An evening of VST tracking

Friday evening I laid a VST track for both girls. Page had been especially bored this week, so I knew she could work. And if I want to finish out the girls' tracking titles, I must get out and train!

Page's track

Page's track was 284 yards long with 164 yard of non-veg (57%). It was aged 3 hours and 10 minutes, and it had no chalk or extra scent. I thought she did a great job transitioning onto the parking lot. I thought about her hard surface turn and put it into the curb. I think that actually confused her more than if it had been on the sidewalk! Page had a difficult time finding the scent in the curb, searching the grass, sidewalk and parking lot. I finally pointed to the curb and she locked in and moved forward.

I gave her a bit of veg before taking her past the front of the building under the pull through drop off. She got a bit of confidence back on that grass and in the grass on the opposite side of the doorway. Page did a great job tracking across her last bit of parking lot and into the grass to the end of the track.

I did forget to load some treats into the articles, and Page missed the metal article in the curb. That's a good lesson for me that we'll have to work article indications all over again for VST. She did a great job on the plastic article that was in the open in the parking lot, and right after indicating it, she gave me a good, "not mine" indication on a bit of trash. Page did find the leather article at the end of the track well.

Generally, this was a very nice track. It was fully aged with no assistance, so we're off to a good start for VST.

Devon's track

Devon's track was across the driveway by the next building in this office park. Her track was aged about 3 hours and 25 minutes. It was 282 yards with 192 yards of non-veg (62%). It did not have extra scent, but I did put chalk on her MOT turn.

Devon did a lot of searching at the start. We were in a grove of ornamental trees, and the leaves were falling. I had to rescent her, and she finally got to work. After checking all the other possibilities, Devon took the turn onto the parking lot, and then confidently tracked across it.

She again checked all the possibilities on the next turn before committing onto the sidewalk and to the front of the building. She was again very confident once she committed. Of course I lost my metal article. I figured I would when I left it in front of the building. Darn it!

Devon continued on the sidewalk very confidently and then transitioned up on the grass in front of the building. I wanted to give her some veg tracking before asking her to go into the parking lot and do an MOT.

She overshot the veg turn, but worked her way back and practically dragged me across the drive. She found her plastic article easily, even though I forgot it was tucked around the corner of the island. I LOVE Devon's article indications. She thinks this game is so much fun and to find articles are like finding food to another dog!

Devon did some circling on her parking lot leg, but not the frantic circling I've seen in the past. She did continue to make progress down the leg. She overshot the MOT turn, and she wanted to keep moving past it. I held her and asked her to work. I couldn't see the chalk, but I made the turn on a white line so I knew where it was.

She worked in the correct direction twice but didn't commit, and she worked other directions, too. After a water break and another rescent, Devon dropped her head on the white line of the new leg and took off down it. Once on the center island, she worked easily down the veg. Devon overshot her leather article to inspect a drain, but she worked back to find it.

In thinking about MOT turns, I plan to put some extra scent down for Devon with hand prints the next time I lay them. I think that would give Devon more confidence as we re-visit this skill.

Overall, this was a very nice track. Because I saw stress in her tracking this summer as we were working field, I wonder if I was reading too much into her searches on her corners. After thinking about this track, I believe she did her usual amount of loss of scent/ruling out other direction searching. I need to be careful that I don't compare Devon and Page's tracking styles and expect Devon to look like Page. I've been tracking Page so much, I think I was projecting Page's style onto my expectations of Devon.

I don't believe Devon is less of a tracking dog, but she does track differently than Page. Page is a meticulous footstep tracker. She has her nose down on the non-veg surface most of the time. Devon doesn't have her nose down as far as Page, and she searches a wider area. These are differences in style I need to learn to read. Hopefully, tracking them more often and together will help me do that.