Sunday - Track 7/7 Blasts'

Nice spot, new place for us. Two little girls seemed to follow us through this track, which was good for Blast. He paid no attention to them, which actually surprised me. Green grass for his scent pad, taking him in from an angle. The track heads out through all the pine trees, over pine needles and crunchy pine cones. He zoomed through this area.We are nearly at the first corner, a left turn, working well.I really can't remember what got his attention here. There were a few times people were walking through on the path in front of us, perhaps that's what it was. The little girls were off to the side, climbing trees, and he wasn't watching them. Distractions are still a problem at times with Blast, my problem not proofing enough.Back working on the track, heading into a gravel parking area, there will be another left turn out there.Another distraction. However, much as I want that nose down all the time and focus, he IS a 'proper' GSD and he is alert and protective. I imagine, if he ignored everything else, I would think he wasn't really 'alert' enough!?!And the other issue is a quick glance at some articles, and moving on by. Yes, I saw the glance, and was moving up closer. Would the judge 'see the glance'? Or would it just look like I was picking it up?I held the line tight, and made a fuss over the article to 'bring him back'. It was a block of wood, he really just wanted to continue on the track, so I made it brief.Little girls were closing in on us from the left side, he still shows no interest in them.

Good! At least he can discriminate that they are not any threat and he continues to work nicely. They ended up following us closely through this area.A small veg. area and then into another gravel parking area. This was a short, but interesting track compared to his previous one this day. This one had a few more distractions, which I know is something we need more work on. He works well on both asphalt and gravel, nose down, usually right on the track or darn close. I don't want to de-motivate him with insisting on better indications at articles, but that does need some 'careful' work.Same at the final article, he "knew" it was there, and looked at it, but turned left. I believe that was "I'd rather follow the direction you went"....so I stood my ground and had him lie down on the article and gave him a treat. Each time he went to get up, gave him a treat on the article again, and did that about 4 times. This article has to be important! Then I pulled the hidden pull toy out of my pocket and we played with that. It's a fine line, but he must indicate the articles even a tiny bit better, and partly a big reward in doing this will hopefully improve it.

Sunday - Track 6/7 Tanks'

This is Tanks' second track from last weekend, a shortish one, aged only 20 mins. Hard surface mainly in one section on this track, mainly dry old grass. A lot of what we did last Sunday had veg. surfaces that I consider darn near as tough for the dogs as the hard surfaces. Plus we find most dogs in trials are failing on veg. even before they get to hard surfaces.

Put his start under trees in a bit of green on purpose. I had seen the dead grass further on when we drove by. This was done before the big storms on Monday, with all the tornado warnings. Grass should have greened up this week.Moving along a good pace, he's very focused on the track. This is his longest leg.We've crossed a walkway and into the dead stuff now; after passing the tree on the left, there is a left turn taking us across the road. Something got his attention momentarily above.Tank looks like he's right on the track crossing the road. He's tracking...but he's moving across the road about 15 to 20 feet "right" of the track.The red line shows the actual track across the road, and red arrow points out an article on the other side. As soon as he reached the "veg" he scooted back down along the edge, through and up the ditch to his article.This was a wood article.Again, after starting and into the pavement, Tank was really determined to head to the right of the track. He lunged twice in that direction, I let him go a ways the second time, until he realized he had lost the scent, and I encouraged him back to the left. Once he began to move in the correct direction, although not 'on' the track, I praised him and he continued on, picking it up. (Training - I knew where it was!) Moving through the parking area toward more dead grass on this leg.Nearing the end of this leg with a corner coming up. He worked well along here, with another article found.Once again, Tank tried three times to lunge to the right. Curious, though, as we had changed our direction, but perhaps the breeze was coming across a large open field and around the hedge in front. Bad me, did not have this written down in my notes. We had seen a fellow biking with his dog loose running along with him and perhaps he had run up here...you just don't know.Tank crossed the driveway and scooted around the edge of the bush to find his leather article. It was folded to make it smaller; that's what he has in his mouth. I'm changing the clip from the harness to collar before we play and then will remove the harness and play again!Yay, Tank! What a good boy.

