Field Tracking (61 & 62)

My focus since our TDU test is to teach Gimme to track through dog contamination when it's at the beginning of her track. When the dog contamination is in the middle or at the end of a track, she gets through it without great difficulty. Not so when it's close to the start and she hasn't gotten the track scent well established in her mind.

On Thursday, January 23rd, Nadine and I met at Flaming Geyser. It was raining and the model airplane guys weren't there, so we decided to lay a track on their field. Since the prior track was so hard for Gimme, my plan was for a simpler track.

Naturally just as we were about to run the track, a lady came through and let her off-leash dog run all over the first and second legs of Gimme's track. So Gimme only had ten feet of track to get it established in her head before she came upon the dog contamination (red squiggle). She did better on the third and fourth legs, but not like she usually does. The last two legs were more like her.

I didn't see the contamination happening and when Nadine mentioned it, I understood the lady and her dog had simply walked across our first leg. If I had realized the extent of the contamination, we could have walked straight to the article on the third leg and started there.

Today, Thursday, January 30th, Nadine and I again met at Flaming Geyser and I had a plan for more controlled contamination.

I laid our track, with a start flag and another flag about 40 feet out, and then every corner. I wanted to give her a bit to get the track established in her mind. Nadine walked Ember over the track 3 times, before angling off past the end to start her baby tracks in the other part of the field. I brought Cricket up and stood about 10' to the side (near the road) and threw treats across the track, so she'd go to get them and then come back to me for another. She missed a few, which I figured Gimme would get. I couldn't walk her back and forth across the track, since I laid it.

Gimme did okay at this. She really followed the dog contamination back and forth, but did not find the cheese Cricket missed. Once we ran out of contamination, she went back to the track and did a fabulous job. She was fast, enthusiastic and precise through to the end.

In hindsight, I'm not sure this accomplished what I wanted, since she was still practicing following the dog contamination. My goal is for her to note it and stick to the track. I have a plan for our next time at Flaming Geyser. I want Nadine to mark off a rectangle in the same general area, but contaminate it in a more random fashion. Then I'll lay the track over it and put cheese on the track to help Gimme learn to stick to the track and get a self-reward when she does so.

I also want talk to Sill about giving her less line to work with, to encourage her to stick closer to the track. He may have different thoughts.

Meanwhile next week we will be at Game Farm. Nadine suggested laying an article circle and having Gimme run it after her dog. But I think we'd still be practicing her following dog contamination and essentially getting rewarded for it. So, I have a plan doing overlapping tracks - planning the two tracks so I can set articles to reward Gimme for getting past the contamination.