Urban Tracking (129)

On Saturday, March 9th, I laid a track around the Burlington building. It was 47º and no breeze when I set the track. Then I went to a movie and we ran the track 2:10 later. By then there was a breeze, but I didn't notice it until we got by the back corner behind the building.

The first leg appears to switchback on itself, but it wasn't as bad as it looks. (it's hard to see in the picture because the bushes obscure the black track line)  While the switchback was only five yards from the line of the start, it was also 12 feet lower through big bushes. Gimme didn't have any problem with it. We were walking/tracking on ivy creeping across the sidewalk, which probably helped. Gimme did a great job getting across the street, even though there was a fair amount of traffic, but she had good scent holding surface and vegetation on the other side. For the first part of this leg she did really well cruising down the islands.

The place where there are two short orange lines crossing the track proved more challenging than the other spots between islands. Based on the parking lot layout, I think a lot of people drove down this aisle. Gimme was able to find the track on the curb of the next island and got through the left turn and the first part of the next leg without a hitch. The next trouble spot was the place where the two longer orange lines cross the track. This was a main traffic point in the parking lot and Gimme really struggled with it. She just couldn't find the scent anywhere out there. For her it just stopped. I finally helped her to a spot where I knew it was and then she went on to where the next corner was.

Along the side and the back edge between their property and the greenbelt/swamp, they have a long line of those huge concrete freeway dividers, with chainlink on top. The back corner (upper right in the picture) bumped against a divider and then turned 75º left. This corner is really the first place on the track where I noticed the breeze. Gimme was all over top of the dividers and sticking her nose in the cutouts under them. She had no interest in going left - zero, zip, nada. Based on her behavior I've drawn a blue line showing what I think the breeze was doing. I tried encouraging her left, but she wanted to take a sharp hook to the side of the building, repeatedly. I let her do it a couple times, but she wasn't able to get from there to the track. I helped her by organizing her search until she caught the drift of the article.

From there to the end of the track she had no problem. It took me 10 minutes to lay the track and it took Gimme 28 minutes to run it. I don't think we've ever had such a big difference between the time to lay it and the time to run it. On a positive note, Gimme never gave up - she IS persistent.

I want to repeat the two challenges again, but in separate tracks. I want to repeat the traffic crossing going in the other direction, so she has a curb to find the scent on. Then we'll do it off to the side, which will be the same amount of traffic. Maybe even slicing the angle or something. Likewise I want to do the breeze challenge in the back corner a couple of different ways, so Gimme can conquer it earlier in the track and/or without another big challenge in the same track.

Tracking with such a smart girl is a lot of fun.

Nosework class (3/36)

Our first search was a large exterior space. Last week's class was about people crowding a hide location and this week was simply a crowded space. Gimme is in season, but fortunately could care less about her attire when searching.

Exterior search video - The beginning of this search was cut off - basically she went straight to the hide from the startline. The startline is the change from dark to light pavement at the bottom of the screen. I was so involved with what Gimme was doing and I had a migraine, so forgot to say "alert" on the second hide. (the end of the parking stripes on the right side was the search area perimeter) She stutter-stepped by the drainpipe so I took her back; she rechecked it and left. On the way back toward the startline, she briefly sniffs the drain on the move, but keeps going. When I turned her back toward it, she finds it readily. Drains do strange things with the movement of scent.

Interior 1 search video - They filled the foyer with things to make it a cluttered area. Luckily Gimme isn't much bothered by clutter. Needless to say, leash handling was a bit of a challenge. Gimme finds the first hide really fast and keeps trying to go back to it. Had this been a blind search I might have called finish before the second hide. All the dogs found the second hide challenging; Gimme was the fastest.

Interior 2 search video - Gimme is quick to find the first hide. It takes a bit longer on the second hide, but once she gets in the right area she catches drift from it and it doesn't take long to source and indicate.

Interior 3 search video - Thankfully this time we get to go off leash. She found the first hide and gave the briefest indication, leaving before I could pay her. I would have paid for the weak indication if only she would stick the hide, but once she left, I really couldn't pay for it. Sticking the hide is a very important part of the indication. She's very quick to find the second hide and indicates clearly. You can't see it on the video, but she's got her nose under the chair and then keeps looking at me over the chair. It was damn cute. She goes by the first hide a couple of times before she finally indicates - dramatically. It seemed she was annoyed at me for not paying up on the earlier fly-by-indication so only condescended to indicate again when she couldn't find anything else. She does have attitude.

