An audience of fox and deer

Very nice track on some (finally!) green grass located on a strip in the middle of the corn field. Most of the turns were a bit sloppy, we need to work on them. I think I need to start baiting all his turns until he's showing "absolute" precision and then gradually cut back here and there. However, I was proud of myself in that I offered no help, and allowed Treck to figure out the track on his own. I was happy to see he stayed calm throughout.

Date: 3/23/09
Time: 6:00 p.m.
Temp.: 43*
Weather: clear, wind 10-15 mph
Length: 300 paces
Age: 15 minutes
Conditions: dead grass and new, spring grass, corn husks/ears
Turns: 6
Articles: 1 cloth, 1 wood, 1 leather

Treck's article indications were awesome. This no food on the article thing is working for us. Straight and fast! I did make a mistake on one of his articles when I told him to 'such' after he had finished eating his article reward. With him its best to tell him to 'such' while he is still eating as it makes him calmer. If not, then he leaps up from his platz to continue the track. This happened in both his SchH1 and SchH2 trials. No food reward for finding the article causes him to be too fast and hectic when commanded to 'such' again. I'm wondering how I can prepare for that?

I'll note that for this track and for his last track I did not use a prong collar, only his fursaver. In the past I've always tracked him with the line attached to both. I have noticed more calmness during his tracks. I think all the prong suceeded in doing was increasing his drive and excitement level. Good for obedience, but not for tracking. At least not for Treck, as he loves to track.

Sorry for the long winded post and no pretty pictures. :( My camera died while I was laying it. Also causing me to miss a photo opportunity as I had both a fox and a doe watch me lay the track! :)

An introduction and our goals

I guess I'll go ahead and take a moment to introduce Treck, the star of this little tracking blog. Treck's full name is UCD Maximus von den wilden Rabbits BH, SchH1, CD, NA, NAJ, HCT-s, CGC. So where's his tracking title? It's hidden in that SchH1 since Schutzhund is a sport that is comprised of tracking, obedience and protection. Treck is eight years old now. And I'm currently deciding just what I should do with him. We missed nearly 2 years of training because of two, severe muscle strains to his right hindleg ... the iliopsoas and gracilis muscles ... yeah, I know, I'd never heard of them before either, but now I'll never forget them considering what they cost me! ;) I would like to trial him for his Schutzhund tracking (TR1, 2 & 3) titles when he's ready. His injury is a chronic problem and so he is now retired from serious protection training. The FH and FH2 tracking titles are our ultimate goal. And I'm also considering AKC tracking as well. Those are our tracking goals. As far as other dog sport venues, I'd also like to try for the Schutzhund obedience (OB1, 2 & 3) titles and his CDX, he's already trained through these levels. Wish us luck! :)

Tracking at the club ...

Due to my work schedule I had not been able to train with my schutzhund club since last summer. So it was fun to be able to meet up with everyone today. It was an evening session, which means obedience and protection only, but I got there early and laid a track for Treck.

Onto the second leg.

Date: 3/14/09
Time: 2:30 p.m.
Temp.: 42*
Weather: clear
Length: 210 paces
Age: 15 minutes
Conditions: dead grass, dead leaves
Turns: 2
Articles: 1 cloth

Second turn.

These were the nicest conditons that Treck has had the opportunity to track on since we started back up. The first turn was on bare ground (really dry dirt) and he nailed it, the second was in dead grass with a bunch of dead leaves over top and after a quick head check right he turned left and finished up his last leg in good order. You can see his article indication below.

Wind

Well, I had planned on giving Treck just a simple, staightforward track, one turn, two articles ... however a storm front decided to move in and bring us some wind. Nothing too wild, but the 20+ mile per hour gusts added a good challenge.

Date: 3/11/09
Time: 5:45 p.m.
Temp.: 65*
Weather: clear, 23 mph wind gusts
Length: 135 paces
Age: 15 minutes
Conditions: dead grass
Turns: 1
Articles: 1 wood, 1 leather

Frozen fur

I wanted to work on turns tonight with Treck. Although in hindsight I probably shouldn't have introduced a new terrain (snow) at the same time. At the start of his track he was very excited. I didn't take into account that he had been cooped inside for the past couple of days because of a snowstorm. He overshot his baited first turn by a half a body length, then started to setttle in, his second turn (unbaited) wasn't quite perfect, but he nailed his last three turns, 2 unbaited and 1 baited. Concerning the terrain ... although he didn't show any concern as the track changed back and forth between snow and dirt, he did however go off track twice in the dirt/cornstalks, he left the track by about a body length each time but quickly found it again. And at the end of his last leg he went off track, thus missing his article, so I restarted him and he had a nice indication. I think I helped him too much and should have let him work it out more on his own.

Date: 3/4/09
Time: 5:15 p.m.
Temp.: 16*
Weather: cold, clear, negligible wind
Length: 160 paces
Age: 10 minutes
Conditions: dirt, snow, dead corn stalks
Turns: 5
Articles: 1 cloth

The two of us are still learning a lot. I was able to reflect back on our track as we took a short hike around the farm and I concluded we both simply need more practice. It's been awhile since we tracked regularly. I also never kept a log, already this has been very helpful. I'm looking forward to the journey.

Evenings spent in old soybean fields ...

Treck took a big step forward from his track on Sunday. Tonight's track was more than twice as long, on some crappy dirt of an old soybean field and had much less food. I took the risk of challenging him with this because I know he's mature enough to handle it and bounce back if it didn't work. And we could always take a step back if need be. But I wanted to see just how much he remembered and what he was capable of at this time. Well, dumb me, did I think my dog was going to forget how to use his nose? He handled it like a real champ.

Date: 2/25/09

Time: 5:45 p.m.

Temp.: 44*

Weather: clear, negligible wind

Length: 250 paces

Age: 10 minutes

Conditions: dirt, dead soybeans plants

Turns: 3

Articles: 1 leather, 1 cloth

After our track I snapped this photo of Treck's start flag.

A little too eager at the scent pad, Treck first swung his head back and forth a bit as he started down the first leg of the track. But I purposely made this leg long (100 paces) to allow him time to settle before having to worry about a turn. However, he quickly got accustomed to the terrain and fell into a very nice rhythm that he maintained for the remainder of the track. He took the first turn about a half a body length wide but his first article indication, located on the second leg, was awesome, fast and straight. The next two corners were perfect and as you'll see from the video his indication for the last article was slow because he was busy eating food. I think I'm going to quit baiting his articles. Treck has always seemed to indicate straighter and faster when there is no food on them.

A short track in a long time ...

Due mostly to my work and school schedule and my indecision as to whether or not I was going to continue to train Treck for competition, we have not tracked since last summer. But anyways, more about that in a later post. In the meantime, I've decided to create this blog in order to maintain a training log of our progress. My goal is to attain the TR1-3 titles. Our ultimate goal will be the FH and FH2!

Second corner.

Date: 2/22/09
Time: 11:00 a.m.
Temp.: 37*
Weather: wet snow, negligible wind
Length: 90 paces
Age: -/+ 0 minutes
Conditions: dead grass
Turns: 2
Artices: 1 leather

Baited article.

Since it has been so long since he last tracked, I kept Treck's track simple, easy and short. I baited the scent pad, most of the track itself, both left-hand corners and his leather article at the end. I also kept it short, 60 paces for the first leg, 30 for the next and 60 for the last. He downed very nicely for his article, a little crooked to the left, so I walked up on that side to help correct him for the future. All in all I was very pleased with his performance.

First corner ...