Seren tracking

 Chamberlayne Elementary. Seren had a 3 turn track (L-L-R) with article to play with on each leg. Scuffing 5 steps after turn, food 10-20 steps after articles. Did not age track as long as planned as it was getting hot faster than anticipated. Seren acted like the track had been contaminated by another dog running on it while we were away letting it age - it is a popular spot for neighborhood people to bring their dogs to run. Start didn’t look as bad on video as it felt. She is handling mild pressure on the line better today. I was pleased with turns, especially 2nd one. Don’t know what her issue with the running track was today - she has crossed it dozens of times in the past without blinking. Main problem with today was it was too hot! Link to  video:   https://youtu.be/gXwicV2BJCo?feature=shared

 Courthouse park.  Seren -  experimented with playing with intermediate articles on the track, one on each leg. 3 left turns, then a right. Scuffed 5 steps after each turn. Playing with the articles certainly seemed to improve her enthusiasm, seems like a good plan for a while. Also, the track design appeared to answer the question of 2nd turn vs left turn. At least for now, she definitely prefers to go right. Will repeat the same thing with R-R-R-L & see what happens Link to video:  https://youtu.be/K6K5cUTxptY?feature=shared   Dylan had a 2 turn track with changes of cover - short/tall grass. 1 food drop/leg, scuff 5 steps after each turn. Age 45 min. Observation - Dylan ?.almost? always checks my ‘walk up to the start flag’ track before heading in the right direction. Today he had to think about the tall grass entry, but figured it out pretty quickly. Link to video:   https://youtu.be/fdqLCYG-RjM?feature=shared

 Chamberlayne Elementary. Seren had a 2 turn track in very open woods, aged 1 hour. each turn was scuffed into, then 3 big steps in new direction, then scuff 10. No food on track. Start & 1st turn good. 2nd turn she would have preferred to go right - don’t know if that’s because previous one went that way, or if she’d just rather go right. At any rate, she figured it out. End article hidden behind a small log & she did fine with that. I will do more of those kind of turns in the future. link to video: https://youtu.be/F9MEDY-8_NU?feature=shared Dylan had a track with the same design, but with one food drop on each leg & aged 20 min. He was slow to lie down at start so got a verbal cue, end article was great. He did very well with whole track. link to video:   https://youtu.be/v8X1HTv3dcI?feature=shared

 Klehr Field. Seren had a re-acquisition of the track exercise. After start, walked ~25yd, then took 3 large steps to the right, scuffed, & continued in same direction. After ~35 yd more, did same thing but to the left. She did well with those parts - I never saw an LOS indication, she just went diagonally to the next part both times. But, after the 2nd sidestep, she wanted to veer to the left, I think to check out some trash in the field. Not wanting her to get too far off the track, I let out a little bit of line, then applied slight pressure to the line & she stopped. Once I got her going again, I let her check the trash & she then came back to the track. I think a better strategy may have been to let her go off the track & step over behind her to see if she came back.  I’m open to other interpretations. Link to video:  https://youtu.be/ocb5pp1Ph3U?feature=shared Dylan had a line track with multiple articles. Scuffed after each article (except the last ...

 Atlee High School. Seren did a short, two turn track. Challenges included sloping ground which had been recently walked all over by dogs & people, very warm weather, & a little more age than we have done recently (90min) I thought things went quite well, but now we have video so can get other opinions. link to video:    https://youtu.be/QcYDHd3tcMs?feature=shared Dylan also had a 2 turn track. 1st 2 legs ended up longer than planned. Planned challenges included passing thru line of trees, & heat. Unplanned challenges were extensive dog/human traffic over area, before track was laid, & a ditch right after 2nd tree line crossing. The tree line did require some problem solving skills for an adolescent male, but he handled it. I’m very pleased that he is happy to drink water on the track link to  video:   https://youtu.be/G6yJmKUiUAc? feature=shared