TDX Seminar

This is the seventh seminar I've done with Sil Sanders and the third time I've taken a TDX level seminar. It's great for me to get the refreshers, but I won't repeat much of the material, which I've posted in prior seminar blogs. The fields were great and easily accessible. It was verrrrrry cold and this is the same weekend Snowmageddon 2019 hit western Washington.

One thing which was a challenge was the field type. They were almost all seed grass fields, which meant strips of vegetation, with 18" strips of mud between them. It took a bit for some dogs to get used to this. Gimme picked it up fairly quickly, since she tracked in a field just like this for her TD test. For us handlers, it was challenging because of stepping over the vegetation and between them in the mud OR stepping on the vegetation and balancing, with an awkward stride length. I basically blew out my foot on the first day and then continued to tramp around on it for five miles a day, so it's still bothering me.

Saturday

Before the seminar started I talked to Sil about two issues I've noticed.

• I've noticed in our tracks when I have her searching, saying the cue "search for it", she seems to continue searching until I give her the next cue "track-on". Sil suggested I simply modify my search cuing to include instructions to track. So I did and it worked brilliantly.
• I've noticed a tendency with some challenges for her to search and then line out, either straight ahead or slightly off straight and pull really hard as if it is the track, when there was actually a turn. This is something I wanted him to watch for, acknowledging the possibility it was caused by something I'm doing or not doing correctly. Sil said he was certain it was something I was doing.

"M" over "U" crosstrack exercise video -

We've done this before, so if you are a long time reader, you may recognize this diagram.

• Gimme had difficulty getting started. I had unintentionally brought our peanut butter go toob and she found it distracting (note her mugging me), so I handed it off to someone. The other issue was the scarcity of vegetation at the start, because the tracklayer got confused and laid the track backward from what Sil intended. I was doing the dreaded line circling over my head, which I never do. I helped her by following before she was committed and it worked to encourage her.
• You can see a bit of snow on the ground and it was bitterly cold. My fingers were so cold I could barely handle the line, which affected how I handled her throughout this track. You'll note Gimme doing a serpentine on her track in the beginning, which she commonly does.
• You can see in the video, which Sil commented on, how I am stopping Gimme's investigation of the cross tracks well before the end of my line. My hands were so cold I was worried about losing the line if I got closer to the end - that's my excuse and I'm sticking with it. When I stopped her, she'd search in a circle and then line out on the track.
• There are four crosstracks on each long leg of the track. Gimme checked out all four on the first long leg. On the second long leg she noticed all of them, but discarded them on her own. This is a substantial improvement over how she did last June at the seminar. Then she tended to find the crosstracks more and more attractive. Sil thought it was mental fatigue. And, it took a bit of encouragement to get her to finish the tracks. This is not usual for her, thus the determination of mental fatigue.
• This time she got better as she went along, even though my handling wasn't very good. Note at 9:45 where she goes a few feet down the crosstrack and then just takes herself off it and returns to the track. You'll see this again at about 14:10. Beautiful!
• Twice I tried to talk her into "articles" which weren't. The first one was a plastic bag and she dutifully indicated it for treats (possibly dropped by the tracklayer). The second one was a clump of colored string and she refused to indicate it (where I back up at about 14:30).

Sunday
 
This was a day we were not scheduled for a showcase track, so I laid a couple of tracks for others.  There are some especially nice dogs. In particular the big male German Shepherd and Mollie did a great job. He has a lovely temperament and is very fast on the track. He also likes to express his opinions about things. I hope to see them again sometime.
 
Our first group exercise of the day was the tracklaying exercise. Sil gives us small pieces of paper with a number on it, then we go out in a field and lay a track with 4 corners and place one of the numbers (mine was 7 this time) at the start, each corner and the end. Then we go show Sil our map and describe/explain the triangulation markers we used for each. Then we go out in the field again and using our map and triangulation, find our markers. I had one of mine blow away before I could get it pushed into the mud, so I'd picked up a bit of orange plastic for my last marker. Happily I found all my markers. Yay for me.
 
At the end of the day we laid out Sil's contamination exercise, which we've done twice before. The black line is the track and blue dots are articles. The black dashed line is our exit path to leave the field. The red lines (and variations of red) are the contamination layers paths.
 
I was really tired from carrying around an extra 5 pounds of mud on each boot all day and didn't want to do it. Gimme really wanted to, saying she'd been cooped up in the car "for a week", so we did. By the time we got to the start, it was dark and I couldn't see a thing. Gimme had no trouble and basically wanted to do the whole track at a run. It was a challenge to find my way off the track in the dark - we lucked out since someone brought their car close to the end or we might have spent the night out there. Seriously, I'm sure Gimme would have found the way to her peanut butter jar without those stinkin' car lights.