Interior 4 search video - This time the room was opened up and the hides were all moved. Gimme finds the one on the step-platform quickly and then finds the one in the box at the far end of the room. She misses the one under the step-platform, but then gets one under a chair. From there she goes to the hide on the step-platform (the first one she finds) and when I say, "Thank you - find me another one" she goes forward a bit and catches scent from the hide on the ladder - which she indicates seconds later. I stayed near the threshold and she worked around me until the found the threshold hide in the file box. As I wander to the far end of the room where hide number six is, she happens to step on the step-platform, then whips back to indicate it. It was a long search, but six is a lot of hides.

She did a nice job on her searches. I wasn't sure how well we'd do, since my shoulder was out of joint, hurting me a lot and affecting my focus. Fortunately Gimme was able to take up the slack and do well without my help.

RFE practice (88)

I didn't know what to expect since Gimme was coming into season. Sometimes she's bolder and better when she's in season and sometimes the opposite. I started out having her find positions, adding "fanny" into the mix, to get into her training brain. It was a little challenging because of the screeching young dog in daycare.

Heeling video - After she got focused we did some heeling and I was trying to mark the best parts. I missed some good opportunities and my timing was off on others. I lost her for a bit when a dog in daycare was squeaking a toy. She wasn't going to get past it on her own, so I led her to the far end of the room to work and dramatically increased the rate of reinforcement. Then we played treat chasing briefly before heeling on the other side. As luck would have it I clicked and half a second later the dog squealed again, but a treat was on its way to Gimme, so I kept her attention despite the distraction. She drifted very wide on the corner closest to daycare, but came back on her own.
 
Center pivot video - I started with CCW pivot, since Gimme has the most difficulty maintaining position and a tendency to turn it into "otto". In this direction I slow it down to one-eighth turns and spit treats to her. She's mostly out of position by then and I have to wait for her to get back in position before rewarding. I did some pivots where I changed direction. In watching this, I think the multiple changes of direction worked the best.
 
Sidepasses video - We'd already worked a lot so we only did a little bit of this. She's improving nicely.
 
"Izzy" & "otto" handler turns reverse video - We will need this in advanced and it's not something I've worked. Gimme picked up handler turning reverse in forward circles, so I'm sure she'll pick this up too. Note how fast she's gotten on her "izzy", which used to be her bad side. I checked the exercise description and it seemed vague, so I watched the video on the RFE website. I only need to turn once and Gimme turns at least twice. Given how fast she is, it'll likely be more than two turns. I'm certain we haven't tried this before, so she did great.
 
"Away" with platform video - I tried a number of things I wasn't completely happy with. I started with a target stick, but got a spin on the platform, instead of stopping facing "away". Looking at this makes me wonder if it might have worked better with peanut butter on the target stick, for her to lick while maintaining position - more as a treat delivery option than as a target. Leaving the target stick out and just using treat delivery to encourage the position (hand luring) worked pretty well and I got some brief pauses in position. I thought tossing the treat in front of her when she turned "away" also had promise. It was very hard to get the timing right on the toss. I was trying to click her turn and I can see in the video I was terribly late, clicking when her head was turned past 180º and back toward me. I tried positioning her and giving her a wait cue, then clicking when she'd happen to turn her head forward. The trouble with this was the huge decrease in rate of reinforcement, so she was getting frustrated. I tried placing treats on a little cone to give her something to focus on. It worked a little better so I brought in her special bowl for another session at this.
 
"Away" with platform and special bowl video - I started out doing "wait" on the platform while I walked around her. Then I positioned her with "wait" while I moved behind her and waited for her to look at the special bowl. However, from what I'm seeing on the video, it doesn't look like she's actually looking at it, just in its direction. This makes sense, since our training has been to be aware of it, but not overly focused on it and we've even heeled around it where she gets rewarded for not even looking at it, though it may only be a foot out of our path. I think I'm going to make a freestanding target stick and teach her to look at it and do a sustained nose touch to it. Then it will be less confusing.
 
"East" & "west" video - We just recently started training this and it's coming along very well. It helps when you start with a canine genius.
 
