Week 14 - Practice 3

2/21/2025

Today we met up with Team Finwe at a new spot to practice.

These new to us fields ended up have a lot more distractions than anticipated. There was an usual amount of dog waste, tons of tiny birds, and distracting strangers. (So great for real life scenarios! Just a bit more layers of distraction than I was anticipating to lump together at once for training.)

Note about Track 1: a lady that was trying to get closer and chat to us.

(I realize on camera it's easy to hear her, in real life I could not figure out most of what she was saying.)

I am a strong believer in not 'hogging' public space. Flora and I both tried to explain the track we laid was far to the side and left a massive amount of field untouched and she is more than welcome to stay. However, she chose to leave and was not interested when we confirmed my dog was staying on leash?..

Session:

• Weather: 37F, % Humidity, Sunny, Wind NW 11mph.

• Located at open fields near Jamestown Event Park.

  • Track One - 3:29pm Double laid. Open Left, & 90° Right

    • Mix of snow/short grass.

    • Aged 35 minutes while we ran Finwe

    • 200 yd

    • Treats spaced every 25 paces.

    • End Flags are in a V 20 paces past the End Article

    • Food inside End Article

      
      

  • Track Two - Double laid. Open Angle Right 4:25pm

    • Mix of snow/short grass.

    • Birds Birds Birds! My punishment for naming Wren after a bird. haha ❤ I promise we do lots of sniff walks, recall games, loose leash practice around distractions.

    • Aged 40 minutes while we ran Finwe

    • 200 yd

    • Treats spaced every 25 paces.

    • End Flags are in a V 20 paces past the End Article

    • Food inside End Article

      
      

GOAL FOR THE TRACK:

• To lengthen the spacing for food drops.

• To lengthen the tracks from the 80 - 100yd I was bouncing between to 200yd as assigned in class. (Click Here)

• Continue working on end article fun in distracting environments.

How did it feel?

• Both started extra distracting: Track 1 was the lady and her dog pulling towards us, Track 2 was the convention of little sparrows all showing up to cheer us on.

• Track 1 felt decent. I knew by her behavior that she 100% had to poop, but Wren is the type of pup that will not do her business on the job. (herding, tracking, etc) So I feel bad for her knowing she gets in a little pickle of 'I need to go, I don't want to go' mentality. We are trying different ways to encourage her to truly go before jobs, and hopefully I can make her puppy life easier on her in the future when i find that winning combo. Otherwise, I feel we both did well, that little nose is something else!

  • As soon as Track 1 was finished, Wren went poop.

• Track 2 felt pretty good too. We are distracted by those wonderfully fluttery little birds in the beginning, but settle in pretty nicely once she hit a stride. I really enjoyed catching myself wandering off track a time or two and realizing my dog's nose was on the money to correct our path! She's such a hard working little teammate and it blows my mind every time I notice her stop, think, and reset herself back dead center on a track!

  
  

List three things the dog did well:

1. Getting on with her track after the higher distractions and settling back in for a young pup with a novice tracking partner.

2. That little skinny face nose having fur missile coming back to the track center when she gets blown to the side is just so interesting to watch and 9.9999/10 she's right on the money.

3. I don't know if it was in my head but I felt like Wren is pretty clear in her cues of when she needs me to walk up the line and support closer vs. 'hold my pup cup I got this'

   
   

List things you’d like to improve:

1. Providing better support in (visually) highly distraction environments.

2. Providing better support in (scent) highly distraction environments.

3. My handling skills in better timing of supporting her when she's hitting the turns. Sometimes I feel like I am forcing us to 'hesitate' to make her think hard about the turn.

   
   
   
   

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. As laid out in my Homework Notes from class: (Click Here)

• Continue reading her cues better.