 
Monday
 
I was torn for our second showcase track as to whether we should do the crosstrack exercise or do something different. I always see other people get to do cool extreme obstacles and I wanted the chance. On Saturday I'd watched as Sil did a track at "the triangles" where he had to throw Twizzle across the ditch and I wanted to try something similar. So I opted for extreme obstacles. Initially Sil thought I meant compound/complex obstacles, until I clarified, saying I was looking for a truly physical exercise. I forgot to grab my camera, so I wasn't able to get a video. <pout>

This is a rough drawing of the track. The black line is the track and red dots are articles. The red-dotted line is where Gimme went. Each of the three short red-dotted lines are places where Gimme went on a walkabout. The one at the bottom was where she was drawn to the tree line.

• Gimme did a great job on the extreme obstacles. Between the time Sil crossed the ditch and when we did, it filled up with water from the run-off of melting snow. The first place we crossed, it was running really fast and although Gimme was sure the track was on the other side, she was having none of it. The was a clump of grass in the middle and I tested it to make sure I could stand on it. When I did, I encouraged Gimme to "jump" and she did, landing on my feet and then on the other side.
• There was a steep uphill climb on the other side and I figured it was going to take a long time for me to get up there, maybe on hands and knees in places. Gimme was not about to wait on me, so she quite literally pulled me up the hill. I commented in the debrief how surprised I was when Gimme hauled me up the hill. Janet, one of our barn hunt friends, replied "I don't know why you're surprised, after all she is a weight pull champion." I hadn't even thought of it.
• The next obstacle where we re-crossed the creek, it was wider and the water wasn't as deep and Gimme just splashed through on her own. I was so proud of her - water is definitely not her thing.
• Now for the bad news, Sil got to see Gimme take me on a walkabout several times - all but one corner. He confirmed it is indeed caused by something I'm doing. He said every time she'd find the corner and start in the direction of the track, I didn't believe her and stopped her. So her response is to try some other direction until I follow her. Imagine her saying, with attitude, "Fine! We'll go this way, but there's no track here..."

Sil said I really need to do all marked tracks for awhile and work on our corner communication. He believes when our corner communication is in place, Gimme will be able to communicate to me better and I'll believe her more.

All in all another great seminar. Gimme is so glad we have Sil, otherwise she might have given up on me by now. Just sayin...

TDU/VST Seminar, notes

This entry is a recap of my notes:

Additional handler skills for urban tracking includes:

• reading the dogs fragile signals, much more subtle than in field tracking
• shifting responsibility to the dog for staying on the "good track"
• accepting that your dog may move well off the track to investigate options
• keeping you and your dog safe when tracking in parking lots or crossing roads

Hard-surface expectations

• don't expect your dog's nose to be flat against the asphalt
• don't expect your dog to be as close to the footsteps on asphalt or concrete as he is on lawn
• accept your dog is tracking even though he is paralleling the track several feet to several yards to the side

Corner communication

• once there is a change of behavior, stop and let your dog search for the next segment using your whole line
• make sure your dog has completely searched the whole 360º several times before moving
• as your dog starts to follow the next segment, let the line out almost to the end, then follow and immediately climb up the line
• when the dog lines out - corner communication includes asking the question, "Is this the good track?" AND increase pressure on the line

As you are teaching your dog, handling will vary between teaching-helping

• it's not a one way street. you'll go back-and-forth through various levels of helpfulness as track complexity and conditions vary
• It's common for a dog to "lose" a skill, for many reasons or no reason at all
• step back in track complexity and then move forward in small steps, so the dog can re-acquire the skill, with added depth of understanding

How to balance your desire for the dog to track close to the track vs. letting him follow the dispersed fringe...

• if your dog is losing the track following the fringes, then focus on keeping him closer to the track - using well-marked known tracks
• if your dog is usually good at staying close to the footsteps, let him work where he wants, even overshooting a corner by 30-50 yards
• after all, your dog has to learn to re-find the track when he's 30-50 yards off the track before you can realistically pass a VST test; likewise you have to learn to handle your dog and allow him to recover
• if your dog is usually good at ignoring contamination, then allow him to follow a known contamination track for 30-50 yards before stopping him and you'll get practice re-finding the track

This is the last of our seminar blogs, until next time. 

Tomorrow Gimme and I are going to Chehalis for an NW3 trial. It's only 30 minutes from home - what a blessing. Please keep those prayers and good thoughts coming...

TDU/VST Seminar, day 3

At the morning meet-up, I volunteered to lay a rather simple track (the first one). I usually volunteer to lay the complicated tracks, but Nadine and Cricket had the second track and I wanted to watch them and then be ready for our mentor track. Cricket did well, there were some interesting challenges and she acquitted herself well.