"Boop" & "beep" video - This continues to be a challenge. I started with "boop" because it is a more challenging direction for her to turn her heiney. I waited too long to start on "beep", so it's taking a bit to get going. I was using the spot against the table so I could use the mirror to know when to click - aiming for the moment when she turns her heiney. After struggling to set up a mirror at home, I discovered I don't need one. If I look down my leg on the side she is backing to, I can click just as any part of her appears and it will be close enough timing.
 
I've also been discussing this on the MDSA list and Ilona gave me a good idea. So now I'm freeshaping Gimme to weave backward through obstacles. I'm using two bottles of bleach for a start and I'm approaching it very much like the way they train 2x2 weave poles. Gimme being Gimme has her own little twist on it. She is pretty certain it'll be more interesting if she puts her feet on top of the bleach bottle. Never a dull moment...
 
Since this practice she has come in season and will surely be completely out before we meet this Thursday.

Nosework class (2/36)

I told Dorothy about my observation regarding Gimme's missed hides in the interiors at the NW3 trial, asking that we work on it in class. I was sure Gimme wasn't intimidated or concerned by the nearby person, just distracted.

Dorothy brought up the idea some dogs might be "polite", as if they thought the person owned the hide. None of the dogs in our class are concerned about people, but they all took their time about claiming the hide, getting faster as we did more exercises. I hope we do this again from time to time.

Interior 1 human distraction search video - There is just one hide on the front corner of the black chair with someone sitting on either side of it. It seems all the dogs in the class the day before were investigating trapping odor on the grey cart. Gimme didn't take too long, but these are familiar people and sitting.

Interior 2 human distraction search video - This time the hide is on the same chair, but up against a table where there are four people sitting. Dorothy is one of the people sitting, so the video is "odd" (she needed a swivel chair). She makes the point about dog expectations regarding where the hide is - i.e. not near a lot of people. Gimme definitely gives the group of us and the table a pass and only after she has thoroughly checked the rest of the room does she seem to pay attention when near the table - she passed by it once earlier, but showed no sign of noting odor.

Interior 3 human distraction search video - This time the chair was laid flat on the floor with 2 people standing close to it. Gimme was much quicker to get to it once she caught the drift of scent.

Interior 4 human distraction search video - This time the hide was on the same chair, laying on its side in the tiny foyer (about 8'x10') with everyone standing in the room. Although this was very crowded, Gimme was super fast to find the hide. I think the small space concentrated the scent picture and by then she was used to all of us behaving strangely. Very nice.

This is more human distraction than she should ever encounter at a trial, though I've had interior searches which were almost as tight as this last exercise. Ideally I'd like to do this enough to go waaaay beyond what we'd encounter so strange-human distraction at a trial would be blasé.

Urban tracking (126, 127 & 128)

Nadine and I met at Auburn Cinema on Thursday, February 21st. It was about 42º, slight breeze and aged an hour. This track was designed to work on the skill of tracking next to a building, as well as tracking away and turning close to it. 

Instead I found Gimme was hardly able to do basic tracking.  She was a marking-crazy girl and spent so much time distracted by the need to do so.  We got through the track, finally, but it took a lot of helping.  Oddly her best moment was on the article in the fifth leg.  There was a bunch of trash strewn about there and Nadine placed a small trash-like article right in the middle of it.  Gimme nailed it and did a great job for the remainder of the track.

I figured she was about to come in season and indeed, she is getting poofy-butt as we speak.  One challenge of the cinema grounds is all the dog marking.  Many people traveling in motor homes and they stop there overnight and walk their pets all over.  Mostly Gimme has learned to ignore this distraction.  However, right before she comes in season she seems prone to leaving her own calling card.  Oddly when she's actually in season, this tendency lessens quite a bit and she does some of her best work.
 
On Saturday, February 23rd I laid a track for Gimme around the Shopco and Best Furniture buildings.  I picked this spot because I didn't think there would be a lot of dog marking to contend with.  I also picked it because it's right next to Regal Cinema, so I had a movie to go to while it aged.  It was 40º, no breeze and aged 2:10.  That's the longest-aged track Gimme has worked on pavement. 

