ikVg?feature=shared Maps of tracks: Plan of action: article track in 3 days, then this exercise again but with food 2 days after that Dylan did a 4 turn track in Judi’s field. Laid  @1:15&aged 50 min. 65 degrees, sunny, 15mph, 31% humidity. Alternating augmentation of food & scuffing every 30 yds. He did some ...

 Klehr Field. partly cloudy, 68 degrees, wind 12 mph & gusty, 43% humidity  Seren did a 4 turn track, each leg ~50 yd. Scuffed out of turns 1,2,&4. Food @35 on legs 2&3. Article @25 on leg 4 with food @35. Track laid @9:05 & aged 3 hrs Start & articles were fine. Overshot 1st turn by 12 steps but turned to the left & came back on her own & found 2nd leg. Same with 2nd turn, but by only 10 steps. Before the food on leg 3 got distracted by something off to the right & I had to tell her to get back to work. The food was fortuitously placed so she got rewarded for just a few steps back on the track. Cut the corner at turn 3 by ~5 ft. 4th turn was right on. I will aim for Seren’s next track to be 2.5-3 hrs old Dylan did a 4 turn track, laid @11:15& aged 20 min.  Scuffed start & out of turns. Food every 30yds. First leg paralleled chain link fence maybe 5 feet away & went between fence & goal post. There was some trash on the fiel...

 Surry P&R. Sunny, 49 degrees, 4 mph wind, 69% humidity. Dylan only.Track laid @ 9:20 & aged 30 min 3 turn track, scuffed start & out of turns, food every 30. Food in start & end articles. Dylan did a good job. Tried to eat some trash ~3 feet off track, but left it when told to. Gave verbal down at start, with me standing up. At end articles, again needed verbal cue but did it when I was 4-5 feet away.

Holly Ridge. Sunny, mid 50’s?, light wind. Seren & I did a blind track through the woods. Tracklayers Beth & MaryAnn Aged 4 hours  link to videos:  Divided into 4 parts due to technical difficulties  part 1   https://youtu.be/FR5jtHO-ZXU?feature=shared part2 :  https://youtu.be/GRlhZIdeMvE?feature=shared part 3:    https://youtu.be/8IT4psyi5ig?feature=shared part 4:  https://youtu.be/haj3f0Pb9oU?feature=shared

 Windsor Park. Weeds bush hogged couple months ago. Overcast, 50 degrees, 5mph, 80% humidity. Seren did two 1-turn tracks, #1 turned to right, #2 to left. Scuffed out of turns & start. 1st leg 50 yd with food drop in middle, second leg 25 yd with food jackpot 15 steps after turn for both. Aged 2 hr 20 min. On both tracks, Seren acknowledged turn with head bob in the correct direction but did not stop until 12 steps after the turn (I went with her with line at ~10 feet). At this point she just stopped with head up. After a few seconds I backed up 2 steps while playing out a little line. Then she began to cast, but only to the direction of the turn. I backed up a couple more steps & she hit the second leg & took it to the jackpot as I let more line out, then on to the article.  Got some interesting information from this exercise - we’ll see if this pattern persists   Dylan did a 3 turn track aged 45 minutes with similar environmental conditions. Scuffed start ...

 Taylor Park. Seren did a classic stairstep, but with a food jackpot on legs 3, 5, & 5, and an article on leg 5. Track laid @ 8:30 & aged 4 hours 35 min. Seren found this to be more challenging than I thought she would. Her start was okay, but not as good as she is capable of. At the 1st 2 turns her LOS was pretty easy to read, but she dithered a lot before committing to the correct direction. Turns 3,4,&5 were quite good & I thought OK, we’ve got this now. Then on last turn things went south again. It’s possible I missed her initial loss of scent, but I stopped at the flag & let the line play out to 35’ or so before she stopped & began to cast for the track. Of course, she found it eventually, but it’s hard to be patient & just stand there for 10 minutes. (not really that long, but that’s what it feels like). All 3 articles were good. My plan for the next session is a couple of 3 hour old starts, with second leg 15-20yds long Dylan did a 3 turns track a...