Gimme didn't have a showcase track on Monday, so I planned ahead to track with Kathleen Ball, one of the mentors. She's so quiet and I haven't worked with her before so I didn't know what to expect. During discussion late on Sunday I asked Sil several questions about corner communications, since I don't think Gimme is getting it. Sil explained what he thinks I was missing (me, not Gimme), but I wanted to experience what he was talking about - so I asked Kathleen to plan a track to teach me what I was missing.

Sil assigned us a location, but by the time we got there it was 11:30 and there were several groups of children outside and the school turned us away. I suggested we go back to base-camp and do it there. Kathleen laid a track for us with 7 corners and one road crossing. It was an easy enough track for Gimme; the whole point was to instruct me, not her. Kathleen walked close behind me so she could quietly say, "Is that the good track?" every time I should be saying it. So I'd repeat it loud enough for Gimme and increase line tension.

Kathleen also caught me in a bad handler moment - uh several moments.  When we came to the last turn, as Gimme was searching for the direction, I could see the article to my left.  Gimme pulled left-forward on an open turn.  I kept saying "is this the good track?", then when she pulled I stood my ground so she had to curl off when she ran out of line.  After the third time Kathleen said, "Next time she wants to go that way, you could try believing her..."  Of course by then Gimme was having an attitude and wouldn't line out in any direction.  I encouraged her and she tentatively went, I followed and she took me to the final glove.  I gave her all the treats I had.  Apparently the "article" I saw was just a piece of trash and Kathleen decided to use it as an opportunity for an unplanned lesson if I fell for it, which I did.

The track-lesson was a great experience. I only saw Gimme curl off a not-good track once; Kathleen saw it twice. Gimme was good about really pushing into her harness when she was sure. So now I have the feel for it and will start working on it.

Before I do, I want to work on some other handling things, more physical, so I can have better line control. It occurs to me I've been trying to work on all of it at once and maybe I should break it down. It's going to be challenging since I'm going back to my 40' line and Gimme isn't as direct in her movements in urban tracking like she is in field tracking. My first task will be to focus on climbing up the line to 10' as she lines out and moves forward strongly. When I have that habit, I think the next handling focus, keeping the line off the ground and off Gimme's back will go better. Then comes more consistent line tension. Then I'll get on the corner communication.

After all the tracks were done, mid-afternoon, we celebrated Sil's birthday with cake and ice cream. Anne does a great job as hostess for the seminars. I got to talk to her more this time - never knew she was so funny.

We had homework for Monday afternoon. There was a google-earth picture of a location with a track superimposed on it. We were to make a list of the choice points on the track. A choice point is pretty much any point along the track where the dog has to make a decision. So a list includes every transition, every feature, every anything affecting the track. Nadine and I went out for Mexican food on Sunday after the seminar and worked on our lists together. I had 49 choice points on my list.

After the choice points discussion, we did the Dog's-Nose-View exercise. I have blogged about it before, so won't repeat myself. Maybe next time I'll get a video of me or someone else doing it. It's kinda fun. Actually it would be cool to try to video from inside the snood.

Our last thing for the day was to go to a nearby college campus and watch Maureen do a VST level track with Griffin.  He's a large, really fast and strong dog.  Maureen's handling with him is exquisite, poetry in motion.  I was struck by just how far she will go to let Griffin explore his ideas about the track.  At the second-to-last turn, there were steps leading up to an enclosed passage between two buildings - forming a channel.  The track actually turned right about 6' before the steps, but Griffin was convinced he needed to check out the steps, the passage and the area beyond.  We all waited while Maureen and Griffin went over a rise and out of sight (well over 100 yards off the track).  Sil and Laura talked about it and Sil went after Maureen, I thought to blow the dreaded whistle.  He was about to go out of sight himself, when I saw he was headed back in our direction.  Apparently he got there and saw Maureen was carefully working Griffin's search pattern, heading back in our direction and to the track, so he didn't whistle.

It was amazing to see just how far off track a team can go and still recover.  Because he moves so fast, Maureen gives Griffin a lot more flexibility.  When they came down the steps, Griffin turned with the track as if it was written in cheese.  They finished quickly and beautifully.  Now I see why judges are so tolerant of teams seemingly so far from the track.  It isn't about them being exactly on the track at all times, it is about how they are working as a team to solve the puzzle.  I.E. are they still working (as opposed to Gimme taking me on a walkabout) and can they still solve the track.

I have one more blog entry to do for this seminar... a recap of my notes.

BTW Gimme and I are in a nosework trial on Thursday, it's NACSW level NW3. Prayers and good thoughts are welcome. I'd really appreciate divine intervention...

TDU/VST Seminar Photos



Saturday


Start of our showcase track.
Rewarding at the start-sock.

Gimme lines out on the second leg.

Gimme gets water and re-scented.

Sunday

Start of our showcase track. 
Rewarding at the start-sock. 

