Urban Tracking (162)

On Thursday, May 21st, Nadine and I met at the far end of Flaming Geyser, in the park area. Gimme's track is in black and Nadine's is in red. The two white lines are where we parked. After we laid the track and while Nadine was tracking with Cricket and Sugar, 3 separate groups of people showed up to play with their dogs. Their cars are indicated with short orange lines. Where they walked and played with their dogs are shown with orange dots.

Gimme's track was 90 minutes old and 53º. There was a breeze coming off the river at the top of the picture. Gimme was only 35 yards into her track when she came upon the first dog contamination and their car was still there - right beside her track. The owner had been throwing a ball and the first throw put it right next to Gimme's first article. Gimme checked out the dog smells and then moved on, got across the road and was on the track, but would have missed her first article without my help.

She got a little further and then got stuck on Nadine's cross-track and/or the nearby dog contamination. Gimme needed to go between two picnic tables and past a grill, but it was a struggle. One pair of owners (three orange dots) were sitting at nearby tables with their off leash dog. Nadine walked over before we started and asked them to put their dog on leash, which they nicely did. This was probably the hardest part of the track, but Gimme did finally figure it out.
 
After these challenges, Gimme paid no attention to the contamination on the path near the river, even though it was all over her track for about 80 yards. When we got past the contamination, Gimme went so fast she almost missed an article. In her defense it was laying in a bunch of pine needles, so it may have been hard to smell.
 
She got through the multiple turns and then had a little struggle with dog contamination right as she needed to cross the road. She finally just crossed the road and then searched until she found the track on the other side, despite two cars parked there. From there to the end, she just aced it.
 
Clearly with all the contamination provided by other park users, we didn't really need to set cross-tracks. Gimme did a good job, despite the challenges.

Urban Tracking (161)

On Thursday, May 14th, Nadine and I met at Flaming Geyser for tracking. I made a plan ahead of time, but we had to modify it. The park people set aside a large area for migratory bird nesting. I sure hope the birds know how to read those signs so they know where to nest. It didn't affect us too bad, but it did mean I could only watch the very beginning of Nadine's tracks.

Nadine ran all three of her girls first (red line) and after she was out of the way, I started Gimme (black line). The track was about an hour old, with very little breeze. The gray circle at the beginning was where I asked Nadine to potty her girls on the way to her track startline. Gimme was, of course, fascinated by it and had to over-mark everything. On a positive note, she was able to go back to tracking.

Gimme struggled with the first turn. All three of Nadine's girls got caught up by my cross-track right before our turn, so they were all over the place, which then threw Gimme off. Another issue was the location of our turn. It bumped right up to the area set aside for the birds, so I had to restrict Gimme's attempts to solve the issue to keep her out of the nesting area.

From there to the end, Gimme was amazing. The only other area that presented a slight issue was the first road crossing (upper left corner). There was a man coming toward us walking a large out-of-control dog, so I didn't feel I could let her take her time to solve it. I just walked her to the other side and she quickly found it in the grass and was off like a shot.

She sure is glad to be back to tracking. We are also doing parkour, getting some entries ready for the special Themes titles series.

Urban Tracking (160)

On Thursday, May 7th, Nadine and I met at Auburn Cinema. We again laid a pair of overlapping tracks. Gimme's track was close to an hour old. There was a breeze, but not as strong as it was the week before. The first and last cross tracks had Nadine and two of her dogs' scent; the second and third cross tracks had Nadine and her three dogs.

I laid Gimme's track (black) and Nadine laid a track for her girls (red). I printed up a diagram for Nadine, but it wasn't clear enough. Intended her to turn and pass through one of the landscape islands, which would have put the leg for the cross tracks about 30 feet from our start and end. Instead she thought it showed her going around the landscape island, which had her cross track 3 feet from our start and end (dotted red line).

Gimme had a really hard time with the start, but didn't appear to notice the crossing at the end or the two other crossings. It took Gimme awhile to sort it out. While I didn't intend such a hard challenge, it was a good experience for her. As luck would have it, a guy parked on her track (white dash) and was busy compounding his vehicle. I thought this would be hard for her, but she went around the car without hesitation. Fortunately she then got right to the first article and was well rewarded for her efforts.

As I said, there wasn't any sign of Gimme noticing the other three cross tracks. She just motored through her track like a pro.

Nadine pointed out last week how Gimme's tail wags the whole time she is tracking and even faster when she gets to an article. I've been watching for it and have also noticed she speeds up and/or gets "busier" when she's close to an article. It's nice to have this tell.

I know she is sure happy to be back to tracking.

Urban Tracking (159)

Nadine and I met at Auburn Cinema on Thursday, April 30th. This is our first time tracking in 5 weeks. All the girls were very eager to get back to it.

As we've been doing, we did a track overlapping a track. Gimme's track wasn't aged very long, about 40 minutes. Nadine ran Cricket and Sugar on the red track. The light blue arrow is the wind coming from the north. The white blob below the arrow is an 18-wheeler. It and the Wal-Mart store blocked much of the wind, but channeled it down the western side of our tracking layout.

Gimme struggled to get started. The crosstrack was only 10 feet from her start sock and the wind was channeled strongly there. Fortunately when she figured it out, she was rewarded by an article. There was no sign she even noticed the second cross track and she found the article next to the curb easily. She went about 6 feet past the first corner in the grass, then arced left and rejoined the track, quickly finding the next article. She did a great job with the other two turns on the grass, crossing the road and finding the next article. Again there was no sign she noticed the third cross track.

Gimme got stalled before the fourth cross track and was tending to go off to the left of the track. I'm sure this was from the wind channeled into this part of the track. She did finally figure it out and then got to the final article. Since she was working so hard to figure out the wind problem, I couldn't tell if the final cross track was an issue.

Overall she did a great job. The 18-wheeler-wind problem was a new one for us. Since she hadn't been tracking in 5 weeks, I was pleased with how she took up where she left off. Her tail wagged constantly and wagged faster when she found an article. All the extra walking and weekly nosework practices aren't enough for her. My brilliant girl needs to have opportunities to use her brain.

Nosework practice 200428

I haven't gotten any homework assignments in awhile, so decided to set up couple of converging-odor searches. Both sets of hides aged for 45 minutes.

This first search was in the doorway of the old Pizza hut (been closed for years). Thinking it would be easier; I set one hide low and the other high.









When it came time to search the low hide was gone. Someone made off with my large Mentos container - given all the trash strewn around, it certainly wasn't a cleaning-up thing. Gimme repeatedly insisted there was a hide there. (I checked later and there was no hole the hide could have gotten pushed into) I had no choice but to treat it like lingering odor, since source was gone.

It took her a long time to find the high hide, a tin squeezed in the crack of the door. Given her love of high hides, I thought this would be very easy for her. In hindsight, the door crack could have been sucking scent into the building, leaving little for her to find. I also think this explains why she kept going to the missing low hide - it was the most scent she could find. Needless to say she got a LOT of treats when she did find this.

Also, I don't know what the enclosed doorway does to the way scent moves.  I'd love to have a smoke pen for instances just like this one.





I expected the second converging odor hide to be harder because both hides were on the same plane and only 5' feet apart. She went straight to the first hide under the welcome matt. From it she went straight to the hide between the rocks a few feet away.

Just goes to show you, the dog's nose knows. What you think is happening might not be the case at all.