December 5th
We met up with Heather and Wren, who are in the Tuesday tracking class. The location was Kiwanis Park in Williamsburg. Heather laid our tracks and I laid her and Wren’s. It was extremely windy and chilly!
Track 1
Heather laid this track at 41 feet with 10 inch chicken food drops. As she was laying the track a loose dog came up and starting eating the track. 😒
Finwë is getting MUCH better at pulling me right to the start flag. He knows treats are waiting now! This track was slllooowwww. He also looked up a couple of times and stared off at who knows what. I either waited him out or one time I verbally told him to keep going. No pointing. Once we got to the article I tried to make it a party. Treat right away and then let’s play with Heather’s article!
Track 2
Heather double laid this shorter at 30 feet and the food drops were 12 inches apart. The wind was causing issues and blew the food off the track some. So it was a rough start and a bit of weaving back and forth looking for the food. Then when he was straight he seemed to be off the track by a foot, he kept turning sideways to grab the food. Again at the end/article. Party time with treats ready! Looking back I should have had her lay the food closer together based on for the first track went. Lots of distractions and wind made it hard for the puppy brain to focus.
After tracking the pups got to run and play together.
New tracking friends—both human and canine! Love the photo! This was awesome training. Public parks are hard, and they result in super well trained dogs. Take your time, keep the food drops close. your dogs are learning to tease out the real track from all the other stuff. Proof? When you come to class, in ‘clean’ fields, your dogs will laugh at us because it’s so easy for them. Oh..and crows will come steal your food too. Once they know you, they’ll come when you show up.
ReplyDeleteSeriously, I loved this. He worked hard, and did the job.
This is awesome! One of the hardest things can be finding a partner to lay tracks - glad you and Heather are able to train together. As Judi said, public parts are challenging but it can be a very good thing in training. And you can always re-lay a track of there is an opportunistic creature.
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