Gimme lines out on the second leg.

Gimme crosses highly contaminated driveway.

Gimme does flawless transition
back to grass after parking lot.

Gimme enjoys a bunch of treats at the final article.

TDU/VST Seminar, day 2

We met at the Cascade Shopping Mall. It has HUGE parking lots, which were mostly empty early on a Sunday morning. Sil did a demonstration of how to mark these tracks so the handler knew where they were going from a distance. Since Gimme has done these so many times, her track was in a place where there would be very large gaps. Given her difficulty on Saturday, I wanted the rest of her tracks this weekend and for the foreseeable future to be lay-it-and-run-it tracks, i.e. zero age. The cool temps and damp grass were also a plus for Gimme. You can turn down the volume if you want - I did the first time.
 
Island Serpentine video - Because of a pocket failure, Gimme had two start articles, so she indicated both. She does nicely tracking a short distance and finding yet another article. Gimme sniffs and leaves a bone lying in the grass, then moves to bushes on our left for a pee break. Some people don't allow their dogs to pee on a track, but Gimme doesn't do it very often, so I permit it. (She's done more peeing recently - probably because of the extra water she is drinking in the heat.) She crosses the pavement readily to the island and quickly finds an article. She moves around the island and into the open space, drifting toward the sheds on the right and then back to the open area and the mid-leg article. She finishes moving across the open area and finds another article right next to the island. She finds the metal plate article between the islands and then moves on quickly to find another article at the next island. The next gap is really really big, with an article halfway across. Gimme does a little visual shopping, then uses her nose to find the article. She finishes crossing the gap and finds the next article next to the island. She finds another article in the gap and then to the island for the final article.

In the afternoon Gimme ran her second showcase track. We again went for a TDU-like track, but this time well marked and zero age, lay-it-and-run-it. To help her with the non-veg crossings, we added treats. To make sure those treats would not attract any insects, Nadine gave us a big piece of duck breast. You'll hear a running commentary by Maureen, which I love. She always gives the advice, then provides
an example of where/why.
 
Gimme's 2nd showcase track video - Gimme starts nicely and lines out on the first leg right away. She overshoots the turn a few feet and uses the opportunity for a pee break. Then she does a 3/4 circle before lining out on the second leg. We have a hard surface to cross - the driveway where we all just drove over her track. While it seemed like an eternity, it only took 37 seconds for her to decide she was ready to commit across the driveway. Good girl! Shortly after the transition, she comes to the first article - a perfect reward for doing such a good job. There are two potential changes of behavior. The first is at 2:44, but she immediately resumes the line. The real COB is at 2:51 and I take five more steps (about 6') before backing up to where I should have stopped. She circles once and then my foot gets caught in the line, stopping her abruptly, so she stalls briefly before lining out on the next leg. She's quickly rewarded with the second article. She gives a false turn, then waffles a bit before committing to the leg heading for the parking lot. Gimme comes to the parking lot at an angle and I square up to it (perpendicular to the edge), so she moves a bit right to square up with me - which takes her further from the article midway across. Sil tells me what I've done, so once I support her line across the pavement, she finds the article easily. By the way, there were just waves of heat coming up off the pavement. It wasn't too hot for her paws (we checked before starting the track), but it was stifling just the same. Gimme checks the duck breast, but doesn't eat any of it. I purchased some beef jerky and am keeping it in the car for when I need it. Gimme finds a shoe insole and I eagerly reward her for it, but it's not an article for the track. I cut those up for articles, so I just assumed it was one. Oh well, once I get my scissors out it will be a few articles. There was a small flag in this part of the track which was unrelated to our track, so it was confusing. When I moved over with her, Gimme then starts the crossing of the pea gravel and quickly finds another article (the real one). Her transition back to grass was seamless. She continues down the track and takes another pee break before deciding to indicate the final article. Actually her indication was pretty weak, but I reward it anyway. These are very hot conditions for her and I sure didn't want to delay rewarding what she was giving me. She is such a good girl...

Comments:

• From Maureen, use a 40' line. I'd come to the same conclusion after reviewing Saturday's track. I have a 40' line, obviously since I used it to get our TD. I need to use it so I can give her the full length of the line to explore her options without going with her, which could give her a false impression that I'm agreeing with her line of motion.
• Sil and Maureen both commented I need to climb up the line sooner. Pretty much right after she lines out and shows she's committed, I need to be moving up the line to the 10' mark.
• I am consistently late in recognizing her change of behavior, so I inevitably move several steps further than I should. Ideally I'd recognize the COB and plant my feet, while allowing line to play out. Gimme sometimes does a bit of a serpentine back and forth over the track and so I think I don't recognize it until she fully curls off the track (usually to the right).
• I have a tendency to square up to transitions (most people do). Because I squared up to the edge of the parking lot, Gimme matched me, which put her out of line for the article halfway across.
• Sil did say my line handling was better than Saturday. It helps a lot to not be worrying about what Gimme is going through.
• About the non-article Gimme discovered, Sil said it was only 10' from the track and it's entirely possible some of Debbi's scent (the tracklayer) had drifted on it. Although I didn't see it until Gimme showed it to me, I had paused nearby, so I could have unintentionally sold her on it.

