We have article indications!

Last night I had just enough time before sunset to lay a TD track for Page. It was 450 yards long with four turns and aged an hour. It was 57 degrees, the winds were around 7 mph and the humidity was on the rise at 62%.

I put a start article, two articles on the track and a final glove. That was really the only tough part of this track, and I am determined to fix this article indication problem Page has! This time when I loaded the Easter eggs, I only put four pieces of kibble in each. I want to start weaning her off the food in the articles as soon as I can, and I thought I should start by putting in less kibble.

Page pulled off the start line. Clearly she enjoyed a "fresh" 1-hour-old track and it showed all the way through with how much she pulled on the line. She came to the first turn marker, and she stopped and sniffed it. I use orange trail markers to mark my turns. Yeah, I know I can spray paint wooden cloths pins, but these are only $5 for 10 at Gander Mountain or Dick's Sporting Goods and they're less hassle than me trying to spray paint!

Anyway, Page has never been distracted by these markers on grass near her turn, so I thought that was unusual. Then when she came to her first article, she stopped and pawed at it. Well, this was good! She made the initial indication. Then she turned and looked at me, so I asked, "What did you find?" She thought about it for one more second, then she dropped on the article. YIPPEE!!

I told her how brilliant she was, collected the article and gave her a reward. She immediately turned and got right back to work. Wow, I was happy! On the second article, she again pawed and then dropped, but as I stepped towards her she popped back up. I made the split second decision to just stop and wait for the drop again. I don't want this great indication to fade as soon as I take a step!

Waiting her out worked. Page laid down and waited for me to come and pick up the article and give her a reward, then she was off tracking again. I was pretty much walking on Cloud 9 along with trying to hang onto the line.

It was getting pretty dark by the time we reached the end of the track. I knew where the glove was, but I couldn't see it in the fading light. Suddenly Page's head came up and she started searching frantically. I knew she had winded the glove and she has NEVER frantically searched for an article in her life.

After searching in a 3 ft area, she found it and dropped before looking at me! What a girl! This is exactly what I'm looking for in an article indication! She got a jackpot reward and plenty of praise!

This time coming off the track, not only was I thrilled that she ran the track in about 7 minutes and was precision tracking, but I was also thrilled with her article indications. This was the absolute best article indications she's ever given me. I'm also thrilled that after getting her treat for finding the articles, she gets right back to work. And in hindsight, I think her fussing with the trail markers at the turns was her realizing she had to indicate articles left by me. The trail markers of course have my scent on them.

My next step is to not load the Easter eggs with kibble on her next track. If she's still indicating articles, the following track will just have articles with no residual kibble scent. I'm really hoping we've had a breakthrough with the articles, because we're in a couple of tracking tests coming up later in the month! I want solid indications going into those tests!