March 9, 2024

 Last day of tracking class in perfect tracking weather - cool and rainy 😄 .  Mary Ann asked us what kind of a track we would lay 2 days before we were in a tracking test and, of course, I answered incorrectly 😔 .  Vivi ran a 2-turn track with legs of lengths 120, 60 and 60 yards and aged about 1 hour.  I thought Vivi did a nice job. Vivi came into heat this week and I was wondering if I would see any change in her tracking behavior, but I didn’t in our training sessions this week or in class.  Mary Ann told us to count how many steps past the turn our dog goes before we notice they have lost scent and for Vivi it was 2-3 steps. Still working on improving article indications. Mary Ann gave the group some article indication games to work on and we have started playing the first one. 

Thank you so much for having us in class this year! I hope you will continue to offer it and let us back in. I’ve learned a lot and, even though we aren’t ready to certify, I feel like Vivi has come along way. We have done up to 5-turn tracks with open angles and right angles in both directions. And we have worked tracks up to 1.5 hours of age. Article indications and working around distractions (whether human, animal, sounds, or even inanimate interesting objects) are two things that I am really going to try to focus on this summer. We will be working in some more urban environments this summer as we temporarily lose access to some of the land we have been able to use this winter. I think that will help with getting used to more distractions.  We will just have to get up early to hit the cooler summer mornings, but I will be retired so we can always come back home to take a nap afterwards when it gets hot! 🤣