Once again, on Canada Day, (and every day!) we appreciate the life we are able to live in the greatest country in the world. HAPPY CANADA DAY to everyone!
A cooler early morning, decided to get Kira out for a little track before it got hot. So glad I did, the deer flies were out as we ended, and for the next week + the temps. are high 20's with over 30 humidex every day. Won't be fun. In the pic. above she has reached her second turn. She checked left, said nope, and turned back to corner finding a small pc. of food. She then headed right.
Moving along this leg nicely. I put a small pc. of food either on each corner, or a couple of feet past the corner. She still is doing a lot of head bobbing, due to previous search work we've done (I think) and hope we will get past this. She generally has no interest in food, so adding to track as encouragement to keep her head down just serves no purpose with her. We'll figure it out...
She is at another corner, just turning. I've been working mainly in pathways with short grass, also to keep her nose down. Most dogs will lift their nose in taller grass, is the last thing I want to encourage with her. Having said this, I DID put her through a couple of short areas of tall weeds/grass today, to see how she handled it.
And here she just turns into one of those areas. I was very pleased that she did not do what I expected, but did keep her nose down. She had no hesitation with the transition from short to long grass.
Working very nicely through this thick ground cover, I was really happy with her.
And just coming out into short grass again, the track curves to the left, with a pc. of food as reward.
There is a path to the right, hard to see, just ahead of her. She actually raised her head to look down it, but put her nose back down on the track moving ahead.
We did semi-serpentines through this area, again, she was working nicely. I have to say, there had been a light dew this morning - perfect - and the track was only about 20 mins. aged. I see definite improvement in how she is working, though, less head up searching, and much better with the nose down, moving at a nice steady, slow speed.
(This is so nice. Tracking is the ONLY time Kira does not run, run, run...she NEVER walks otherwise, outside or inside!)
Another choice here..left or right? Turned out to be another right, but like the early one, she briefly checked left, turned and moved nicely onto the right, dead on the track.
She looks very determined here. Shortly after this the deerflies found us. Poor Kira became somewhat distracted, she must have had 10 or more around her head.
I've shooed most away and stayed closer so that I could. She is going to turn up a little hill here.
I've been working closely to her, but today added an extra leash in case I felt I wanted to stay back at times. Also a heavy clip joining them for a bit extra weight on the line.
Too soon to bother with the full long line, which would just get in the way. I liked the feel of the two leashes together though, the extra weight, and a few times let her move out ahead further. Not sure what she turned to look at here, maybe a noise in the bush. She's still moving to the top of the hill.
And another thing I did today, there's nothing more important to her than her balls. So I thought a big reward would be a ball instead of a leather article. I left it just on the other side of this patch of taller grass she's just moving into.
Through the grass, there's the ball. So funny! She acted like this was "just wrong"!!!
What's a ball doing here when it should be an 'article'. It shouldn't be a ball!!! What the heck am I supposed to do now?! It was too funny. I couldn't believe her, just standing there and looking at it. So I rushed up, grabbed the ball, told her what a good girl she was, what a great job she did, unhooked her, and threw the ball. Oh, now I get it!
So much for my clever idea...won't do that again! But at least it STOPPED her!
