What I learned from tracking Page on non-veg right away, is that even though she is a blank slate, she recognized tracking non-veg was different than veg. Even though she had very limited experience (all of four tracks in her little life), she did work her first non-veg transition just like an adult dog and she didn't follow the track right onto the non-veg. After some encouragement and more experience, she's doing much better with non-veg just as she's doing better with the whole tracking game in general.
This is a good example of the types of non-veg tracks I've given Page recently. Although it looks like this track is a two turn track, the initial leg was really a soft curve to the left toward the front of the building. I'm still using a single kibble food drop randomly on the track approximately 10 yards apart. Page's end article also has kibble in it.
On the concrete areas of this track, I used water with hand prints every couple of steps to add extra scent. I put a piece of kibble on the second hand print as a reward.
At the end of this post is a video of this track. I got the idea to carry the video camera as Page tracked, but I'm not sure how affective this video is at showing her tracking abilities! I'll describe what happened on the track to give you some context in what is on the tape.
It's too bad I couldn't get the start on video. Page has a very enthusiastic start. She knows when the harness goes on in the van what she's going to do; so out of the van all she can think about is finding that start flag. When she sees it, she runs to it in all her puppy enthusiasm! Once she gets her scent, she's off!
Page tracks very nicely off the start, but she was to the right of the track on the first leg. This could have been due to the curve of the track to the left and/or the wind. She did get distracted once and found a food drop along the way. Although you cannot hear it on the video, there was a thunderstorm to our south and the thunder rolls were noticeable.
Page searched the transition onto the sidewalk to the right before committing into the sidewalk. You can see the hand prints here since the track was only about 10 minutes old when I ran it. She also went right going off the sidewalk into the grass.
After the sidewalk, she was distracted by a storm water drain to our right near the building. She really wanted to go check it out, but because she was on a 6 ft. leash, I wouldn't let her. I think the backwards glares I'm getting from her are pretty funny. Clearly I'm cramping her exploration desires here!
She finally gets back to work and tracks very nicely through the grass, through the mulch bed and onto the concrete at the entrance of the school. You'll see as she goes onto the concrete, she's visually distracted by small black bits of mulch that look like her small kibble. She tastes, then discards several bits of mulch! She also gets me hung up in the bicycle rack (sorry for the camera motion there).
It's interesting Page pulls in toward the entry door in this area. This is exactly what the scent does at entrances, and she reads it well. She was also using her extra hand print scent across the walkway, too.
Halfway across the entry area, she loses interest and sits. I'm guessing this was because the conditions turned difficult. I was pleased she did get back to work with encouragement, and again the hand prints were great motivators here. Once back in the mulch she tracked with a little crittering!
Just past the mulch we had another distraction. Two boys on bicycles rode past talking very loud. At the last minute Page saw them and took off toward their bikes. You can hear them on the tape yelling loudly after she did that. That's a pretty big distraction for a 13 week old puppy! I was really pleased she got right back to work after they went by!
Page did some of her best tracking through the grass after the "boys on bikes" distraction. The grass was not lush through here, so I was impressed. She gets to her turn and just indicates it and starts to work it when we had yet another distraction - a rabbit. You can't see it, but when you see her sit, she's very politely asking for the rabbit. Track, what track? I want the rabbit, please!
Ok, lady, if you won't give me the rabbit, I'll get back to work. Luckily I had laid kibble every two steps past the turn for a total of four drops. This got her back to the new leg and momentarily interested in tracking again.
Unfortunately at this point, Page starts to fade. This was the longest track to date I'd asked her to do, and this is where it showed. I had given her two non-veg scenting areas, and she'd had several distractions on this track. In addition, the vegetation was sparse on this new leg after the turn. You have to bear with her searching for the track and going off to the left of the track for several seconds. And it's hard to tape a tracking puppy when she goes behind you!
But once Page picked up the track, she just nailed the end of it. I'm sure she scented her glove with her jackpot in it several yards before she found it. In fact, she found it before I even saw it because I was taping.
It's also interesting she volunteered to give me a down and several nose touches on the article. You can tell just an hour before we tracked, I was working with Page on nose touches to a target since that's what she gave me at the article. Hey, if she starts defaulting to this article performance, I'm fine with it!
So I hope you enjoy the video. I'm not sure what it shows, but it was fun to do and review. As I said in an earlier post, you can also see how great she looks in her bright pink collar and puppy tracking harness. She does truly glow!
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