Ecstatic Trust on Sunday

Trust was so happy to be coming along tracking on Sunday. Her location had one of the nicest areas of green grass, (sprinklers) across the road it was totally dead. We had a long stretch of grass and she had a great start.Crossing a driveway onto another short grass area. She is tracking so well and with such joy, it's wonderful to work with her. I remember last year, before she got her TCH, I was getting worried about age and health, for no reason, just that she was 9 1/2. She's tracked better in this past year than ever before. And now, it's just pure fun when we do go out...semi-retirement agrees with her!I had to gather my line and move up, so we could run across this road. The lights at the intersection had just turned, and the cars were coming around the corner. I guess waiting would have been more prudent...Onto the dead grass again, the red arrow points to her article, she had veered over towards the road. This is a busy traffic spot at times, wind was coming straight at us, and cars whirling the scent around from the side.She came back around the hydro pole right to the article. You can see an upcoming turn, I used the rock to the right as my turn point and we will go out into paved parking lot.Trust is exactly on her corner here, I left a piece of treat there. We will head to the right, towards the narrow grass island and make a left turn on that.She quickly made the turn and we head towards the end of this stip. It's kind of fun doing any type of track with any conditions for her now, just to see how she handles it. I always felt that Trust enjoyed the "tough" tracks more than the easy ones.This is the end of the grass strip, the red shows my path off, across the driveway, onto grass again. It then turns and goes along a narrow grass strip. The broken yellow line shows her direction off the grass and she is now coming onto the track again. Cars had driven in and out here, it is a shortcut to a Shoppers' Drug Mart for some.We will cross a rock island here before moving onto asphalt, another left turn coming up and a metal article before going over a drop-off into grass. She slightly cut the corner and headed right to the article.This turn was left on the grass before reaching the entrance to the fire hall. She has just realized she's gone too far, and paused to figure out the scenting conditions here.Didn't take long, she's headed up a narrow and low area beside the building. A big scent collecter area this would be.She heads right along at a good pace, towards the end article shown by the red arrow. There was a lot of garbage scattered around out there, and she totally ignored that. She's such a good girl...and a happy one, too!!!

Back to Sunday..Track 4, Emma

Lovely brown dead grass at her start and most of first leg. Emma worked hard to find her start in this location and did a great job (in spite of her handler!) funny story....This was a very short track, just different ground cover for her and aged longer, one hour. Above, she has just taken her first corner.She checked both sides on the entrance to paved lot, then headed straight out on the track. Here she has found an article; will go on to a left turn, short leg, right turn and up onto grass.Nice work here, now headed toward her article on the grass. I did the work, I found it, let me have it back!!!! Very nice little track.

The Woodpile

Last week we had most of our winter wood delivered. It is still in a large pile where it was dumped inside the fenced in area that was our horses' enclosure. We didn't want the dogs "playing" around it, as it is unstable.

However....I've been thinking about it and decided to see if Blast would think he was tough enough to climb up for a toy. Figured, if I saw any problem, would immediately remove him.

The favorite pull toy was in the top area. Blast ran around it twice first, looking for the best way up. He tried a couple of places and a few logs moved, so he moved on until he found the "best" place. Up he went. He dislodged a couple on his way, but had a firm grip. No problem.There it is! It had become somewhat stuck up there and he had to pull it a few times to dislodge it while balancing on a few logs.Pulled it out and then picked his way carefull down...very thoughtful and careful.Wasn't sure about trying Kira, but really wanted to see how tenacious she would be, or if she was too worried to go up. Ha. ha. ha. She scrambled up so quickly I was telling her to slow down. Sending logs flying behind her, she wasn't concerned.So we tried it from a couple of other places, she was up in a flash, even taking leap up on her last one, when I decided to stop. I certainly didn't want her hurt in a 'slide' and she had just become a little too exuberant.This was her last one up, she was pulling the toy out from between a couple of logs on top.This time I clearly told her to be careful, she was coming down a different side, and actually was picking her way carefully. I expected Blast would be keen, but wasn't so sure about Kira. If anything, she was even more tenacious than Blast was!

Sunday - Track 3/7, Tanks' first

This is really going to take time...on the third of seven tracks from Sunday. So this is Tanks' track, fun mix of veg. and non-veg., three articles, aged 45 mins. had gotten much warmer than expected by now.

As usual, he's off to the races when I release him at the scent pad. I brought him in from the side like I did with Blasts' start. Heading out towards the road, right on the track; I spent most of this at a fast trot behind him. He has a right turn up near the road, which he paused, checked left and turned right back fast along the next leg.I just noticed the fellow in the red shirt hadn't gotten too far on the other side of the road! We're catching up to him!! We've crossed a driveway and he's just reached his first article, a small yellow plastic lid. He had actually run past a bit, circled back around to it. He's not great with plastic, to tell the truth.Through the tree area, down and up a little ditch and heading to the next driveway.

His track is just to the right of the tree in front of him, before the pavement.Tanks' right turn was on the paved driveway and he's heading along pretty good about 2' to the left of the actual track. You can "just" see a red cloth article further up on the darker spot. Tank still likes to check out any grassed area near to the track, I have to keep firm tension on his line in these areas. He darts over quickly and nearly drags me with him.If he "likes" the article, like a cloth one, he will pick it up. If he doesn't "like" it, as in plastic, he tries to ignore it. A bit of a problem! We have a turn shortly after this area. When training, unlike in a test, I will often leave articles closer to corners, or in tricky spots, sometimes just because I'm trying to avoid them being picked up as well.We've moved off the drive/park area and this is a very short leg over to the building. I'm walking between two sewer covers here, he ignored as he went through. After crossing a walkway, his turn will take us on to his last leg. He hugged the building along this leg, 4' from his track, and turned the corner around it to check it out....found a big bird feather there. Then immediately curved back to the track, still on grass.Off the grass, onto another paved area, and you can see, and now he has, the final article. I placed it so it was not too obvioius, he probably tracked about 1/2 way out then lifted his head and saw it. That's fine, he was right on the track. This was a big bonus for him, a leather baby shoe to play with.Thank you, thank you, he says. I love the baby shoe, and haven't seen it in a long time! I really would like to keep it...