She did a lovely job.  There was still a little more marking than usual, but much less than we'd had two days earlier.  My goal for the time being is to focus on line handling, and especially, corner communication.  Sil said I need to have very well marked tracks, so I can be sure exactly where the corners are.  Then when we have solid corner communication (my query and her response), I'll be able to work better when I don't know where the corners are.  I was able to use corner communication in several spots and Gimme responded well.  Sil cautioned me to be sure I don't use it more often on wrong line-outs, because it can become tainted as a clue she's wrong and loses its value when I don't know if she's right or wrong.  I think I used it 50/50 between right and wrong. 

On Friday, March 1st, Nadine and I met at Game Farm Park.  I asked her to lay the exact same track we did there two weeks ago - when Gimme overran a corner and then, sliced through a leg (missing a corner and an article) on her way to an article she could smell on the next leg.  I asked that she mark all the corners.  Of course, duplicating a track does not duplicate the conditions.  It can, but it's equally likely the conditions will be very different.

Gimme did a really nice job on this track.  I used corner communication on 4 of the 5 corners.  On the last corner she was hauling me down the track so fast I couldn't get my words out.  I used corner communication twice when she was lined out wrong.  First on the first corner, where Gimme lined out along the tree-line, about a 45º turn.  She responded by curling right and picking up the line of the leg.  Good girl.

The other time I used it for a wrong direction was at our little stone-henge (bottom center of picture, 2nd turn).  She really had a hard time here.  The breeze was blowing from the direction in front of us.  Since stone-henge is the highest point in the park and the ground falls away on all sides, with trees in the direction the breeze was flowing from, I don't think the challenge was from the breeze.  Rather 98% of this track was on vegetation.  The 2% on non-veg included 3 cement path crossings and this one spot, where there was a turn.  After considerable searching, Gimme went down the hill on the far side from the turn (toward bottom edge of picture) and this is when I queried "is this the good track"?  I think if I had paused just a moment longer she would have come back by herself. 

She had searched inside and outside the circle of stones.  Unfortunately, she hadn't gotten to the vegetation on the side of the turn yet and the dry dirt wasn't giving her enough information.  I was about ready to organize her search in the direction of the turn (didn't want to hint too soon).  However, when she came back to the circle after the corner communication she happened to swing out of the circle and down the hill in the right direction.  I think she smelled the article on the third leg, but she got going too fast and overran the article, so I had to encourage her to come back and find it.

Clearly we will be doing several variations on stone-henge.  Still I was extremely pleased with her efforts.  She's such a smarty.

Oakville NW3 Pictures



Kristy Strunk took pictures of the container, vehicle and exterior searches and made them available for free.  I selected these pictures to commemorate Gimme's two new titles NW3-V and NW3-E.

 

Vehicle search

 

Here's Gimme blasting off the start line.  She has always leaped into searches.

 

 

 

 

 

 

She loves to go fast, which is why she overruns hides (and corners in tracking).

 

Here she's dutifully checking the front bumper of the big truck, even though there's nothing there.

 

Exterior search

This is right at the beginning of her search and she's on the walkway just past the pipe and the end of the railing.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here she is at the end of the walkway on the little pad.  I didn't even notice the bleachers until I saw them in the pictures.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

She did a lovely job finding the hide on the table.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

She checked out the trash can, but was a good girl and didn't try to fake me out.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The piece of wood was a bit suspicious sitting out in the middle of the grass, so we checked it out just before calling "finish".

 

Oakville NW3 trial

I was really hoping we'd do it this time on our fourth try. The trial was close to home, about a 40 minute drive. The elementary school they used was a great site. There was no reactive dog parking, but there were a few places available out of the crush, so it worked well anyway. The potty area was a big flat open field and even though everyone was using it, since I could see from one end to the other it was pretty easy to maintain adequate space.

Container search - We had 2:30 minutes, 1-3 hides and on leash. Gimme started out really well. She went up the left row and whipped back to get a hide in the second box. From there we checked the rest of the boxes in that row and arced over to the right row. Gimme was about halfway down the row when she turned back to the second box and alerted. Again right.

From there we came up the center row and Gimme stopped to sniff the last box. I stopped with her, she alerted and I called it for a false alert. Gimme received 4 faults: false alert - 2, pawing 1 and dropped food 1. I can't imagine how there was any dropped food since she inhales her chicken nuggets with great rapidity. It's a moot point in any case, since we could no longer qualify for the NW3 title.

