Tracking!
It's been forever since I've done a tracking post so today your luck is in!
I took both Blue and Billie tracking and it was a perfect tracking day--drizzly and cool, not too windy. Because I'm working with Blue on VST (Variable Surface Tracking) we did a couple of different things. One was a third and fourth article exercise that I learned from a friend who's a judge. He says that a lot of times in VST, because the scent spreads so far on hard surfaces, you often approach the third article from the totally wrong angle or someone's moved it or the article is gone. One big problem is that you, the handler, are convinced that you can't have a turn at an article (which is true) so when the dog commits to the track again after finding the article, it looks like a turn and you don't go. Also, you want good article indications from your dog because there's in general a lot of crap on a VST track. So you have someone lay a track which is basically the last half of a test track. Then you have them send you in somewhere around where the article is, no formal start point. You expect the dog to find the article and to continue on the track to the finish.
Blue did a really nice job, found his article and made the turns. It turned out that I had walked across his track returning from the track I laid and it took him a bit of time to work through that, but eventually he did. I laid a similar track for a friend's miniature pinscher. When I sent him in, I realized that his first article was missing. We went ahead and sent him and he picked up the track fairly nicely. His article was fifteen to twenty feet off the track and had obviously been picked up and carried by someone or something. I'm not sure how they'd call that in a test. He did eventually find it, but we helped him a bit. If the article's completely missing, but the dog searches it's okay. This article, though, was only kind of sort of missing.
I laid a second track for Blue that was sort of a straight line track with lots of surface changes--grass, driveway, grass, sidewalk, grass, parking lot. The track wove in and out of cars and made a turn in the parking lot to a final article. He did a nice job on that too.
I also laid a track for Billie, who is working on TDX (Tracking Dog Excellent), out on the cross country fields and through the taller grass/alfalfa in the middle of those fields. She also did a nice job, though overshot a turn and therefore had trouble with one article. Her track was v. v. wet though.
So, good tracking day. I'm trying to decide when to enter dogs in tests. Maybe this fall for both of them.
I took both Blue and Billie tracking and it was a perfect tracking day--drizzly and cool, not too windy. Because I'm working with Blue on VST (Variable Surface Tracking) we did a couple of different things. One was a third and fourth article exercise that I learned from a friend who's a judge. He says that a lot of times in VST, because the scent spreads so far on hard surfaces, you often approach the third article from the totally wrong angle or someone's moved it or the article is gone. One big problem is that you, the handler, are convinced that you can't have a turn at an article (which is true) so when the dog commits to the track again after finding the article, it looks like a turn and you don't go. Also, you want good article indications from your dog because there's in general a lot of crap on a VST track. So you have someone lay a track which is basically the last half of a test track. Then you have them send you in somewhere around where the article is, no formal start point. You expect the dog to find the article and to continue on the track to the finish.
Blue did a really nice job, found his article and made the turns. It turned out that I had walked across his track returning from the track I laid and it took him a bit of time to work through that, but eventually he did. I laid a similar track for a friend's miniature pinscher. When I sent him in, I realized that his first article was missing. We went ahead and sent him and he picked up the track fairly nicely. His article was fifteen to twenty feet off the track and had obviously been picked up and carried by someone or something. I'm not sure how they'd call that in a test. He did eventually find it, but we helped him a bit. If the article's completely missing, but the dog searches it's okay. This article, though, was only kind of sort of missing.
I laid a second track for Blue that was sort of a straight line track with lots of surface changes--grass, driveway, grass, sidewalk, grass, parking lot. The track wove in and out of cars and made a turn in the parking lot to a final article. He did a nice job on that too.
I also laid a track for Billie, who is working on TDX (Tracking Dog Excellent), out on the cross country fields and through the taller grass/alfalfa in the middle of those fields. She also did a nice job, though overshot a turn and therefore had trouble with one article. Her track was v. v. wet though.
So, good tracking day. I'm trying to decide when to enter dogs in tests. Maybe this fall for both of them.