There was some discussion on Saturday about starts, related to Gimme's track. I didn't know what they were talking about and thought it would be obvious in the video. It wasn't. On Sunday the comment were about an improved start, which I still didn't understand. I made a short video of the two different starts and asked Sil and Maureen to review and explain what this was all about.

Two Starts video - While I don't think we can make any conclusions about the quality of Gimme's starts from Saturdays track and I don't think we can compare it to Sunday's track since the conditions were so different, I'm sure they is room for improvement.

There is concern that I let Gimme pull ahead to the start sock and that she can be turned facing in any direction when she looks to see if I've noticed her cleverness. She does generally align with me when I give her start-sock treats. While the advice is to restrain her from rushing ahead to the start sock... I don't want to do anything which might say she shouldn't independently go to any article she finds. She often makes generalizations I don't intend and I don't want to risk bleed over from start article to other articles.

So, to get closer to what is deemed a better, more focused start... I'll work on the following changes:

• make sure she is aligned at the article to get her treats
• treat for ten seconds or more
• as she gets treats, I'll move my hand up the line until its close to the harness
• as the treats end, I will watch her for a moment when she looks/faces down the track and say "track-on" then (much like I do in nosework)
• wait to pick up the start article until after she commits down the track

When we arrived for one of the other Sunday showcase tracks, Sil had placed a thermometer on the asphalt. After a few minutes he showed us the difference. Before laying it down it said it was 78º and 50% humidity. Afterward it was 114º and 22% humidity! Who'da thunkit!

This explains the waves of heat I felt coming off the parking lot as Gimme and I tracked across it, just 30 minutes earlier. Sil has a seven-second rule for whether we should ask our dogs to cross any hard surface. The rule is: place your hand flat on the surface and wait seven seconds. If it takes an act of will to keep it there, it's too hot for a dog's paws. At 114º it was almost there.
 
During the afternoon wrap up discussion, I discovered a hole in my understanding about corner communication and it wasn't something easily explained.  So Kathleen, one of the mentors, and I decided to do a track the next day where she could help me experience it in real time.

TDU/VST Seminar, day 1

Gimme and I went north for a three day seminar on TDU/VST tracking (urban).

In the morning we had a group tracking exercise on contamination. It was aged about 15 minutes. We've done this exercise in other seminars and she's always done well with it.

• This is the first time Gimme was in one of the middle tracks. Before she was always on one of the two end tracks, so she only saw dogs in one direction. Having dogs in both directions was very distracting, increasing her need to look at them.
• When she was able to work, she did pretty good. However, when she needed to start or restart (after each article), then she needed to watch them again to be sure they weren't doing anything she needed to be concerned about.

Gimme's 1st showcase track video -

This was a semi-blind TDU-like track with extra articles. As she usually does, Gimme drags me to the start sock. It takes her just a moment and a quick pee, before she picks up the first leg. The line of the track goes between the two attic windows on the green roof. She goes partway down the leg, looses it, goes back and forth and circles, then lines out on it again. She searches around and finds the first corner (2:30), turning a little early. She drags me behind her and then turns slightly right (3:05). She crosses a ditch and indicates loss of scent (3:35). I gave her water and that was when Sil indicated for me to come back. Since Gimme took the first corner early and was tracking parallel to it, she misses the second turn and starts following a line of contamination where a group of boys crossed the track heading for the sports fields. After a short discussion we restart her (6:05) and she's very quickly rewarded by an article. As we continue, Gimme indicates loss of scent right after the corner. At 8:22 you can see one of the straw-flags just 2 feet to the right of where I'm standing. This is a regular flag, curled tight on itself and then a straw is slipped over it. These flags are very hard to see from a distance, so you can have a fully marked track, but the handler can't 'see the markings until they are right on top of them - hence the term "semi-blind". Gimme really struggles to find this corner and Sil finally comes up to tell me where it goes, so I know when to encourage/support her. With a little bit of encouragement, she takes off strongly - with a little side trip to pee and check pee-mail in the shade. When we leave it, she zigzags a little before finding the next article (10:31). When she reaches the road (11:40) she goes back and forth along the curb before deciding to cross. Note the sneezing at 12:45. After I re-scent her she decides to cross the road, where she finds another article. After we move on Gimme is drawn visually to the cement utility panel on the ground and then to the shade next to the building. I remained standing next to the straw-flag for the corner, providing a good anchor for her and she comes back and lines out on the next leg (14:30). The voice you hear after the turn is Maureen's - I always love her comments since they are fully in line with Sil's methods, but she says it in a different way, then between the two of them I get the message. Since Gimme is struggling to make a commitment on this transition, I give her water again and then re-scent her. Although I couldn't hear Maureen, I did happen to move gradually toward the parking lot and Gimme decided to forge ahead. There were multiple transitions here before she gets to the final article - sidewalk, parking lot, curb, driveway, curb, and parking lot. She overshoots the article into the grass, but quickly comes back and indicates. 