I was responsible for this failure, since I didn't work my plan. When Gimme stopped to sniff the last box of the row, I stopped with her, which encouraged her to offer an alert, just to see if I'd pay. If I had continued moving around the box, I think she would have left it. My bad. I have no real sense of time, so I often feel rushed in trials. In this case we had plenty of time since I'd only used 42.13 seconds out of 2½ minutes.

Vehicle search - We had 3:00 minutes, 1-3 hides and on leash. There were two white pick-up trucks and a red compact sedan. Even though I had her pointed toward the middle pick-up, Gimme turned right off the start line to go up the side of the red car. She passed the hide briefly, then turned back to it, detailed a few seconds and alerted. After a "yes" from the judge, we checked the trucks. Gimme spent a bit of time on the front bumper of the furthest truck, but never detailed or alerted.

While she was happy to go around and around the trucks, she did try to lead me away from the vehicles. The second time she did this, I called "finished". Our search time was 1:40.46 and since this was our third leg, we completed the NW3-V title.

Interior searches - We had 2:30 minutes for each of three searches, 0-3 hides and all on leash. All three search areas were in small, cluttered classrooms.

Interior 1 search - It didn't take Gimme very long to find a hide under a small stool. From there the searched and searched. She showed some interest in a bookshelf by the wall, but moved on. There was a person standing quietly nearby and I noticed Gimme looked at her. Since she didn't seem to be finding anything I called finished at 1:36.58.

As it turns out there was a second hide in the bookshelf (red circle) where Gimme had noticed the person (smiley face).

Interior 2 search - Gimme worked this area really fast. She seemed to overrun her nose a lot, but finally settled on a hide under a chair against the wall. She searched a little more, but seemed to have lost steam. I called "finish" at 2:09.76 and was right.







Interior 3 search - Gimme entered the room and turned immediately to the right, then scooted up the right wall. From there she came back to the corner and found a hide deep in a box of blocks. She scanned around the room and sniffed the ladder laying flat on the ground. The videographer was standing right at the head of the ladder and Gimme noticed him. There was also a fish tank on the shelf above where the ladder lay, but I didn't see any sign Gimme noticed the tank or its noises.

She went over toward the door and found a hide on a chair at the table near the threshold. She scanned the room again and ended up back over at the ladder. She sniffed it again and twice looked at the man nearby. She didn't stick it and her search behavior was losing intensity so I called "finished" at 2:18.21. Turns out there was a hide on the ladder.

In hindsight, for both hides she missed (interiors 1 and 3) there was a person standing nearby, roughly 5 feet away. I don't think Gimme was intimidated or concerned by their presence, but I did see her look at the woman (bookshelf hide) and look repeatedly at the man (near the ladder hide). So I think they were simply distracting. In class we are pretty careful not to have people standing or sitting near hides and if anyone moves around during a search, they do so discretely. I've asked Dorothy to consider ways we might train this as a distraction challenge exercise.

Exterior search - - We had 3:00 minutes, 1-3 hides and on leash. The lines at the bottom right are stairs and the heavy line going up the right is a railing. The black dot is a pipe on the building and the larger grey circle is a trash can. The orange boxes are large utility fixtures. The two white squares are a desk and a folding table. The brown line is a big stick in the middle of the grass.

Gimme went to the right of the railing, followed the wall, then swept to the left around the border of the search area. She was quite interested in the area between the two utility fixtures, but I encouraged her to leave them. Given where the hide was placed I'm sure scent was being sucked between them. Once she got to the small desk it only took her a moment to get to the hide at the table.

From there she went up and through the railing, leaving me in the grass. I had her come back through to me and then we went around to check out the pipe, but she was not interested in it. She spent a bit of time checking out the trash can, but didn't settle in any spot, though she detailed both handles. When she was checking high on the wall near it, I was certain she wasn't going to find anything, so I encouraged her to leave it. We made sure to check the stick in the middle of the grass and then called "finish" and left. We only had 7.11 seconds remaining. This was our third leg and we completed the NW3-E title.

These are titles 61 and 62, our first titles this year. Gimme got a great new stuffed pig toy to reward her effort. She was pretty funny carrying it in the house and keeping those very long legs up out of the snow. Once in the house she immediately took it up on the couch, then used her nose to shove all the other toys off the couch. She hasn't allowed another toy on the couch in the 9 days since. I don't even try to comprehend what goes on in her mind - too complex for me, eh.