1/16/24 Huguenot Park round #2 with frozen slush

Still frozen slush on the ground of 2 fields so River got another chance to learn that she can track in the frozen stuff. I tried to mark her path on the photo as when I went back to get flags, her path and mine was very visible. Sadly, I didn't even have my phone to take a photo.

No scuff, W50F25 ; no real breeze, 32F, cloudy

This track was a very pleasant and zen experience as the park was almost deserted except for two women chatting under the pergola in between the fields. She ignored them. Hurray! She's so aware of who is in the area.

I did give River a look when she turned to me at the start flag, so I am hoping that since she did turn onto the track she understood the meaning of the look. I gave her a good girl too which I'm not making a habit just trying to reinforce her decision to immediately track. The overalll experience today was beautiful. River is just calm and nonchalantly follows the track. Maybe she isn't really calm and it's just the way I'm seeing it or maybe she realizes it's a team sport. It's quite the opposite of her fetch, swim and run time which is super intense high drive mode. But, back to tracking, When she stops or shows me her side and I stop, she looks back at me. It's like she gets that this is a team effort and why is part of the team stopping. I just look at her and she seems reset to track again, as her head goes closer to the ground. No circling around behind me on this track. On the first right turn she crossed the track line and cut the corner by 2-3 ft. On the next right turn she went out passing it, stopping turned sideways looking in the direction of the turn and track , then head down and kept going. On final open left turn, she went slightly beyound it and turned into the track.

River was truly wonderful. Her tracking was just awesome. She totally understands that despite the frozen stuff on the ground, she should track.