Week 52 - Practice 1

11/13/2025

• Weather: 68F, 49% Humidity, Sunny, Wind N 5 MPH.

• Track 1

  • Located at open field that gets lots of dog and wildlife cross tracks.

    • Single laid. 1 Turn 90° Right

      • Short cut field, and sanding patches.

      • Laid: 1:30 pm / Ran: 2:01 pm

      • Aged: 31 Minutes

      • 100 yds total.

      • Start Article: n/a, End Article: sock

      • Food Drop Pattern: Shuffle 5 steps, Walk 20 strides w/ food at step 10. Repeat. Shuffle into and out of turn. No food on turn.

• Track 2

  • Located at open field that gets lots of dog and wildlife cross tracks.

    • Single laid. 1 Turn 90° Left

      • Short cut field, and sanding patches.

      • Laid: 1:45 pm / Ran: 2:05 pm

      • Aged: 20 Minutes

      • 112 yds total.

      • Start Article: n/a, End Article: leather wallet slip.

      • Food Drop Pattern: Shuffle 5 steps, Walk 20 strides w/ food at step 10. Repeat. Shuffle into and out of turn. No food on turn.

• Track 3

  • Located at open field that gets lots of dog and wildlife cross tracks.

    • Single laid. 1 Turn 90° Right

      • Short cut field, and sanding patches.

      • Laid: 1:52 pm / Ran: 2:08 pm

      • Aged: 16 Minutes

      • 100 yds total.

      • Start Article: n/a, End Article: Leather wallet.

      • Food Drop Pattern: Shuffle 5 steps, Walk 20 strides w/ food at step 10. Repeat. Shuffle into and out of turn. No food on turn.

GOAL FOR THE TRACK:

• Continue working on Single Lay Tracks.

• Cycle through the different training exercises per Judi's training blog. Starts with turns.

• Continue working on being consistent in which behavior I am asking for article indications.

  
  

How did it feel?

• Felt good!

  • I definitely was distracted on these and it shows in my handling. The Yellow Jackets were not attacking, but they were trying to eat my lavender deodorant or something!

    They kept landing on my arms and shirt collar while I was tracking...

    Might be a whispered curse or two in the clips.. Thankfully they left Wren alone! Maybe next time I will abandon ship instead of sticking with it. They were not present when I laid my tracks so perhaps I stirred a nest or attracted them with the treats on the ground.

List three things the dog did well:

1. Finding her directions for her starts of the track. She was trying to head off in the direction we faced but would stop and circle back to find the actual track.

2. ARTICLE INDICATION! whoo hooo getting better and better. Feels like another big girl breakthrough with our work together: me being more consistent in what I rewarding, and her choosing to offer the behavior/continue trying even if something distracting happens.

3. Working through some distractions on/near the track. Bird feathers, a dead mouse, and lots of doggy smells.

   
   

List things you’d like to improve:

1. Me working closer up the line. I seem to keep catching myself falling further and further behind her even when my tracking plan for the session is to stay closer to support my partner.

2. Remeasure my stride, especially when adding in the proper shuffling steps. I lost my sense of distance while laying these.

   1. So I had been doing my normal long stride, but dragging my feet as a 'glide' instead of a real small step shuffle. Judi pointed that out in class and I did a forehead smack. duh! shuffle is shuffle, not cha cha sliiiideee. So now I need to 'recalibrate' my mental GPS tracking. haha

3. Getting faster with my maps. Not sure when, but during lots of solo tracking this summer, I have become a slow track layer.

Goal for next track:

• Better handler support for my little partner.

• Cycle to another training exercise.