December 1st, 2025
Location: Riverview Farm Park
Track Layer: Myself and Heather
Article: Varied between toys and clothing items
Goal for the day: Work on turns with a different pattern and also implement scent pads
How did it feel? Feeling a bit frustrated to be honest. He seems to be consistently inconsistent on what hangs him up.
3 Things That Went Well:
- He started off enthusiastically with his starts which is nice to see
- Mixed review on the drag bag. It seemed to help on one turn but not on the other
- He liked the scent pads
3 Things to Improve On:
- Trying the two tracks side by side again to work on defining that loss of scent behavior.
- Track 2 showed that unexpected dogs nearby can derail him. Light, controlled distraction setups might help build that muscle.
- He tends to get lost right after turns. A bit more support or scent pad use there could help smooth that out.
Track 1
This track was 177 yards with two turns. I placed an article 15 steps after each turn, per Judi’s instructions. Food was dropped every 12 paces on the straight sections. For the turns, I switched to 5 small food drops between each pace into the turn. Coming out of the turn, I used the drag bag and a scent pad: drag for 2 paces, scent pad, then drag again for 2 paces. I’m hoping to start weaning him off the heavier food drops on the turns. On the first turn, that didn’t go super well, he lost the scent and kind of stared off until I encouraged him. But on the second turn, he took it perfectly without missing a beat! After that turn he got a little lost again, but he worked through it and finished the track.
Side note: the Meta AI glasses only record for three minutes at a time, which is why the video cuts out twice.
Track 2
We tried the “loss of scent” exercise from class that I missed. The setup was a track with one turn, then three steps off to the side before laying a straight line. Right before we started, two off-leash dogs came out to play fetch with their owner. They were far enough away that it shouldn’t have been an issue, but Finwe just could not stop watching them. You can’t hear it clearly on the video, but he was whining a lot again in frustration. At one point he dropped down to roll around, and I had to stop him. We got a bit stuck, so I tried moving around slightly behind him to create some energy and get him going again. He eventually did continue. The articles on this track were stationary. He acknowledged the first one, but walked right past the second until I called him back. After this exercise, we talked about what adjustments we need to make going forward, things like using more scent pads and watering in between tracks.
Track 3
Heather laid a track using scent pads to walk me through what was covered in class. It was a nice, easy, confidence-building track for him. He kept his head down, happily slurping up the treats. At one point you can see his nose drift off the scent pad in the wrong direction, but he immediately corrected himself, which was interesting to see.
I would make an effort to incorporate Scent Pads w/food on every track for the next two months. I would have one at the start, then three feet beyond that, then five feet beyond that, 10 yards before any turn, 3 yards after any turn. You can play around with the 10 before and 3 after distances AFTER his turning gets stronger.
ReplyDeleteI would water EVERY time I re-scent.
And, I would use two start flags as described in the TD chapter. Especially when the tracks are blind. Why not give yourself that visual? I marked my 3 ft and 5 ft scent pad for a long time so I would stop Jack there if he blasted by them - I faded them over time and it had zero impact on him. I would put a scent pad there and gradually push that out by a yard each time he is successful motoring down the first leg.
Heather tells you to move closer to him on the track re-aquisition drill (3) and you move up. I personally would have been that close to him for track one and two, and give him line if he is searching at a turn. Then hustle back up.
I think his article indication is better, even without pulling the string. But, I would continue to surprise him pulling the string.
Track 1 was good! The only suggestion I have is to say your tracking command after the article instead of saying “let’s keep going” say “track” or whatever your cue is. Might give him more clarity. I like his precision and he definitely tells you when he has lost scent.
ReplyDeleteI’m sitting back in my easy chair letting everyone else make the salient comments!
ReplyDelete