Tracking (40)

We met at Flaming Geyser last Friday.  I asked Nadine to lay another series of four tracks, where we focused on her finding her starts.  Specifically I wanted 4 short straight tracks from start to glove, with multiple opportunities for Gimme to find the start direction.  Note I said "short-straight", but I guess I didn't emphasize the "straight" part enough.  Instead, Nadine laid 4 L-shaped tracks.  The red dashed line is Nadine's path from one end to the next start and the green line is Gimme's path.

There wasn't really any problem with L-shaped tracks, except me not knowing.  So when Gimme came to the first corner and turned, I knew better and didn't go with her.  Nadine said, "the glove isn't at the flag, it's farther down the track."  Since I was expecting straight, I pushed Gimme to search in the area indicated past the corner on track one.  Bless her, she did search where I urged her, but refused to be sold on something which wasn't there.  I asked her to "search for it" which is our cue to go around me in a circle looking for the track and she repeatedly indicated down the second leg.  After repeatedly ignoring her, Nadine told me, "trust your dog"... and when I did, just like magic she found the glove.  Imagine...

I am so blessed to have a girl who will keep trying no matter how dumb my handling is.  I wonder sometimes what she thinks as I'm urging her to search when there is nothing there.  Then again, maybe it's better I don't know.