November 14, 2008

Time was about 11:30 AM. Weather was sunny, clear and dry. I had John walk Dot around a neighborhood block. I walked to the far right as I could, closest to the street, away from John and Dot who were closer to the houses and businesses on the inside of the block.

The first leg of the block was on the busy main street with a full sidewalk of about four feet wide. I had them walk almost down to the end of the block. There was a gas station on the corner, and I had him take the driveway just before the gas station which led down to another business behind the gas station and then which led out to the side street. If we had made a right turn just after the gas station, we this same street would be to my left. We walked past the other business on this side street and then down past several houses. The sidewalk did not continue. There was no sidewalk, just a thin, gravel path about two feet wide that led down in front of all the house. At the street at the end we made a right, staying on the same side. We walked all the way down to the end of the block, close to where my truck was parked with Dino. The sidewalk was still a dirt and gravel path with fenced yards on the right and a strip of grass about three feet wide on the left. To the left of the grass was the road, which is a medium traffic residential road.

I had John sit back into the car and I put Dot back into her crate in the truck. I took Dino out, put on his harness, got his treat bag and rawhide bone. I wanted to take Dino away from his focus on the car, so I walked in the opposite direction, crossed the street and walked back up the street. Across from the gas station, I crossed the street again and walked down the side road with no sidewalks. We walked just past the gas station to where the scent track started. I took out the scent pad, said "take scent" and Dino reached up to sniff the paper towel. I said "search" and he immediately put his head down and started looking. He started on the track right away. He followed it straight down to the end of the street and made the right turn. I noticed him doing "checks" along the way, and I would praise him verbally in a light voice so as not to distract him. Down this leg we had some light trouble because three dogs behind their fences raised a huge ruckus when we walked by. I told Dino "leave it" and kept moving along. I had to tell him a few more times because the yard and fencing was about the length of two houses. He did keep going and tried to focus. Once we got past the house, I praised him for "leaving" and told him "search" to refocus him on the track. A person who walked by while this was happening said "He did good there." I said "thank you" because I thought he did really good.

On a couple of gates all the way down this street he would stop and look up at me. He didn't go further inside, just stopped and looked at me. At one house, I saw a cat in the window, so I figured he was smelling cats in those yards. I didn't say anything but "search." He continued down the street, all the way down and crossed the street a bit early from where John and Dot crossed. He may have seen the truck, so I brought him back to the sidewalk and where the track was and said "check. " He continued down the sidewalk and crossed again just about four feet early. He ran to the car, put his front feet on the rear bumper and then ran back to me, jumping on me with this front feet. I gave him his bag of treats and played with this rawhide.

The distance was still pretty short and the age was only less than an hour. He was doing something still new which was having a second scent with the other person walking the dog and my scent nearby. That is all new to him. I want to test his abilities on VST and see where he is and where he needs improvement. I would say I can slowly increase the age of the track and slowly increase the distance. But I will do this slowly since he is still very distractable and I want this to be only positive and fun. Since this is my first tracking/trailing dog, I want to have a chance to evaluated each performance to try a lot of different things to see what works with him and what doesn't. This is very experimental, especially since I am doing this alone. I want to study more VST books to see what I can pick up.