An "Experimental" Track!

As I was beginning to lay the track.............am I nuts, or what?! Here comes another one...

This is almost the same track that Reese did yesterday; the same one I laid for Reese, but with two slight variations. The thoughts behind this track, are at the end of these five pictures. Above is the second hay bale, bad boy Blast had jumped up on the first one, this one he ignored. We are on the 2nd leg.

I changed the second corner, third leg, and the third corner, fourth leg on this track. Blast did seem to waiver around on each somewhat, but then the wind was also blowing from 37 to 50 km. at this time. So it was not really possible to accurately determine if the wind was causing this, or if he was picking up on our track from yesterday (which was walked 3x). Above, he is trying to go to the groundhog holes, which Reese did not! Good girl, bad boy scenario.

This is the leg where Reese was actually over on this side, and her track was on the left side of this bale; she got back over to it before reaching this bale. Blast's was laid where he is, further back, he was trying to go over to the left side. At this time, the strong winds were coming from the right. Who knows?!!!

They both completed this track in a similar fashion, and curious, that both had the "issue" on the same leg.

Blast retrieving his glove after the track. We did a few throws and tugged, until I remembered this was actually one my "good" gloves.
SO THIS WAS THE EXPERIMENT:

I had a debate with myself this morning, the nice thing about this, I always win...

The U.S. List had some recent posts about some dogs doing better on 'older' tracks than fresh tracks; I tend to agree. Also, for trials, tracks are plotted the day ahead of the test. This means there are usually 3 people walking the same track, the judge, the tracklayer, and the equipment person. And sometimes, they might change the plan part way through. So, you have a heavy laid track by different people on one day, the next day the plotted track is walked by the tracklayer.

Today was Blasts' turn to track, and out of curiosity, I decided to go back to Reese's track, re-walk it, making changes on two of the legs, and see how Blast did. Certainly not 'scientific' but I was curious. Also, conditions were very different. Taking this into mind, I still found it very interesting. Didn't really come up with much, he did ok on the track, but might be interesting to try another time when the conditions are pretty much the same. I wonder if anyone else has tried this.

This was the sky over our house - taken from the back deck - yesterday afternoon. At that time, I was sitting and watching the change come through, windy and windier...but no rain yet. Could hear thunder and then I saw 'rotation' in the clouds....

From the side deck - I had called David out to see, and said "perhaps we should be going inside"...a bit of an understatement...

From the deck looking south. We later found out we were under a tornado watch but nothing had been on the computer weather channel until AFTERWARDS! Luckily, it didn't happen here, but we got some mighty strong winds, a ton of rainfall (needed it!) and a brief hydro outage - enough to kill the modem again on the computer - even with the extra super-duper backup and protection we have on there.

Reese/Rosemary TD Training Track

Reese worked lovely on her track today, an odd-shaped "hat" track in hot and humid conditions before a storm came in. We barely finished when it began to pour - for all of 20 seconds! The field was quite lush, even though we've had such a long dry stretch of high heat and high humidity. It was aged 40 mins. and approx. 425 m. I know this field well, and put in a few little "test" areas for her and she did great!!!

Rosemary and Reese have just started out confidently on the first leg, after Reese did a little checking to each side in the first few feet. You can just see the directional flag near the first hay bale.

Reese went about 2' past the corner, checked to each side, and came back to clearly indicate the track direction. Rosemary was just waiting for Reese to pull forward and off she went. Nice corner.

The arrow marks the 2 pine trees I sighted for the second leg. Reese had a couple of deer crossings along this leg, as well as a spot just off the track where a deer had slept. She briefly checked them and kept on going. Rosemary is taking a look to see what has Reese's interest here.

After walking within a foot of one large bale, she has taken a left turn. The close bale was to see if she would critter at it - she ignored it - good girl, as she was more interested in the track!

The arrow marks the tree the track is heading towards. Just before the next corner is a triangular patch with 3 groundhog holes. Reese also ignored them!

They have just turned the corner and are both working really well. Reese moved a little to the right along here, but kept trying to get back on the track, until Rosemary went with her. This was a long leg, and then a short turn to the article.

Reese has found her glove, but is looking at the big chewie I had left inside (this had worked for my Jess)...but Reese wasn't too interested in it....was trying to find something 'different' that she may like to make that article more interesting to her.

Isn't Reese just sooo cute?! She is lying on her article, and making sure that Rosemary 'knows' it so she gets her treat.

Tank - Just lucky timing!

I was just lucky to get this and just love it! Tank is such a ball freak. He had over-run the bouncing ball, and was skidding to a stop to catch it. The sand he was kicking up, the open mouth about to grab the ball, I never would have captured this without pure luck. What a happy guy he is!

Really Early Track for Blast Today

This was Blasts' really, really early track this morning. Still so hot/humid, but with only aging 1/2 hr. or so, you can get a track in for a "new" dog doing TD. Grass was a little damp still, and it was overcast with no breeze. The brown marks are hay bales. Blast is tracking very nicely along his first leg. I used the hay bales as "markers", this was so easy.

I aslo used the hay bales as "potential distractions" for him. He absolutely loves to leap up on hay bales. I purposely went within a few feet of the one above - second leg, second corner. I was really happy that the track was more important to him than jumping up on the hay bale.

He completely ignored the bale and made a great right turn onto the third leg. I was really happy about this, a big step.

Another (open) right turn here. There were 5 legs and 4 turns, only one was left. This is a long leg sighting a roof in the distance. This is a lovely hay field right now, nice growth. It would be perfect conditions for a test.

His fourth corner and fifth leg took him between three bales. He didn't blink an eye at any of them, and continued to track nicely between. I was really pleased with how well he did this morning.

The little yellow arrow to the right shows our start and the one on the left is the telephone pole I used to sight for this leg. Red "X" marks the article, perspective is off, it is further along than it appears.

And his article is here. He seems to think there is something under it, I am giving him something from my hand when he has indicated. After I removed his harness, we played tug a bit with the glove and then.....

....finally....he gets to play up on the hay bale. He had to lie down to 'study' a truck driving by on the road.

Tomorrow, an urban track with Trust is planned. Hope we can get it in early enough and don't have to cancel it!!!!

Sunset Tuesday night

Although we still have awful hot and humid weather during the daytime, the evenings have been cooler for walks, and the sunsets have been exquisite.

Blast on Scent Pad

This is what I'm looking for! Blast is now so anxious to reach the scent pad, he pounces down just before it and spends time to draw in the scent. Such a nice change from trying to race out across it.