Thursday, March 19, 2009 - After doing a track with Dino in Castro Valley

After doing a track with Dino in Castro Valley, I looked for a spot to do a track with Dot. It was dark by then so I had to find a well lit parking somewhere without a lot of traffic. I found a nice parking lot in a strip mall. I put out the foot pieces about one foot apart. I did some rounded corners and some corners that were more closer to 90 degrees. I am slowly working to the 90 degree turns. We also went up and down curbs and planter boxes with concrete curbs. She was very focused the whole track.

At the beginning of the track with Dino's scent, I put down a scent pad with cut up rolled food treats. I bring her up to the start with the long line and harness and get her rev ed and pumped up. I let her go and say "take scent" and when she has finished the treats, I tell her "search" and guide her to start the track and then she is off! When she got about two feet from the end where there was another hidden scent pad with more rolled treats, she stopped and stared in the direction of the scent pad, even though she couldn't see it behind the curb. She didn't take the treats and more and went right for the area of the scent pad, which I think is fine. Since she couldn't see it, she was picking up its scent. What this tells me is that I can start to hide it more and that she is ready for a bit more advanced end. Maybe hiding it in bushes or something more substantial.

I am pretty happy. Since she is older and very focused and I now know what to look for, I think I can more her along a bit faster, though still in small increments. I don't think I need to do all the repetition I did with Dino.

Earlier that day I did some clicker training with Dot and did the first exercise of putting an article near her and getting her to move her head in the direction. I put a toy in front of her and, after several minutes I got her to move her head down in that direction. She was definitely getting that moving her head in the direction of the toy got her a treat. This is the first step, for her to understand that she can do somethings and control the click and treat. I think she will pick up pretty quick once she get the game.

Friday, March 20, 2009 - First Day at the Beach

Today was Dot's first trip to the beach, and she had a blast.

We had gone to Fort Funston a couple of weeks ago, but it was too cold and late to make the run down to the beach. But today, the weather was better and we had bit of extra time.

She ran down the steep sand path down to the beach from the dog park, and then she ran up and down a couple of more times with Scout until I got down there. I saw her run out to the water and start drinking. It was funny. I'm sure she just saw water, not knowing it was salty. She probably realized it later. I bet the salt water was delicious as first, especially since she hadn't seen salt water before. She ran through the low waves kind of jumping up and down as she jumped the waves. I didn't want her to go out too far because there are places that may suck her down especially if she was not aware of them.

Both Dino and Scout chased her all over the place and she loved it. I think she really liked that there was so much space. She ran and ran and ran all over. She found a flock of birds in the water and went right after them. Unfortunately, she also ran after them as they flew down the beach. I called and called her but she kept chasing them. I had to run after her calling her name over and over and finally she came back. She was still running full force and barely breathing hard.

I did have some of the rolled food cut up and I was rewarding her for coming back so she would know she gets rewards for coming back.

I think she had a great time. I would love to get her back to the beach ASAP. I have to go back to SF again on Sunday. If I have time, I will take them back.

Tuesday, March 10, 2009 - Dot's training has been moving along pretty well

Dot's training has been moving along pretty well. Tonight we got her tracking harness from a pet store. Forest green to match her collar. I took her across the street to a park and did a single track with her. Now, I am doing some thing different than how I trained Dino. First, I am walking either Dino or Scout on the track with me, so Dot is being trained to follow an animal from the start, rather than with Dino, who was trained to follow my scent and then had to be switched over. I never understood that. I always thought, "Why not train on an animal scent first?" "Why then switch over?" I mentioned that to Donna but she never said anything. Just recently, she said different which is to start training on an animal from the beginning.

Also, I am using similar scent articles (old clothing pieces) that I am using on Dino. So, I put one of these at the beginning with several chucks of rolled food. That gives her some really good scent to work off of. Then we have the same thing at the end, also with food chunks. I tried that tonight at the beginning and end of a long track of kibble. She was really focused on the ground and looking for something.

I space the kibble pieces out about one foot step in between a few pieces of kibble. On the corners I decreased the space and increased the food. I am slowly making the turns 90 degrees from large rounded turns. This track had some turns, some curves, some straights and then ended onto grass about two feet from the concrete. This was at a busy park in Hayward at about 8 PM. We did the track twice with the same kibble, meaning I did not put down more kibble. She was very focused on the track the whole time. I did make sure she was also hungry to keep her focused. She didn't mind the harness.