3/17/25 ☘️

Admittedly I’ve been neglecting the posts to the blog.

Since last class, I’ve done

• top hat,

• 3 start track exercises, but for 2 we didn’t have enough real estate available. So those 2 had only three actual track. Hope this makes sense.

• So then for kicks we did a 50yds of grass into pine needle covered ground with a left turn then 30 yds to an article.

Goal- I was trying to work on my handling as River approaches turn so that she finds the track herself and doesn’t just show me tracking behavior.

Outcome-

On the top hat…rough start ( next week are doin starts) as dogs were nearby playing and husband went too soon into dog park with Duck so River really wanted to play fetch with him. I did toss some food to get her back. As she actually went into track mode, she plowed beyond the fist and second turn, I gave her about 15 yds of line but didn’t move. First turn she circled clockwise around behind as I backed and she did end up on her track. On turn 2 she went beyond then went to right and to left. I let the line run for the full 33ft. before following her. On the rest of the turns she did not go past the turn.

On the starts, she was sometimes winging out to the left of the actual track immediately after leaving the start flag. Could’ve been the soccer practice on the right? Anyway she was winging out to the left form the start article. But I let line run and she did come back to the track. On the turns she did take them much tighter and then yesterday she actually cut them by maybe about 1-3 yds. On a positive note she did go immediately in the correct track direction and she did stay on the track.

Overall I feel that we’ve made some good progress toward keeping on the track and not just showing the handler tracking behavior.

Also I have to keep the positivity by enticing her with a fetch reward.

The track through the pine needles was fun! As we approached, a child was sitting on my turn with the pine needles pushed out around her creating a little crater. I stopped River and asked her dad to please move his daughter for a few minutes. He did and then we continued. There was a lot of food on this track but River hustled through, and did her left turn perfectly in the needle crater and then continued to down for the article.