The track started on the grass near the racketball courts (right side of picture), transitioning to hard surface right away and featured a MOT turn on the court. Gimme handled this very well, as well as finding the article and making all the soft turns on the next leg. She overshot the next turn a little bit and zig-zagged on the start of the next leg until she got to the article.
Gimme overshot the next turn a lot. The red line extension with the dog-leg, shows where she went. The light-blue-dotted line shows where I guided her back to where the turn actually was. In hindsight it's clear she was going to just cut off the corner and go directly to the article.The next corner was a challenge, but I let her sort it out. She was all over the place until she made her decision, then she was solid on the leg. She made the next corner, but again took a trajectory toward the next article. For some reason she pulled back from it (she was only 12 feet from it and we know she can air-scent an article from 50 feet) and found the actual corner and tracked to the article. I can't explain why she chose to go back to the track instead of pulling me to the article. She was flawless for the rest of the track.
On Sunday, January 6th, I laid a track at Paramount church, before the service and we ran it afterward. The track was 1:45, cool 40 degrees and a bit more breeze. Again, wet surfaces.
The start proved very challenging. There were people leaving, which included some children. One boy ran across the first leg of the track to the car and then ran back across the track to the church. Gimme found this offensive and barked a single sharp bark each time. I interpreted it as, "Hey, I'm trying to work here!" She watched, but did not reprimand the girl who walked calmly to a car right next to the track. I was very proud of her for getting back to work and following her first leg. She aced the first turn to the first article.
The second leg turned into one long meander around a small fenced area and behind a couple of small buildings. It started by crossing a rock filled drainage ditch. The grass on the other side was tall and wet and Gimme got going really fast, so she missed the article. I brought her back to it and then she finished the meander leg with speed. She made the next turn nicely, crossing onto the pavement without hesitation. I'm sure the buildings blocked the breeze and made the choice easy. She went a few feet past the turn, but then sorted it out and came back to turn down the sidewalk between the two main buildings.She missed the article right as we left pavement back to grass. She was going fast to get on the grass and was looking for it when I guided her back. She never did find the article and I went back to find it later. In her defense, I thought the article was much closer to the corner, instead of two feet off the mulch. So when I guided her back to aid in her looking for it, I was probably standing just about on it, making it impossible to find. Once we gave up on the article, she quickly found the turn, didn't even hesitate going onto pavement, and dragged me to the final article.
There was a lot to like about this track and a couple issues. I continue to be very happy with her ability to handle tracks on pavement aged 1:45. I'll have to replicate the two missed articles.
Gimme sure makes tracking fun...
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