Week 12 - Practice 1

2/4/2025

We practiced 2 tracks, and articles games.

Wren and I met up with Flora and Finwe as well as Mr. Lauritz and his Standard Poodle, Max.

Each track is Double Laid with treats and an End Article.

Session 1:

• Weather: 69F, 48% Humidity, Sunny, Wind WNW 14mph.

• Located at open fields at Yorktown. Fields were rough chopped old straw grass/briars but workable.

  • Track One - Double laid. Open Angle to the Left 10:28 am

    • Aged 20 minutes

    • 80 yd in cut field grasses

    • Treats spaced every 12 Steps. One treat also placed for 5 steps leading into, and then 5 steps leading back out of the Open turn.

  • Track Two - Double laid. Open Angle to the Right 11:47am

    • Aged 20 minutes

    • 90 yd in cut field grasses

    • Treats spaced every 12 Steps. One treat also placed for 5 steps leading into, and then 5 steps leading back out of the Open turn.

    
    

Session 2 - Article Game:

• Weather: 71F, 40% Humidity, Sunny, Wind NE 8mph.

• Located at a field in Newport News Park. Some foot traffic, lots of car traffic close by.

  • Laid out a line of articles 1 article every 20 steps, no food.

    
    

GOAL FOR THE TRACK:

• To lengthen the spacing for food drops.

• Continue working on end article fun in distracting environments.

How did it feel?

• I feel decent about the track itself. Wren was not into the articles, which is ok. It ended up being warmer than I anticipated and while Wren and I are active during warm days, we haven't done a lot of mentally active things on warm days... more of the two of us playing outside with water hoses or being general goof balls together running amuck.

• I knew in my heart of hearts, Wren had to go #2 since half way through the 2nd track at Yorktown. I knew that for a fact. Little pup was just not interested in going #2 all morning. I could tell she wanted to but just wouldn't commit. After she finally went potty at the article games, I saw her demeanor change. I wonder if she would have been more into it earlier if she wasn't thinking about pottying, but then again it was a pretty unexpectedly distracting morning with the K9 work close by, and the day also warmer than anticipated. (By the way, her stool was normal. haha So no signs of having a bad tummy)

  
  

List three things the dog did well:

1. Sticking to the track in general, even with K9 officers coincidentally showing up to practice their own tracking/trailing at the same time! They were working along the edges of the fields we used and popping in/out of the woods.

2. Not really caring about the K9's baying in the woods, or the dogs who were territorial barking in their cars as we passed to get to/from our own truck and fields.

3. Working in a field with challenges of wildlife scat, and cross tracks from off leash dogs from earlier.

   
   

List things you’d like to improve:

1. Outside of tracking, continue slowly rebuilding Wren's confidence with loud sounds. The firework incident that happened to us in December is unfortunately still hanging heavy over us. She is doing good going back to continuing tracking/herd/etc but I see it causing her discomfort when she does notice something like the 'booms'.

2. Line handling felt sloppy today. I can't quite place my finger on what it was exactly, maybe less so the line handling and more my own reading of Wren felt off this morning. Like we weren't connected as well as we normally are. I felt a bit adrift behind her. Probably an off day and we'll have a better go again tomorrow. ♥︎

3. LAYING TRACKS I wrote down on Finwe's track 1 to make a left turn, and my goofy self laid a right turn with all the confidence in the world even as i stared at the paper and wrote my map notes! Goodness alive.

   
   

Goal for next track:

• Continue hyping up the article in puppy parties and get that value built.

• Continue stretching the food drop distance further along the tracks.

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