September 23, 2008

I took Dino to a place in Junction City. It was flat with a good variety of different surfaces. It was hot. I laid the food around buildings, up slopes, across paved roads, on gravel, on tan bark, grass and dirt. He was really following the treats. Very focused on finding the treats. I was able to increase my steps up to eleven to 12 steps in between food. Dino did seem to get way layed off to the side trying to find the treats. I would stop and not say anything to him and let him figure it out. If he peed somewhere, I would say “get to work” to get him going again. He did seem to respond and keep going.

I was concerned that he was only following the treats and not the scent, but I did some places where he was definitely following a scent trail and he was trying hard to use his nose and try to find something. He got the corners well and even went under a fence as part of the track without hesitation.

I have been trying to alternate between an animal trail for him to follow and a track with treats for him to following, each time increasing the age of the track and the space between treats.

Jean did say I could use one of her dogs in the future to set a track. Since she has six dogs I can alternate back and forth as long as they are friendly to other dogs.

I didn’t have time to do the track again because I needed to go take care of something else and time was short.