 Surry P&R Seren did not track Dylan did a 3 turn track, aged 45 min. See map & photo I saw no difference in how Dylan ran today’s track & yesterday’s triple laid fresh track. He didn’t get any of the food on the first leg, but after the first turn he remembered that there were treats involved with tracking. There was a flock of wild turkeys on the field - they left when Dylan came out - but whatever scent they left behind appeared to have no relevance. I had to tell him to down at start article, but he did it on his own at the end while I was still 3-4 feet behind him

 Holly Ridge, tracking class. Sunny, 64 degrees, 2mph, 32%. Seren had a track, laid by Judi, that was about 2.5-3 hours old, went in field & woods. Had some fun obstacles & some articles that were not directly on the track. We had some difficulty with the first few turns. Articles were good & the obstacles were not a problem. I think we might benefit from doing a well-aged stairstep soon Link to video:  https://youtu.be/nkQW0JqdCdU?feature=shared Dylan had a 3 turn track laid by me,Joan, & Maureen & run fresh. Food 3 steps beyond scuffed turns, rest of track S5,W15,F,W15,S5… This went quite well. Link to video:   https://youtu.be/JlfxJQDnsx8?feature=shared

 Hanover CH. Sunny, light wind. Seren did a short, 2hr old track with some easy obstacles, laid @9:30. 48 degrees Her start & articles were good. First turn, into woods dead on, as was path through woods. Toward end of 2nd leg, coming up on 2nd turn, there was a large circular depression in the ground that might have something to do with the water system that I had thought might have something to do odd scent movement, so I had scuffed that whole area. I was correct that this portion of the track caused Seren some difficulty & I don’t know if the scuffing was all that helpful. But she worked it out & got going on the 3rd leg & from then on all was good. No issues with road, ditch, or walkway crossing.  Dylan did a 30min track, S5,W15,F,W15,S5. Scuffed in & out of turns with a food drop 3 steps past out scuffing. 43 degrees. For the most part he was very dedicated to the track. Occasionally lifted head in response to noise in nearby woods, stopped to sniff d...

 Cool Water.  Seren did a 250yd straight line track with an article every 25 yd & food 10 yd past each article (except end one. Track laid by Anne Morris @7:38 & aged 4 hours. Two of the articles were tossed to the side of the track. Nice start & most articles were good. At the 1st ‘to the side’ , Seren went right to it, indicated & went back to track. At the other one she went past it, then turned & looked for it, but she needed a lot of encouragement to actually hunt for it. Another of the articles, which was right on the track, she passed over & I held her back & she did find & indicate it. The age of the track did not seem to bother her.   Link to video for this track:  https://youtu.be/lGMoqgq6LeA?feature=shared Dylan did a blind 2 turn track laid by Ann Lee & aged 15 min. Start & end articles had food in them, turns were scuffed in & out with food at end of out scuff. S5,W15,F,W15,S5. He did very well. Link to video: ...

 Judi’s field & woods. When track run, sunny, 50 degrees, 9mph, 39%. Track laid @9:00 & aged 4 hrs. This was a woods entry (or not) track. Seren had a good start, entered the woods readily, made the 1st turn just fine after briefly considering cutting the corner. Turn to along edge of woods lovely, as was indication of article on leg 3. She had a hard time turning away from the woods edge out into the open field for leg 4, which gave me the opportunity to play with slightly & gradually increasing line tension when she was going the wrong way. If I remember correctly, she did actually pull into the harness a bit at one point, but it remains a fine line with her. Indication of metal article on leg 5 was great. Last turn was better than 3rd, but I think she still would have preferred to go back into the woods🙂. This was a good exercise which I think we should repeat fairly regularly. Dylan’s track was laid @9:25 & run at 30 min. At that time it was overcast, 46degrees...

 Courthouse Park. 56 degrees, 11mph, 42% Seren did a 3 turn track with 2 turns & 1 article in tall (4’) grass. Track laid @8:50 & run @11:00. There were a few mild sticker plants in the tall grass which she skirted & came back to track. She was ~4-5 feet off to the right on 2nd leg & therefore had a hard time finding the middle article (plastic brush), but she kept looking until she found it & indicated nicely. There was dog poop right after last turn, so I made a big food drop just a few feet after that & she paid no heed to the poop I tried to balance between keeping a short line, 10 feet or so, but let her figure out any problems, which she successfully did. Dylan did a 3 turn track with one leg up next to a hedgerow. Laid @11:30 & aged 30min. Turns were scuff 10 in, 10 out, with food at end of scuff out. Because I thought it would be challenging, leg next to hedgerow was S5,W10,F,W10,S5. Rest was S5,W15,F,W15,S5. Food in both articles  Dylan did...

 Picture of the really nice TDX track which Seren & I failed on 3-2-25. Tracklayer was Valerie