Short Tracks & Articles

I was at my mom's house working and the dogs played in her backyard for a couple of hours. All 5 dogs, 4 SP's and 1 Basset/Corgi mix, rough housed, ran around, and played in the water bucket. After I was done working, I let the dogs in to cool off for a while and went out and laid a short track for Blueberry. I laid the track about 1:00pm and then we ran it 1 1/2 hours later. It was 155 yds long, with one turn. I added 2 extra articles, besides the starting sock and the glove at the end. I wanted to try and see if this would help to motivate Blueberry more on her tracks, especially near the end of the track.

The track was laid in the pasture, so had a lot of extra scents, horses, dogs, children, and anything else that might have crossed in the night. Blueberry has played in the pasture often, but I have never tracked with her there. It was about 95 degrees and no breeze when we ran the track. Blueberry started off very slow and was not pulling on the lead as usual. She seemed to be checking out all of the scents before moving onwards. She found the first article (plastic sink drain cover) at 60 yds and wasn't quite sure what to do with it (She has never had extra articles on her tracks before). I rewarded her with some "good find" praise and food on the article. She was working the track a little closer to the actual track after the first article and made the turn nicely 15 yds later. She worked steadily and then saw the second article (a leather wine bag cut in half) when she was a few yds away from it and charge right to it. Again I praised and gave her food on the article. As she finished the last leg of the track she was putting all her weight into the harness and working the last part. The glove was placed between a sand pile and sawdust pile with toys in them (the piles are about 20 feet apart). She found the glove and I gave her lots of hugs, praise, and a pile of food on the glove.

I think that the articles will help her. I noticed that her tail came up after the second turn and Blueberry was not quitting but actively working the track. Her whole attitude was different than when we tracked last Wednesday. I will be able to take to some larger areas later this week and we can try a few more turns with more articles and see how she does there.