Page's latest tracks

Page has continued to do a variety of tracks during the last few weeks. Even though I've been trying to keep up with her TD work, I have to admit she's not had a TDX track in at least a month. We'll have to solve that this week!

Small beginnings

This was a great little track Janet laid us a couple of weeks ago. It was 269 yards long, and Page did a fantastic job on it. On this track Page also indicated all of her articles by laying down on them. THAT doesn't happen all the time!

After this great track and several others, we decided to start to stop putting Page on "baby" tracks and treat her like a big dog.

The Big Curve

This is the "Big Curve" track, which was Page's first real challenge. The track is 389 yards long with 308 yards of non-veg. The parking lot was recently re-surfaced, so it was extra stinky.

The goal of this track is to teach the dogs to follow the scent even if it doesn't go straight. The track starts on grass then drops down into the curve along the edge of the parking lot.

Page did what most dogs do, she tracked straight. But when she ended up on the grass, she lost the scent. After about 3-4 times of doing this, she learned to stay in the curb.

The first orange area marks an interesting twist. Steve laid the track and when he got to this area it was filled with water so he walked higher on the concrete curb. Page was essentially footstep tracking, and when it came to this area, she did just what Steve did. She tracked higher on the curb. Good girl!

The second orange circled area is a set of steps of wood and gravel leading to the upper parking area. After first indicating the track went right up, Page came back down and worked this area for a long time. I can only imagine what she was thinking and adding to her "Rolodex!" After checking the whole thing out, she bounced up the steps again. However, she wasn't sure about going across the stinky resurfaced area. That took a little more time!

In front of the building, there were pavers. This was another interesting scenting challenge for Page, as was the whole glass front of the building. Page spent a lot of time scouring this area with her nose, even checking out the revolving door and under the glass door. Luckily no one came through! She finally got back to work and at least nose touched her article.

The final turn in before heading back out into the parking lot took a while. This is where she hit a wall. I've now learned that she hits her wall somewhere around 300 yards. Anything over that is just too long for her to work and concentrate on such a hard task. However, she did work out her problem and do the island serpentine work and found her final article and pawed at it. I think she was just relieved to have this one done!

Too much!


The next track I put in for Page included curb work and island serpentines. Page worked out this track, but it was way too long for her at 540 yards with 289 yards of non-veg.

When Page hits her "wall" it's like she loses all her energy and just wants to lay down. It's very easy to push a dog through a track at this point or when they are genuinely confused. However, it's the worst thing in the world for them. If you push a dog through a track, they will start relying on you to tell them where the track is. This will ruin a good tracking dog. I have seen several dogs stop tracking, return to their owner's sides and look up at mom as if to say, "ok, show me where it is!" The problem is, in a test you can't!

I did encourage Page forward, but she had to get to the end on her own. It was torture for me and took nearly 30 minutes to run the entire track. But she worked it out and lead me through it. I learned that we had to find a much shorter length to train on for now!

Just right!

Thanks once again to Janet, we found the length that is "just right" for now! Janet laid this track for us on Friday. Page did a stellar job with it. It was 290 yards long with 127 yards of non-veg. It was aged nearly 2 hours.

Page again footstep tracked, even on the non-veg. She went straight into the parking lot, and she was really funny about checking down the cracks to follow her scent. She really enjoyed the stuffed toy as the first article found on the track and gave it a good shake before surrendering it and returning to her job. However, the toy taken from Archie's crate must have had his cooties on it, because she didn't care for it!

Page did hit a little wall at the last turn and lost some focus, but she got through it and found the glove at the end. She's such a great little tracker!