1-2-26
Pole Green Park
Seren had a short 3 turn track incorporating tall weeds & brush - no briars, but unanticipated fallen vines & weeds difficult to walk in so used lots of food & made track shorter than planned. Planned Age 2 hrs 45min.
About an hour before time to run track, the cross country kids showed up & began a series of 20-30 kids running down 1st leg & crossing 4th. After I observed that they intended to do this multiple times I decided the combination of very challenging cover & severe human contamination, after doing a fairly difficult track last time out, had too high a potential of being severely demotivating & gave up on this track. Took Seren with me on lead (no harness) to pick up flags & articles, to give her something to do & do see how she handled the tall cover. It was interesting- she indicated start article, but made no attempt to track on 1st leg. Once into the tall grass, she followed the track & indicated the article on 2nd leg. In the areas where I had difficulty walking, she quickly figured out she could duck down & go under the stuff, like going thru a tunnel. So I just dropped the lead & let her do her thing. I know I couldn’t do that at a test, but hopefully no judge would plot such a thing. A big, heavy person may be able to walk on it, but not me. Once she got back to the short grass, she stopped ‘tracking’.
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Dylan had a 2 turn track, age 45 min, incorporating a deep depression in the ground. Google Earth photo shows much more gravel than actually present.
SAR folks also training here today, so Dylan had a novel distraction of one of their guys coming towards us on the 1st leg of his track. Handled it reasonably well, I thought. Articles not as good as Wednesday. No issues with going up or down fairly steep hill.
So proud and happy that you skipped Seren's track. I am sure she enjoyed the deeper grass adventure. Dylan looks great. It was hard to tell but on his track, right before the man walks by, you appear to be three feet to the left of where Dylan is. Like you know where the track is, you are walking on it, he is off right. Maybe it's the gopro. But if not, be careful about that. Get in behind him to "invoke the magic" or stop moving and hold your ground so he gets true to the track. He looks good!!
ReplyDeleteSo I commented on this one yesterday afternoon but it didn't save 😔. Agree with Mary Ann on her comment about your placement (or it being an artifact of the go pro). Dylan did great going right back to tracking after the man passed (that guy looked nervous that Dylan was gonna get him :)). IMO the depression was a tough challenge...I'd imagine quite a few critters pass through there and use the drainage pipe as a hideout (at least based one what I see in the drainage culverts around my neighborhood) and he handled it quite well, nice job limiting his exploration in the bowl! Was the end article meant to be your reinforcement? I only saw the 1 food drop on your map -nicely place for bowl entry, but I'm wondering if some reinforcement for the exit might have really helped solidify the 'nice job kicking @ss' message...just a thought for next time. That said, looked great, though the verbal cue for the down is persisting (getting more necessary, maybe??)! How are the article games going?
ReplyDeleteQuick comment: please go back on a weekday AM and do some short portion of the short grass-long cover-short grass section. We want to make sure that transition is solidly in her skill set.
ReplyDeleteThe ladies beat me to the punch here - nothing more to add but I really liked your track design here to use the environment. (And good on you for canceling Seren's track - it can be a hard call sometimes, especially when it wasn't an easy lay!)
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