Thursday, June 16, 2011

2 Tracks Wednesday

First leg of Blasts' track yesterday, because of heat building up so quickly, a change of plans in locations and aging. I laid Tanks' track first, and put him on it quickly, and then re-did the track for Blast, so both had only about 15 mins. aging. Also decided to do Tank first, as he's more experienced, and would be a "bonus" for Blast. My biggest concern was leaving any or both in the van for any length of time.Blast worked well across the driveway, only giving a quick glance to a fellow walking along the road, to the left, swinging a cane. I had thought this may be a concern for him, so was really pleased he was so focused on the track.He seemed to show little difference in his style on both veg. and non-veg. which is great....bearing in mind, the track was double-laid and extremely fresh.Tank had worked in this spot the same as Blast did. First checking around the flower pots, and both very interested in the little tuft of grass to his right ( I assumed a dog had marked here ) as this is also at the corner of the building. You can see where I walked out from the grass to the gravel, just to his left.Blast just overshot the corner and has turned and is now standing directly on it. Again, you can see my footprints turning right.He was tracking a little to the left of his track, bearing in mind, Tank had already been through here, and he has just turned to the article in this picture.I'm getting the cold shoulder here! He barely paused when he found the metal article, and just wanted to move on. So from a distance behind him, I asked for a down and got a sit.
I'm not a fan of obedience on the track, or killing the drive by asking for it. Right now, I'd be happy with just a momentary, but clear, stop and look. I'd rather have him happily tracking and moving at a good, steady pace right now.This was quite a long stretch of hard surface, after the corner early on. I was happy with how Blast worked along here.This area had nice, short grass and I know a lot of people walk their dogs through here. We were lucky there was no-one there fairly early in the day.Having said that, he had just taken a fast detour to a previous tree (like the one above) off the track. I prevented him from reaching it, this was a problem I had early on with Trust, and in training, I will NOT allow the dog to reach the tree and learn it is ok...because it's not.Blast made the transition from the grass to the gravel with no problem. He did overshoot the corner, on the gravel, and continued on into some weeds, before turning back to find the corner, above. Moving down the gravel driveway, he's about to zip to the left where there is stagnant water (not shown). Again, I stopped him before reaching this. Allowing the dog to search for scent is one thing, but learning to show interest in obvious distractions, IMO, are not allowed in training.Back on the track and dead on down to the next corner. Really nice working along here.He has just made the turn and I'm waiting to move forward, letting him cross over to the grass first. This is an 'interesting' area to work the dogs, especially when it is windy. This 'roofed over' structure was built last year as winter protection over top of an outdoor skating area. So you have wind gusts at times, and a large shaded area as you see above on the one side. You can go up through a paved area in between and also out on the sunny part of the grass. More of this above area shows on Tanks' track which I will put on later.We've passed through the long grassed area side of the roofed structure where he found a plastic article. Here we've just crossed a narrow driveway and the red arrow points to his small leather article. He crossed just left of the track and will turn to the article, also another obstacle as it's up on the ramp, and hemmed in by the building and fenced in generator.And there it is! Now that's a stop, and I'd be happy with that at any time, it's a clear indication.