3/16/26

Due to ankle strain, anterior t…. tendon, only did straight or one turn tracks. S3W24F12 & then S3W30F15. Length was max 100 yds.

It’s Monday after final Saturday tracking class. Anne Morris did a nice job as Instructor and Leigh was a great assistant. Judi, who subbed in for Leigh, gave us a couple of final tracks that made me feel very positive about my tracking journey with River. Needed help at one point from Judi, definitely lost my zen mindset and talked too much to River. And I know body language works better for her…River working again & the leg was really long but she kept tracking. Ended in a positive confidence state.

Sadly, my ankle is supposed to be babied and booted or braced for 2-3 more weeks, but I am going to have to disregard for certain dog activities. Mental note, I got away from only blogging tracking facts.

Today’s weather was projected to be awful, rain and wind, tornado possible. Rally class cancelled so we went to a field. I did the LOS recovery track , not sure if this is the correct name. We did it at one of the classes. After a turn you on 2nd leg you jump to leave a scent gap and then continue to an article. (Can this be put into the tracking resources or training of class website)? My track in class was put in by Beth G and she did it wrong. I had given her the track map for her track so I am not sure of the actual correct way to do the exercise. Here’s what I laid. Put in tracks with LOS on 2 legs. Did jump to my left in leg 2, later jump to my right on leg 4 @ field in Powhatan. Legs about 50 yds. Did put down flags near turns (I seem to recall this was part of the exercise).

Weather warm, humid and moist ground from intermittent rain. No wind. Aged only 45 minutes.

But I did sit and visualize us doing this track, which I believe will be helpful to me.

River on a new field but she did this track nicely. She can have storm stress but showed no sign of any. No rain until we got home later. I did stay close to her (seem to recall this being part of the exercise). I was also letting line out on turns. At the LOS area she just moved right over it but I can’t jump far so it wasn’t a large area.

Next time out I will do the SWF tracks for reducing food on the legs per Judi’s instructions.