What you don't see before Gimme curled back to me at 3:35, was that she was well ahead of me, then hunched her back and stiffens like she was about to puke, but then she doesn't. When she came back to me, she was crouched low and trembling a little. For a moment I honestly thought she might be about to have a seizure, but it cleared up so quickly with the water, I decided to let her continue. I was hoping to be able to see more of this in the video, but the person taping was kind of all over the place for a bit, so it doesn't show. Later on she sneezes several times, which I've never seen her do on track before. This coming so soon after the other causes me to realize when I thought she was about to puke, she was actually reverse sneezing, leading me to realize she is having trouble with seasonal pollen and such. She had two other reverse sneezing episodes on one day a couple weeks back, but I didn't place any significance on it. Since we've been home I've noticed her doing some snuffling twice. So now I have an explanation for why her tracking ability has seemed to fall off so much starting right after the TD/TDX seminar, which I thought was because we missed so much tracking practice in May. Poor baby has been trying so hard, but she's really not getting the level of scent she normally would.

Comments from the track wrap-up:

• At the road crossing, I was too willing to walk with Gimme as she explores back and forth. It would be better for me to stand still while letting her use the full length of the line. I think I need to go back to using the 40' line in urban instead of the 25', so I have it to play out and let her investigate without following her (which supports her moving when I may not intend to).
• My line was dragging on the ground between us and on her back an awful lot. Gimme moves in and out relative to me, so it's a challenge to reel in the extra line as fast as I need to. I think I usually do better than I did in this track, especially after she had the episode where I thought she might be about to seizure - I pretty much gave up doing my job from then on. I looked back at the beginning of the video and while it was not so bad, I can do better. I also need to get better about climbing up the line when she is moving out strong in front of me.
• Laura, a Canadian judge who audited the seminar, talked a lot about her philosophy on the importance of starts. Laura called it a "flying start". For the track we do on Sunday, she and Sil seemed to think had a better start. Gimme did stop for the sock, waiting for me to reward her and then started when I verbally cued it, so I'm not clear on what was wrong with the start for this track. I'm putting together a short video including the start from both tracks and will send it to Sil with the question about what I'm missing.
• Sil does expand to say the importance of starts is why he almost always includes an article in the middle of the first leg. I must've missed this. I've been suggesting leaving out the mid-leg article on the first and last legs, since we are starting or ending with an article.

Wind-farm

Sil has a model made of peg board and little straw flags, which he uses to demonstrate certain principles about air flow and how it is affected by environment features, both natural and manmade. It's quite interesting to see how wind (and presumably scent) changes direction and especially how far out the affect goes compared to the size of the feature.

He told us old-timers thought scent disruption extended three times the height of the building on the lea side. Science has since demonstrated turbulence at eight times the height of structures!

Even though this track was disappointing in terms of showing off how great Gimme is... it was still very helpful for me to finally figure out what has been going on for the last 6 or more weeks. I am so blessed that she's continued to try so hard despite how difficult all the tracks have been for her during that time.

In the future I'll know to account for this issue. I've checked my blog entries and there was no sign of difficulty in May and through the first weekend in June (TD/TDX seminar). I'm trying to find a site that shows the different pollens and when they are prevalent so I can get an idea of what is bothering her. I'm also putting a reminder on my calendar so I'll know when to give her simpler-younger tracks.

It's my job to make sure her tracks are all appropriate for where she is on the specific day and at the specific time. I am so blessed to have Gimme who is so willing to keep trying.

TD/TDX seminar, Monday p.m.

Sorry to be so long getting back to this - sometimes life gets in the way. On this last afternoon we had two group exercises - expanding the search area and article circles.

Expanding the Search Area - Gimme is really good at doing her "search for it" circles and, in fact, in our Monday morning search, Sil highlighted Gimme's search circles as a textbook perfect example. So on Monday afternoon as he was talking about expanding the search area; imagine my surprise to suddenly realize I've been doing it wrong.

