Seren tracking

 Dorey Park. Dylan only today. Endurance track with one turn. Intermediate article ~2/3 of the way down 1st leg. Food drops every 50-100 steps. Age 1 hour 15 min. He did well, no problem with the distance. Downed on his own for all but start article. Mildly distracted by blown over trash can, got right back to work. Did lift his leg on fence - my bad, I thought those type of enticements were far enough off the track so I didn’t do any extra enhancement there. Maybe he was feeling extra studly today. Nice start & turn. I was interested to observe the effect the relatively mild wind had on him. Going into the wind, he keeps his head pretty high (leg 1) where in a crosswind he has nose to ground but tends to scallop off the track & back by a foot or two (leg 2). I need to try to remember to pay attention to this in the future with him & other dogs. https://youtu.be/2JQA2y2r30o?feature=shared

 Judi’s woods. Top hat track, starting & ending at woods’ edge, rest in the woods. Age 3hr 5min. Tracklayer - Ralph It was excellent! video:  https://youtu.be/H-xtcKA1syg?feature=shared

 Hanover Courthouse Seren did a short, 2 turn track in lawn-type grass, aged 2.5 hours. The first turn had an article on it. She did quite well. No issues with article on turn. Went off track twice to mark extraneous scent - one was a baby wipe on the ground, ugh. She seemed fine with the age of the track https://youtu.be/XY4jqg23f14?feature=shared Dylan did 4 one-turn start tracks, aged 30 min to 2 hours. Needed verbal for all article indications. Starts were all good, even the one where I forgot an article & the one where I inadvertently made an acute angle approach. On the last 2 tracks, he went off the track a bit to investigate an extraneous scent, & I didn’t time my ‘get back to work’ as well as last time this happened. He had no problem re-acquiring the track either time. Don’t know if he was more easily distracted on the last 2 because they were older, or if that’s just where the scent distractions were. He did very well with the street traffic, which was heavier th...

 Chamberlayne Elementary school. Seren had a 3 turn track with multiple ‘obstacles’, none of which were new to her. Age 3 hours, one intermediate article. This was good for both of us. I had forgotten how long it has been since she tracked in such a heavily contaminated area & it was fun to watch her use her problem solving skills. Also, some of the legs were long enough that I had time step behind her to see if she got back on track - she did. Articles were good - she went off track a bit to check out a piece of paper on the 3rd leg, realized it wasn’t a legit article, but thought about it for a msec & decided to lie down anyway. Will do some more of this type of area more often & not always try to pick the least used area of the park or schoolground where we are training. video:  https://youtu.be/8ItATRhcNFM?feature=shared Dylan had a straight line track with multiple articles, food 10-15 steps after each article. He did a pretty good job of staying on task, down...

 Capitol Park Just Dylan today, aim was to give him a chance to track in the wind. 4 turn track on soccer fields, aged a little longer than I had planned. Because of the wind challenge, I used a lot more food than I have been lately & kept the line fairly short. I thought he did an admirable job of working through distractions - blowing leaves & other debris, flapping field tarps, barking dogs, ropes hitting flag poles, tent flapping… To show how much self control he had while working, after we were done & were picking up flags, a little whirlwind of leaves blew by overhead & he took after it, pulling the line out of my hands & chasing it across 3 soccer fields. He came when called, after the whirlwind dissipated. (another issue to work on separately). He did not eat most of the food I had put down https://youtu.be/VYN4wwq4HaY?feature=shared  video:

 North Park Library. Seren only today. Short, 2 turn track that went into the woods. Two intermediate articles with food, start & end articles no food. Age 4 hours I was pretty happy with this. Scent appeared to do some weird things beside building at top of small slope on 1st leg, but she handled it well. Articles in woods were lovely. At 1st turn, indicated & went in correct direction (would I have know this on a blind track?) but then appeared to lose confidence, came back & checked around some more, ultimately came back to the left turn. Second turn was made confidently.  Even tho these were pretty nice open woods, I still managed to get tangled up, trip over logs, step in holes, etc. Even got my biothane line caught in a tree trunk??? But I think I mostly succeeded in being still until she definitively showed me the track. https://youtu.be/oBK1Ptkh6C0 ?feature=shared

 Judi’s woods & field Seren did a 2 hour old stairstep track in the woods, article on every leg. I was very pleased with how things went https://youtu.be/QwBOa8ed7XE ?feature=shared Dylan had his first chance to track in snow. Snow was thin, patchy, & mostly melted, but there was a visible human crosstrack after the first turn, probably from yesterday. He did not try to go down this track, but did investigate it (or something near or on it) thoroughly. Got back to work right away though, after I decided he had investigated whatever it was long enough. I didn’t see that he paid any attention to the snow. https://youtu.be/51uhzEvmsMs ?feature=shared