11-16-25
Chamberlayne Elementary
Seren had a 2 turn track in the woods. Two extra articles with food leading up to all but start article, as next step for better indications in the woods. This didn’t seem to be a good plan for her - she was so enamored of rooting the food out of the leaves that she didn’t really notice the article. She didn’t resist the lie down cue, however. Other than that, pretty nice tracking, I thought.
video: https://youtu.be/PoAp1681Aks?feature=shared
Dylan had a 2 turn track with unfamiliar articles at start & in middle, then his favorite article at the end
Goal was to work on indications of unfamiliar articles. Don’t know why I wrote 8:20 as run time on map - it was really 11:20. Today he readily downs with verbal cue, not on his own with items he hasn’t seen before. Good start, stayed on track nicely.
video: Unfortunately, dumbass forgot to turn on camera



Seren: Beautiful start, and just lovely tracking. So much for the 5 food drops making her more thoughtful about the article…lets put food in the woods articles until you get a reliable indication in the woods, then we can either change to less smelly food or put food in 3 out of 4, 2. Out of 4 etc. Please continue to put a restart cookie down though, we don’t want the food laden article to take away from the salience of the track!
ReplyDeleteOh, and it looks like your track was 1hr 15” old? I think I’d like to see you pushing age in some sort of pattern (2 tracks <2hours for every track >3 hr?), so we can keep her confidence AND get her age up. I know I’m in the minority, but I think age is the single biggest reason dogs fail X tests. If <2 hours is strong (and I think it is, but I don’t see her in person), then make it <2.5 hours. Before you enter again, I’d like the 3 hour old tracks to be the ‘motivational’ ones
ReplyDeleteShe was more thoughtful, just not about the article, LOL. That track was 30 min old, as the one she did before that (in class) was 3.5 hr (final start track) and I was trying to concentrate on the article indication. I had planned for her next outing to be ~ 2 hr old. Does that seem reasonable? Will definitely try food in articles next time we do woods. Don’t think she needs it out in the open.
DeleteFWIW, Seren is the first dog I’ve tracked that seemed to care at all about age. Admittedly small sample size
Yes, 2 hrs sounds good. Personally, if I was hoping to test this season, I’d be pushing age. I appreciate your prior dogs ‘didn’t care,’ at least speaking for Darcy, we spent a LOT of time training age, and training at >3 hrs. So did they not care, or were they well trained? Katie did over 30 >5 hr old tracks…
Deletemy money is on WELL TRAINED!!
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