Monday, February 9, 2009

I met Donna yesterday at 9 AM in Pinole to working on some practice trails with Dino and Annubis. The previous day, after the lost cat case in Davis, we met in Pinole at this same spot and laid a track for Dino for Monday morning. Donna wanted to see where he was at since she had not seen him track for several months. This would have been the oldest track, but it was a much shorter track. We laid the track at 2 PM and came back at 9 AM. That is 19 hours.

Per Donna, Dino was following the track and he knew where it was but that he was deviating from it to check out other things. I think that stems from me working him on a loose long line for a while to make sure that I was not influencing him. We tightened up the line, and if Dino went off track, I would give him a mild tug on the line and tell him "get to work." He did go back to the track.

He followed the track all the way around and found the cloth. We both made a big deal of that.

Next we met at a spot a few blocks away for Annubis to follow a track that a friend of Donna's laid a few days ago. Prior to meeting me at the spot, Donna laid a blind track for me and Dino to do later after Annubis' track.

Annubis did a great job on his track. He followed it all the way around, even though a the bedding area of a herd of goats.

We went back to the start of the blind track. We were practicing on corners to see what Dino knew about how to handle an intersection.

After the track, we figured on a few things that I need to work with Dino on:

1. A positive indication of scent. He has a negative scent indication.

2. A cue to tell Dino that it is OK to go into the street. I had worked a lot with Dino for stopping at curbs while going for walks. I find him hesitant about going into the street to follow the track.

3. Not allowing him to go off the track to sniff other things while on a trail. Part of this will be helped by me holding the long line tighter. Not tight enough to direct him, but enough to keep him working if he starts to stray.

4. Practice working on corners and working on a positive and negative indication. Practicing on how to handle an intersection and work all the corners to determine where there is scent and where there isn't scent.

5. Work more on older tracks in regards to hours and shorter more simple tracks than what we have been doing.

6. Set up scent articles at the end or along the way for him to find an indicate. Put the cloth article with treats inside. This should also help to refocus his attention to the track and finding things along the way.

7. Make an indication to doing a scent-specific track and an area search. Maybe using a different word or Donna suggested using a bell on either Dino or myself.