Kira - 2 little searches

Pretty hot again today, decided to just do two short searches for Kira outside. One with 6 pots and ball in last one (arrow); on leash. Second one had 8 cones with two balls; 1 part way on serpentine and other at end (arrows). Leash off. The blue arrow was a little leopard frog jumping through. She paused and looked but went back to searching. After playing a little with the favorite ball, I threw it three times into weeds and tall grass. No problems, except she was getting pretty hot, me too!

Kira flips over pot 1.Knocking over pot 3.

Last one, getting the ball!She's up to flipping (or checking) cone five here. Cone six, to her left has a ball, she's watching the frog right here.She just got the ball from cone 8.She's somewhere in here. I was hoping she would get it, as I wasn't really sure where it landed, and really didn't want to go hunting!Lucky me! She found it!!! Too hot, back inside, big clouds building up too...

Blasts' "Make-Up" Track Sunday

I'm glad I decided to do a tiny track in another location, with decent grass on the start and see what the difference 'might' be...still can't be certain what the problem was the other location.

Blast was very enthused, dragging me up to the scent pad.I stopped him at the scent pad on a quick down, and set him off. And did he go!

Now this track was also barely aged, but the idea was to motivate him at the start and continue on the first leg totally ON the track and enthused. So that worked well.

The grass leg was short, then crossed a busy driveway, onto brick walkway and back onto grass. Very quick changes, not what would be in a test, but all part of seeing how he worked it.This was an open turn, more of a big curve in the grass, to the right, and he was bounding off here.Speedily on the track, between the bushes. A completely different start and first leg, than the previous track was. So glad I did this. I had given Tascha a ball on a rope for his end article, she laid both tracks so this comparison was the same.

The battery went dead on the camera after this picture above. The short track went across a wide driveway, into grass with a turn, cloth article, and a man and his son walking across it in front and also on the next leg over the driveway and into the grass. No issue with them or their tracks. Blast just took a good look at them and dismissed them. He did great on the last leg under and through large pines, sparse veg. covered with pine needles and his ball at the end. Leaving him with this little excellent track was a good plan.

Blast on Sunday

Although Blast looks good at the scent pad, he had a very wobbly start for the first 1/3 of the first leg. The "veg" surface is pretty sparse, but no idea what was really happening. Emmas' in the same location was the same, sparse and not a good beginning on her first leg. Of course, we've no idea if anything had happened ahead of us arriving at this location to cause any problems. Just odd how they both struggled for a while, and then did well.Blast is just starting to really work along the track on the first leg here. I feel starts and getting past that first corner are so important to the dogs. Certainly in a test, a poor beginning doesn't help with the confidence.Ah, here we go. I've let out the line as he's working well along the second leg.And that must be an article! Obvious in the picture, but Blast is still not "wanting" to pause long at articles. I have to walk up quickly, shortening up on line as I go, to make sure he doesn't continue before I reach the article.Ok, so let's just get going, is his attitude.And again, in this area of the next two turns and two legs, I swear he knew exactly where the next article was and following the actual track was not his priority. If he was loose, I am sure he would have headed to the next article. This is how he works at home on walks, taking off and finding lost things in the field or forest. So as amazing as I find it when he does this, it has certainly created some issues for us in training for CKC tracks.He is now working along about 2' left of the laid track and approaching a left turn out on the veg. surface.A brief pause at the wood article and I rushed up to him on shortened line digging a treat out of my pocket. I asked for a "down" and he did, much to my surprise, with his paw on the article. I feel I'm walking a thin line here. He wants to keep going, I'm asking, but not insisting if it doesn't happen quickly, for a better indication. I don't want to de-motivate him and am trying to do this quickly, so he can get moving again.He popped back up quickly, and took the treat. Tascha did a good job in getting these pictures quickly so I could see this. Immediately, he turned back to the track.

Onto the gravel and nearing a right turn.

Blast seems to like hard surfaces better than veg. Perhaps with his "style" he just finds it more interesting, having to actually 'work' it. He was 'dead on' along this last leg. I really love to see him working this way.And this is certainly a confidence booster for the handler...me! Nose down all the way. Final article, nice work. I'm very happy with any hard surface work he's been doing.

Now if I can just convince him to work like this on the vegetated surfaces!!!

The first part of this track was truly awful, with me having no idea what he was doing, what was going on, only that he was not appearing to work on the track at all.

After we finished this track, I decided to go to another location and do another very short track with a good vegetative beginning to see what the outcome of that might be.

Emma on Sunday

Emma had a difficult start, we're not sure what the exact problem was, but did a re-start with her and she did much better. Here she is well out on her first leg.Emma has completed two corners by this picture, found one article, and is just about to find another one above. This was the only "nice" grass portion of her track and she was right on it, moving well.Shortly after the article, she made a nice left turn and is moving out onto a wide gravel drive to her next corner, a right turn. Her track was aged about 40 mins., four turns, three articles.She moved past her turn a very short distance, came back to find it, and is now very confidently pulling Tascha along behind her.She had quite a long stretch on the gravel and her small, black glove was left on the asphalt so it wasn't obvious for her. Nice work!

Best Tracking Dog in the World!!!!

A little joke, really, but you'll see why later...

And he's off! Tracked Tank (above), Blast and Emma yesterday. Tanks' was actually the last of the day, and aged no more than 1/2 hr. due to a little glitch. He worked really nicely.Straight down the grass with a left turn just before the gravel driveway. Tank actually yanked me down to the ditch a couple of times along here and it took all my strength to stop him from going in!The left turn went across the driveway and between two two buildings. After reaching the end of this short grass area, to the left was one of those domed sand storage buildings. As we approached the open door, a ton of pigeons flew out in front of us...how exciting for Tank! But he just continued on, into sand/gravel area and made a right turn.He was drawn down to these culverts, who knows why, he had been working along the track nicely up to then. So, he missed a wood article in the sand, which I also didn't notice. The next turn is to the right, before the asphalt and onto another grass strip.We move up here, pretty much dead on, according to my tracklayer and photographer, Tascha. A left turn is ahead.He turned exactly on the track, left, over the driveway, and above is exactly on the track back over the curb onto grass again. Not sure why my line is so askew here. I think he zipped to the right, and then quickly back to the left and the track, so I hadn't had a chance to gather it up at all???It's probably obvious "where" we are now, leading up to the title of this post....Again, he was right on the track on this grass section.He found and flipped a blue plastic lid, lay down, and I stopped to give him a treat. We will turn left just before the "out" sign.Again, told he was right on the turn and out onto the pavement. Really happy with this, even if only 1/2 hr. old.About this time, someone drove in to the front of the store and yelled over to us, saying: "That must be the best tracking dog in the world". I didn't clearly hear him, and he yelled again, "no doubt about it, that's the best tracking dog in the world"!

He then said that any dog taking you to the Beer Store must be the best tracking dog of all. Well....it was a man talking! ha.ha. Tank was on the last leg of his track here, heading towards the leather article on the grass.What a good boy! He's just stopped at the article and is looking back, wondering what all the fuss is about. I really did have to laugh.So, we play a bit. Who cares about beer, when there's an article to play with?