The ideal is to repeatedly turn ahead of the dog, opening-up the area in front of you to invite the dog to continue the circle AND to use the dog's motion to step backward in a way that moves the dog into another area (in overlapping circles) without appearing to guide the dog. Somewhere along the way, when Gimme was searching, I started switching the line to my other hand and backing around in a circle. For purposes of not-appearing-to-guide-the-dog, mission accomplished. Obviously it works for us, since it was so smooth Sil didn't even pick up on it. The shortcoming has to do with my not using my chest-pointers to invite her to continue into more of the circle (not evident because she circles so readily).

I've been thinking of why I started doing this and I think it's because I'm right-handed, so I do most of the line control with my right hand. For the most part, Gimme circles clockwise, so this leads me to doing a backward circle. I watched the video from Monday morning, because I know there was two odd instances of Gimme circling counter-clockwise. Sure enough, when she circles CCW, then I'm handling the line and using my chest pointers correctly. Going the other direction, it's as I suspected.

For the practice exercise I asked Maureen to be my partner, so she could coach me through it and I could get the feel of how it's supposed to be. As always she provided excellent instructions. What I realized is, when it's backwards I am the pivot point for the backward steps to expand the area. When I'm doing it correctly, the pivot point is halfway down the line between Gimme and I. I'm sure this explanation is confusing, but it's the best I have. I don't know if I'll manage to actually make the change, but we'll see. Some would say, "If it ain't broke - don't fix it".

Article Circles - I know we've talked about these before. I decided to do this as our final exercise because I knew Gimme was getting tired from this long weekend. It's an easy game, familiar rules and Gimme loves it, so I thought it would be a nice way to end the weekend before starting the long drive home. Earlier in her tracking career I used article circles to get her into her tracking brain.

I've included a diagram of what an article circle looks like. It could really be any shape - oval and serpentine come to mind. I once did a big serpentine L-shape, because it worked. The key things are: start with a start sock (yellow), legs are 20-25 yards, place an article (blue) in the middle of each leg and make all turns, no matter how slight, between articles (i.e. not AT the article). The dog gets to lead the show and is rewarded lavishly every time they find one.  If they skip one, it's okay, just make sure they don't backtrack to try and make it up.  You can continue right from the end over to the beginning, as if it never ended.

Gimme gets 15-30 treats and a party at every article, which is probably why she loves them so much. At trials is the only time Gimme won't be immediately paid with food for finding an article. She may think I've momentarily lost my mind, but she loves the work enough to carry her through my apparent lapse.

TD/TDX seminar, Monday a.m.

For our showcase track today, I decided to again take advantage of strangers to lay crosstracks for us. I don't know when/how Nadine and I will ever have another chance to set this up.

The "M" over "U" crosstrack exercise has 8 crosstracks, 4 straight across (90º) and 4 angled (45º). It's an intense crosstrack experience. Here's a diagram of the layout:

Sil had talked about making sure we make the reward experience very valuable. I realized I'd gotten into lazy habits, so I was giving her treats one-by-one instead of by a handful - it takes a lot longer.

"M" over "U" track video -

Gimme was a bit slow to get started on this track and I'm not sure why, it's not like her. Then again this was the third day and she may simply have been a little tired. There is no sign on the video to show she even noticed the first 90º crosstrack, though I noticed a slight nose tilt at the time. She was happy to show me the first article. Gimme briefly got sucked in by the 45º crosstrack, but figures out on her own to go back to the good track and is quickly rewarded with an article. She got sucked by the next 45º crosstrack too. This time appeared she ended up somewhere between the crosstrack and the good track, until the next article pulled her back to the good track. She got totally pulled off by the last 90º crosstrack on this leg - using the whole line - oddly in the "wrong" direction. I re-scent her and cue her to "search for it"... she goes around twice then commits again to the crosstrack, but in the other direction. When the end of the line stops her, she comes back toward me and then picks up the good track right next to me and heads down the track to the next article.

 

She started on the left turn as if she was going to do a "cartoon corner" (as if you created a perfect corner in a cartoon), but then veered at an angle. I questioned her "is that the good track" and she pulled off it. One circle and she found the good track and motored on to the next article. She overruns the second corner and when she realizes it, she curves off to the side and right into search mode. She starts to commit in the wrong direction and when I question her, turns off it and continues her circle until she gets on the good track again.

 

She turns a little to the right (wrong direction) just after the first 90º crosstrack, but then goes back to the good track on her own and bim bada boom, there's another article and lots of treats follow. At the next 45º crosstrack, Gimme veered off the track, but not in any direction that actually followed the crosstrack. It would have come from our left front at an angle and passed to our right rear, Gimme turned to the right front, after the crosstrack. We tried searching, but she wasn't finding it. After I re-scented her she found it quickly. At the next 45º crosstrack, Gimme commits in the wrong direction. When she ran out of line, she happened to circle left (she usually circles right) and got right on the good track and quickly found the next article. At the final 90º crosstrack, Gimme again committed in the wrong direct and again turned left after she ran out of line, quickly searched and found the good track followed by the final glove.

