I have four tracking reports to make up, obviously, still trying to get caught up.
Our searches on December 7th and 21st were pretty much set up the same, though we made it a point to switch areas. At Auburn Cinema we laid three straight-line tracks of 75, 100 and 150 yards. Breeze was negligible both days, but the second time it was really cold.
Both of the girls did well on the first day, but really struggled the second time. I think it was so cold the track was really just a thin line, with none of the usual scent dispersal. Gimme kept doing her "nothing here Ma" routine and I kept telling her to try again. By the third track she'd figured it out and did a very nice job.
On Friday, December 29th we met at Game Farm Park. I really wanted to focus on the remedial tracking plan for Cricket, so told Nadine to just lay us a simple track with lots of reward points.
The track she laid (in the pouring rain) had three legs with 2 articles per leg. The first leg she laid right along the edge of pavement and had to skirt around bleachers. The second leg started along the crest of a grassy knoll, but then continued on one of the paths along the edge of the pavement. The third leg continued down another paved strip, right next to the grass. This wasn't a challenging track for Gimme, but she did loose focus at two points, switching to walkabout on me. As it turns out, she went straight into her false pregnancy the next day, so that explains why she struggled with focus.
Cricket has developed a problem at Game Farm Park which is bleeding over to her enthusiasm for tracking in general (i.e. at Auburn Cinema too). I think Nadine was a bit too forceful in trying to discourage Cricket's vermin obsession (Squirrel!!!) and it just put her off of believing tracking is a fun game. On the weekend when I laid track for the TDX trial, I talked to Sil about her problem. The solution was straight out of his recent book, but required Cricket to be actually tracking and we hadn't been seeing that at Game Farm. So I offered the idea that we should use the area of the park away from the trees and just do article circles with a very high rate and high value rewards, which we could then move closer to the trees until we get to where we can use his solution. Sil agreed this should work.
So I laid a track with 8 articles in a big oval (in the pouring rain). We had to walk through the tree area, where the squirrels are seen, both coming and going. The good news is - with the bitter cold and rain, the squirrels had the good sense to be curled up somewhere warm and dry, so Cricket didn't get to see any. She was slow to get started on tracking, but Nadine just helped her and after a couple of times "finding" an article, Cricket got into the game. She did well on the rest of the article circle. That's the first time I've seen her tracking with enthusiasm at Game Farm in awhile, so it was very nice. She was looking for squirrels both coming and going as we passed through the tree area, but she was able to work out in the field in between, so I think that's a good place to start. I look forward to watching the progression as we solve this challenge.
We missed tracking with Nadine this week because I woke up with a vicious migraine. So, yesterday, January 6th, I was determined to get back to our Saturday tracks at Medline. Because Gimme is in a full on false pregnancy, I wanted to keep it simple for her.
Our searches on December 7th and 21st were pretty much set up the same, though we made it a point to switch areas. At Auburn Cinema we laid three straight-line tracks of 75, 100 and 150 yards. Breeze was negligible both days, but the second time it was really cold.
Both of the girls did well on the first day, but really struggled the second time. I think it was so cold the track was really just a thin line, with none of the usual scent dispersal. Gimme kept doing her "nothing here Ma" routine and I kept telling her to try again. By the third track she'd figured it out and did a very nice job.
On Friday, December 29th we met at Game Farm Park. I really wanted to focus on the remedial tracking plan for Cricket, so told Nadine to just lay us a simple track with lots of reward points.
The track she laid (in the pouring rain) had three legs with 2 articles per leg. The first leg she laid right along the edge of pavement and had to skirt around bleachers. The second leg started along the crest of a grassy knoll, but then continued on one of the paths along the edge of the pavement. The third leg continued down another paved strip, right next to the grass. This wasn't a challenging track for Gimme, but she did loose focus at two points, switching to walkabout on me. As it turns out, she went straight into her false pregnancy the next day, so that explains why she struggled with focus.
Cricket has developed a problem at Game Farm Park which is bleeding over to her enthusiasm for tracking in general (i.e. at Auburn Cinema too). I think Nadine was a bit too forceful in trying to discourage Cricket's vermin obsession (Squirrel!!!) and it just put her off of believing tracking is a fun game. On the weekend when I laid track for the TDX trial, I talked to Sil about her problem. The solution was straight out of his recent book, but required Cricket to be actually tracking and we hadn't been seeing that at Game Farm. So I offered the idea that we should use the area of the park away from the trees and just do article circles with a very high rate and high value rewards, which we could then move closer to the trees until we get to where we can use his solution. Sil agreed this should work.
So I laid a track with 8 articles in a big oval (in the pouring rain). We had to walk through the tree area, where the squirrels are seen, both coming and going. The good news is - with the bitter cold and rain, the squirrels had the good sense to be curled up somewhere warm and dry, so Cricket didn't get to see any. She was slow to get started on tracking, but Nadine just helped her and after a couple of times "finding" an article, Cricket got into the game. She did well on the rest of the article circle. That's the first time I've seen her tracking with enthusiasm at Game Farm in awhile, so it was very nice. She was looking for squirrels both coming and going as we passed through the tree area, but she was able to work out in the field in between, so I think that's a good place to start. I look forward to watching the progression as we solve this challenge.
We missed tracking with Nadine this week because I woke up with a vicious migraine. So, yesterday, January 6th, I was determined to get back to our Saturday tracks at Medline. Because Gimme is in a full on false pregnancy, I wanted to keep it simple for her.
The track had 4 turns, 335 yards, and a strong breeze, but nothing new. We had a start sock, articles after every turn and/or landscaping strip, and the end article for a total of 6 articles. The track was less than 15 minutes old. Gimme started out doing really well, then at the last turn she just lost steam and told me, "Mommmmm, I can't do this anymore". I encouraged her to try some more and when she did, I gave her twice as many treats for the last two articles. Now that things are settling down, I plan to get back on schedule. Nadine and I have missed about half of our tracking dates for one reason or another and Gimme and I haven't been to Medline on Saturdays since mid-November. We'll take it easy the next couple of times because of the false pregnancy, but otherwise I want to get back on schedule.
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