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.