 

Out of 8 crosstracks, Gimme reacted to 6 of them. Of these, Gimme committed in the wrong direction on three of them and needed my input to get back on the good track and for the other three she deviated in the right direction and then self corrected. There is no pattern as to whether they were 45 or 90-degree crosstracks. Hmmmmm.

 

This was about half the length of her longest track, but took her a lot longer than she's ever needed to finish a track - 19 minutes! It was a very intense track, with harder puzzles than she is used to, one after another. I noticed about halfway through it, the strength of her pull was less and she wasn't moving as fast either. This was a lot of brain work for my girl.

Comments from Sil and Maureen:

• Typically as the dog sees more crosstracks on a particular track, they become more and more attractive, which was true for Gimme as well.  In time the dog learns and resists being drawn off their track, but Gimme hasn't had enough of those experiences yet. She'll need more experiences like this to learn she is responsible for staying on the good track, no matter what.  
• Corner communication wasn't as helpful as it should be because we haven't done it enough when she was right, it wasn't creating the right association and thus she wasn't "answering" with a meaningful response.
• He complimented my way of taking a few steps as I'm adding restraint and/or stopping Gimme with the line, so it's not sudden. However I need to consistently and accurately back up to recover the space given. Perhaps I should make a habit to count those steps out loud, so I can then know how many backward steps I should take.
• Maureen and Sil both thought Gimme's search circles are a lovely example of what it should look like. In particular the first corner was textbook. Sil reminded us we used this same field two days earlier and at the corner where Gimme lined out in the wrong direction, it could have been residual contamination.  I'd forgotten this.
• Maureen appreciated my smoother line handling. The glove didn't work from the day before. But, I found I could let the line slide across my right palm, while letting it pull through a somewhat tighter grip in my left hand. I added another knot near the end of my line, so when I felt the knot go through my left hand, I knew I had just 6 feet to get a grip or I'd lose it entirely. It felt good.
• Sil talked about Gimme's mental fatigue. He wasn't concerned about it this time, because we knew we were pushing her during the seminar and he knows I'll make sure to build in some fun motivational tracks. He reminded everyone how important it is to strike a balance between challenging tracks and fun tracks, to keep from losing motivation.

This is one of the (many) things I love about Gimme. She's really very strong, so we can sometimes push her too far or too much and she'll still bounce back.  It gives me extra flexibility.  Her confidence and persistence compensates when my training doesn't follow the best plan. As I always say, she makes me look like a better trainer than I am.

TD/TDX seminar, Sunday p.m.

In the afternoon Sil discussed the difference between "helps" and "hints". Helps are the conscious things you do when your dog is having difficulty, so they can learn from the experience. Hints are often unconscious, though they can be intentional as part of teaching the dog a new skill. Looking at this list, I see I do all of them at one time or another. Hints need to be extinguished gradually so the dog becomes a self-reliant tracker. They include:

• facing in the direction of a new leg before the dog searches in that area
• anchoring or staying on the good track when the dog wanders to the side
• quickly following the dog when he investigates the correct direction prior to her committing to it herself
• taking some suggestive steps in the direction of the new leg
• encouraging talk when the dog is searching in the right direction
• increasing tension or checking the dog when he investigates an incorrect direction
• negative sounding talk when the dog searches in the incorrect direction
• the tracklayer or spectators moving quickly before the dog and handler fully commit to the new direction

After the afternoon lectures we all moved to a large field, then laid and ran a contamination track exercise. The participants were divided into two groups. Sil and Maureen each laid a track. Then each group laid contamination on one of the tracks and afterward ran the other track with their dog.

Black solid is the dog's track, black dashed is the path off the field. Red (and red variations) are the contamination tracks. The two tracks were set up well apart. Then the two groups of contamination layers walked up the middle between them, turned toward the track and laid three lines of contamination crossing the track. The first two lines we walked as a group (multiple lines), in a gaggle, so there were multiple sets of footprints close together and crossing the track. The third line we walked single file (heavy line) like baby ducks.

We were instructed to allow our dog to use as much of the line up to the full length, to investigate the contamination.  Then if they were unable to figure it out, we were supposed to reel them in and give them progressive helps until they committed to the right track. There were three articles placed strategically to reward them after they successfully moved beyond each line of contamination. 

Gimme and the other more experienced dogs were able to work through the gaggle contamination. Every dog, Gimme included, got sucked in on the very strong scent of the third contamination line.

It was a fun track to do, though challenging for me since I was wearing thongs and Gimme was impatient with how slow I was. I didn't have any dry socks and did not want to get my only pair of shoes wet in the long wet grass. The muck boots were still too wet to use from the morning's adventure.  I think I need to stash a couple pair of dry socks in the van, for days just like this one.