Friday I put Kira on a longer "curved" track and it ended up being aged over 1/2 hr.
She starts on little area on patch - not a real scent pad or circle, just a patch I stomped on and put a small pc. of sausage about a foot in front. I walked her towards this, said 'find' by mistake (explain later) then 'track' and she put her nose down and moved out.
She's heading out nicely, I used sausage I had just cooked earlier, a couple of times she went over them, wanted to turn back, but I prevented this, telling her to 'find'. Then I realized what I was saying! Stupid me! I have said 'find' with all of my dogs. However, Kira being previously trained to search and for scent discrimation, I had used 'find' for her search word. I had decided to say 'track' for her, as this work was completely different. So for Kira, 'track' means nose down and keep it down. Hope I remember next time, last thing I want is to confuse her.
She's making a curve on the track and working along this area a little quicker and confidently.
A little further ahead she has an opportunity to move to the left or to the right. To the left was easiest, and she began to move that way, when realizing the scent was more to the right.
Here she is making the decision, and moves to the right along another pathway.
We approach a 'dead end' similar to a "Y" and the curve will be almost a 90 degree turn either left or right.
I painted on the 'choice' ahead, and the arrow shows the correct way...to the left. There was a piece of sausage right at the end, and another one about 2' to the left.
Kira made the correct decision, I am loving seeing how deep her nose is in these pictures.
And she begins to move on steadily, a very nice speed to follow.
Some critter moved in the bush at the side here, she's still moving, but picked up her head to check, it wasn't worth investigating to her, and she put her nose down and continued on.
A little further on, she found a leather mitt. "Interesting" she says, but I'd rather have a ball. So I worked a bit with her with the mitt, then removed her harness and we had a good ball tossing time! Nice work, track five for her, won't do one now until Monday. Hoping for rain, this weekend is too darn hot!!!
