January 7th, 2026
It's been a while since I posted so this will be a tad longer than usual. I'm adding three tracks to this post. Track 1 is an article track from December 15th, Track 2 is a long straight track we ran on Tuesday and the Track 3 is an article track we ran today.
Track 1 :
Time laid: 4:45 PM
Time ran: 5:00 PM
Length: ~ 195 yards
Temperature: 32 F
Humidity: 34%
Wind: 8 mph SSW
FD pattern: Scuff 5 walk 10 fd walk 10 article drop rinse and repeat.
Goal: To run a longer article track and to try and wait until Tilly is one step away from the article before giving a verbal cue.
I made three scent pads for this track and this has worked well to improve our starts. I'm still prompting verbally for the article pick up but as Judy suggested I'm waiting until she is a step or two away. Things went pretty well even though she almost doesn't pick up the phone case at 4:50. I purposely waited to see if she would pick it up on her own and that was a fail haha. I go back to prompting her for the next article (purple sock) at 5:40 and then knowing that she likes the last article (a grey hat). I try again to not verbally prompt her and this time she successfully picks it up on her own.
One of the mistakes I made for this track is that I forgot to write down each article and only realized after the fact that we actually missed one...
Track 2 :
Time laid: 4:52 PM
Time ran: 5:05 PM
Length: ~ 358 yards
Temperature: 60 F
Humidity: 69%
Wind: 8 mph WSW
FD pattern: Scuff 5 walk 20 food drop in between
Goal: To gauge where we are after 2 1/2 weeks off by running a straight long track with the same food drop pattern we had before our the holiday break.
Our start seems a bit slow but we get going pretty well after some time. We struggle quite a bit around the playground area even though I dropped extra food along this corridor. This does not seem to deter Tilly and she continues to track. Our next challenge was the ditch. We have a bit of a stall where she is on the track but her behavior is different than her normal tracking behavior. After giving her a moment to check things out, I ask her to leave it which she reluctantly does. At the time I wasn’t sure if this was the right call, but when I look at the video I think it was. She is drawn to the ditch again and again afterwards and it takes her a few tries before we get tracking again. We get a few distractions at 7:15, a train, a truck and an itch lol. After a verbal prompt she starts working again and has a beautiful article pick up at the end of the track.
This was a good start back and even though we had a few hiccups, things went relatively well. I think we are ready for an augmentation FD wise.
Track 3 :
Time laid: 4:50 PM
Time ran: 5:07 PM
Length: ~ 200 yards
Temperature: 62 F
Humidity: 57%
Wind: 5 mph NNW gust 11 mph
FD pattern: Scuff 5 walk 10 fd walk 10 article drop.
Goal: To improve our article pick up and drop the verbal cue.
In order to get the distance I needed for this track I had to place it across a running track on the field. After I laid out the track and fetched Tilly I notice two people walking the running track. They end up crossing our track a few times. I make a mental note of this and we approach the start flag. I think her start is a bit better this time. I do give her a verbal cue for the first article and I decide to drop it for the next article. She picks it up no problem, so I decide to keep going this way until I feel she might need the verbal cue again. She picks up every article successfully thereafter without a verbal cue and we complete the best article track we've had so far.
Hi Myriam - Happy New Year! I won't be able review all three at once so started with the article track. I love how engaged Tilly is - so darn cute! It was great to see how those last few articles didn't need the verbal cue! I'd work with the line shorter on this exercise to try and limit some of that casting about. And, not sure if you've had a chance to try this yet, but in your article games work on having Tilly give you the article (start super close) and mark it *as* she's giving it to your hand, then treat.
ReplyDeleteThanks Anne! I love her attitude towards work too. We have been working on articles at home with it super close and inside the house she does literally place it in my hand. She’s been pretty consistent so I’ve started adding distance to that exercise. I believe that we’re ready to move this exercise outside so that she can make that link. If you get a chance to look at today’s video we did an article track and there’s a marked improvement. I’m also using the advice that Mary-Ann gave me which is to run backwards when she starts bringing the article back to make it into a game.
DeleteLove the addition Mary Ann gave! I bet Tilly really likes that :). I'll check out your newest post soon.
DeleteTrack 2 - For the beginning part of that track, all through the playground corridor, I'd have stayed super close (like her tail touching your leg close) to her. I may have more feedback later for the beginning of this track, but have a quick question for you. You mentioned you dropped more food along the playground corridor. Does that mean you just added more food to your existing Scuff/Walk/Food drop (in other words, just dropped more treats where you normally would), randomly dropped more food throughout, or did you compress that pattern such that you were also scuffing more?
ReplyDeleteI think you both handled the ditch really well. Those can be challenging since they are usually wetter and cooler so tend to hold scents (not just yours) longer. Plus it tends to be where critters might stop. So...how long before saying leave it is something that varies by dog and even with the same dog depending on the given situation. I think over time you'll build more of an internal clock for how much time you should allow Tilly. For example, over time you'd want to try and determine that if you gave Tilly five more seconds before you said leave it (and I'm not saying you should have), would she have been "satisfied" that she assessed the scent enough and perhaps not try to return for add'l checking it out OR would that have made her even more "attached" to hanging out with that scent). For what it's worth, I think having her leave it when you did (or within a few seconds) worked out and even though she returned, in terms of a learning moment, that worked out too, because you maintained your expectation (mostly neutrally, so good on you for that!) and when she did return to the track, she eventually was reinforced and learned that abandoning that thing she wanted to keep smelling, meant she got to continue doing something reinforcing with positive outcomes. I'm curious, did you set up any add'l or different reinforcement for beyond the ditch? If you go through this ditch (or similar) again, I'd consider setting it up so that you have a good reinforcement (like a treat drop every step for 3-5steps) placement about 15 yards or so beyond the challenge even if that reinforcement doesn't fall within whatever scuff, walk pattern you have. The idea being, when you say 'leave it' pretty soon after, good things will come. You could even take it a step further and go another 10 to 15 yrds beyond that 'nice reinforcement' and scuff 5 to 10...walk 15 to 20 and provide another ‘nice reinforcement’ then pick up from there w/ your regular pattern. So that here, it's 'leave it'...extra reinforcement...scent I'm "supposed to follow"...reinforcement. With this pattern, the idea would be to layer in the notion that scent I'm "supposed to follow" is part of a reinforcement loop (i.e. a reinforcer in itself...which is essentially what you're trying to do w/ a scuff, walk pattern overall). I hope what I'm describing there makes sense.
For the playground corridor, I scuffed more especially where there were wood chips and I also dropped more food. Thanks for the thoughtful feedback about the ditch. I was feeling unsure about it! I also did drop more food after the ditch but I don’t think I did more than drop a few pieces, probably 3 to 5 pieces evenly spaced. I like your suggestion to add additional food drops for at least 15 yards and will try it next time as a good reinforcement after a ditch or any hard element I might perceive as a challenge for us.
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