Seren tracking

Hanover Courthouse Seren had a 3 turn track with extra article on leg 2. Good start & articles. Attitude good. 1st 2 turns nice. On 3rd turn, indicated it but kept going until she got to fence (perhaps because of deer on other side of fence). When fence stopped her, she found 4th leg easily & took it. Link to video:   https://youtu.be/es9UTwxvmXk?feature=shared Dylan had a long straight track with 9 (should have been 10, but I’m loosing my counting skills in my old age) articles - fabric, leather, metal, & plastic. Ran the track 3 times. 1st pass, I told him to down as he got to the article. 2nd pass, I hesitated before giving verbal cue (which generally wasn’t necessary) 3rd pass, no verbal cue. He did great with the article indications. I think 3 passes may have been overkill. A couple of times he anticipated the down by a lot! link to video 1:  https://youtu.be/LJDRE4_Md8A?feature=shared link to video 2:   https://youtu.be/oBw6HXX1YbE?feature=shared link to...

 Courthouse park.  Today’s theme was ‘ditches’. Nice cool morning so a little more age & distance than we have done recently. I thought she did quite well. Some minor distractions, peed where some (but not all) of the food drops had been. Ditches were not an issue. Next session we’ll do something young & short. Link to video:   https://youtu.be/-MhhMyOB29M?feature=shared Dylan was away at sheep camp

 Pole Green Park Seren had a 4 turn track with 2 intermediate articles. Good article indications. Not real confident at turns due to mowing on field we were using (came from 2 fields over to do this one just as we were starting), but her attitude was good. There had also been gun dog training going on while she was waiting in car, but the shooting had stopped by the time we started. It may have affected her mindset tho. Overall I was pretty pleased. link to video:   https://youtu.be/ex9mWEFbme8?feature=shared Dylan had a very long, straight endurance track. Gun dog training which involved shooting in the neighboring field didn’t bother him. Good articles & start. The wind was light & variable, & I noticed when it was blowing into our face, he held his head higher off the ground. Stayed on the track, tho, so I didn’t think it was an issue. There were a couple of random flags on the track - at the 1st, he was looking for a turn but kept going on when he didn’t find o...

Taylor Park Seren had a 4 turn track with 2 intermediate articles. The 2nd turn (the 1st left) was a hangman turn that was only 3 steps overshot. She had no trouble with this. I thought we did quite well with this track. Attitude was good Link to video: https://youtu.be/gP8EMK7IYng?feature=shared Dylan had a classic ‘by the book’ stairstep track. I thought he did well. Was not distracted by dogs barking at the shelter across the road, but his attention was drawn to a person going to the picnic shelter at the edge of the field we used. This was around the 2nd turn. In watching the video, I noted that I only told him ‘good boy’ after a right turn - don’t know why. So I will try to be more aware of that in the future & tell him him he’s good for turning left also! Link to video: https://youtu.be/6VYt7S1P2A4?feature=shared

 Courthouse Park. Had to alter plans due to unexpected mowing & prep for evening soccer games. Seren had a 2 left turn track with multiple articles, 25 steps apart followed by food ~10 steps later. Good attitude, very nice start & turns. Articles, however, sucked. Think I’ll next time do a straight line track with 10 or so articles & run the same track 3 times, similar to what I did with her a few years(!) back Link to  video:  https://youtu.be/SwP0i3_14Tw?feature=shared Dylan had a straight line track with multiple articles which I had planned to run 3 times but ended up only doing twice so as to get off the field faster. First pass was pretty good as gar as following track went tho indications not great. Second pass neither of us had our head totally in the game due to distractions, but his indications had significantly improved. we’ll try this again someday soon. link to video of 1st pass:    https://youtu.be/QOGcT3JSeSU?feature=shared link to vid...

  Chamberlayne Elementary. Sunny day but both tracks almost totally in the shade Seren had a 3 turn track in the open wooded area. 1 intermediate article. As I was finishing laying the track, saw a man walking in the woods, so there were fresh crosstracks, as her behavior made obvious. Because I knew where the track was, I was able to help her through it & her attitude remained good. Nice start & turns. Article indications weak. I think her next outing will be an article track link to video:   https://youtu.be/A536hjkBDQ0?feature=shared Dylan also had 3 turn track that was a little close to buildings & crossed sidewalks & a road. Paved areas scuffed & heavily fooded. Challenges that I didn’t (but should have) anticipate were light road traffic nearby & bare dirt/pine needle patches. Only areas where he had difficulty were moving from pavement back onto grass. He looked at passing car but did not try to go after them. I see an article track in his future...

 Courthouse Park Seren had a 4 turn track, with #3 a hangman’s turn to the right. At start flag I tried waiting her out for as long as I could stand it before telling her to down, which she readily did & then had a nice start. She was distracted about 1/3 of the way down 1st leg by a new friend off in the distance, got back to work after I called her back to me. Seemed confused at 1st turn (‘wait, I thought first turns were to the left these days’) but recovered well. Downed at both intermediate articles without verbal cue. Rest of turns were nice. I have no story made up for why no down at end article. link to video: https://youtu.be/U6zzkfc2dcI?feature=shared Dylan had a 3 turn track with short 3rd leg beside hedgerow & that leg had lots of food & scuffing. He did much better with staying attentive to the track than the last time we did this exercise. Everything else was good. link to video:   https://youtu.be/fUZLVjx1eFM?feature=shared

 Hanover Courthouse Seren did a 3 turn track, L,L,R, with 2nd turn as a hangman’s turn. No article on leg 2. She struggled a bit with the 2nd turn, did not particularly want to check left but finally did & found 3rd leg. I could read LOS easily. Didn’t want to play with articles (or down for that matter), wanted to keep tracking, so I let her. Needs to work more with hangman turns to the left, hope decent weather lasts a while. link to video:   https://youtu.be/jMlo2CThxPo?feature=shared Had planned for Dylan to track beside a hedgerow again, but he had diarrhea this morning so I didn’t want to use any food. Instead I did a short straight track with end article hidden behind a tree. Took him a few seconds to find it. I predict next time he locate it faster. link to video:   https://youtu.be/jKqy9SeukMk?feature=shared