Tracking Tribulations

Since acquiring a full time job, (which I might state, I am very grateful to have) however it has cut into my desire to track early in the morning each day, as I was doing last summer. My sleep has become slightly more higher value and although I do consider myself "a morning person" by nature - fatigue does unfortunately factor in and thus Dieter's tracking has taken a bit of a hit.

Since the start of May, I have been trying to be faithful about at least tracking 2-3 times per week. It has been manageable, however I found that Dieter somewhat forgot how to track over the winter. Not really obviously, however all the work we did seems to have been for naught.

First track of the season was a track in damp grass, aged only 10-15 minutes, dog was hungry and only about 200 paces. One article on the second leg and the second article at the end. (Easy by last summers standards) He overshot every corner because he was going to quickly, he was distracted as anything (even stopped and looked up at some elderly couple walking about a mile away), missed half the food and might as well as forgot to platz at the articles. I was heart broken. However with my type A personality, I took it as a personal challenge to repair what seemingly has broken. It is currently a work in progress and he is improving - however we are still not back to where we left off last fall.

I do hear mixed opinions on tracking in anything other then ideal conditions and some people stop tracking their sport dogs as soon as the grass starts to go dormant for the winter months. I definitely tracked past that time as he was doing well. Perhaps I was greedy?

Last summer we had done tracks successfully over grass (both groomed and longish), sparse vegetation, dirt and hardtop (ie. pavement). This summer I feel fortunate if he can focus just over wet grass.

I don't know perhaps if his food drive is waning a bit, however as it is one of the easiest drives to artificially build with him, he has only been eating during his tracking and it seems to have helped. However I find that there is a fine line: Between having a starving (eat whatever he can) dog that looks too scrawny, to having a good track. I am currently working on an equilibrium. :-)

Yesterday morning I tried something new. As Dieter is 100% clicker trained - In his brain "click"=treat/perfect. I use it for telling him when he is doing something 100% the way I want. It comes in extremely useful when a 3rd party watches and clicks when positioning is correct and then I just have to worry about rewarding and what I am doing.

AnYways - with my current situation, my goal for yesterday morning was to clearly communicate to him that I want him to platz on articles with his front legs on either side of it and it kinda in a line below his nose. Which I think/thought he knew- however, what a difference after a few clicks with the clicker. The track I laid had approximately 8 articles on it. After the first two articles, he seemed to have a light bulb moment - I almost shed tears of joy!

I have also have been trying to teach a command to "show me" (ie. put your chin on it). Well, after this one same session, he seems to be getting that as well. For instance, the last article of the track - I had a speedy platz, I clicked, he looks back, then starts kinda doing a subtle head bob over this piece of leather. Basically "showing me" the article.

I realize this may only be a temporary high, as I plan to track again tomorrow morning and not sure what that will bring. I hope to test out this whole clicker business again and see what happens.

I am also thrilled to be attending one of Joanne Fleming-Plemb's tracking seminars the last weekend of June. I look forward to showing her what we have done, where we are at and getting her expert advice. Here is her website link - http://www.fleming-plumb.ca/index.html