Millie Starts

January 26, 2025

Goals: Work starts; slowly introduce short tracks of greater age.

Four start tracks, each about 50 yards x 35 yards (some with shorter second legs owing to space constraint). Aged 0:45, 1:30, 2:15, 3:00. 1 food drop on each leg.  Partly sunny, 45°, light breeze. Rather than starting with a 1/2, 1, 1 1/2, 2 age track, I wanted her to start getting used to something with a bit more age. Her starts, except for once in class several sessions ago, have been good, and I thought she could handle it.

Difficulty enhanced by unexpected cross-tracks (the Longwood University Cross-Country team was practicing on the field).

All four starts, except for the 2:15 start, were very clean. The 2:15 start was also very good, considering that I had inadvertently brought her in at an acute angle, so that she had to turn about 120° to pick up the track, which she did nicely after some searching. (She also tracked a bit wide left on the second leg of that track after dragging me through a tree, but still came back to find the article.) She made the right choice when confronted with confusing cross-tracks on tracks 1 & 2, and on each track detected the article and indicated nicely (except on track 2, where it took some patience to let her discover it under her feet).

I am again babbling a bit too much; when she makes a nice turn I find myself saying "good girl" out of enthusiasm, but I need to save it for when she finds and indicates an article.

Next couple of training sessions: duration/length, hopefully ﹥1000 yards; obstacles, particularly road crossings; I also want to work her in the woods several times before we get to snake season, and some more turns, maybe an 8-turn stairstep. I also might want to practice with some longish straight-line tracks with frequent food drops--watching the video I think I'd like her to keep her nose down a bit more. Her tracking style works most of the time, but I'd like to see if we can avoid going wide so often.

Video: (short technical problem in middle of Track 2--I didn't know if the camera was on or not)



Comments

  1. JudiJanuary 28, 2025 at 1:39 PM

    One more to watch. I really, really like these. On your starts, lets add a small bit of tension and get her to dig in a little (easy to do when you know where the track is). You have happy feet, and I think she may be cuing off of you a bit (this is more clear in the videos, but I saw it today as well). Let’s transfer the responsibility to her, and teach her to TELL YOU where it goes. Make sure there’s a SP with a sprinkle of food well beyond the end of the line (so about 20 yards out) to reinforcer her for dragging you. Do the same with turns. Do the same with restarts after an article.

    I see the same thing on the last turn. Age isn’t a problem, neither are woods. I think, much like we saw today, the team’s biggest problem is getting you to transfer the responsibility to her, while still assuring she is correct. Stop your feet and your voice, and encourage her to be bossy by letting the track teach her when she’s correct. Does that make sense? She is REALLY good, and I think bossy will be easy for her.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Ralph HattoxJanuary 29, 2025 at 2:52 AM

      Thank you so much for the feedback. I understand now about letting her take more of the responsibility. This applies not just to starts. but to restarts and particularly to turns, where I am a bit too quick to follow when she heads down the right path. Actually, this might be part of the "tracking wide" problem, since I will start after her when she has circled to the right path but is still a bit wide of dead on the track.

      Delete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Image
 Two new article tracks, one from Thursday and one from today. 3/20. Slightly sketchy start, but stuck to the track nicely throughout the session. Did have to work a bit at the one corner, but found the correct direction. As an article track, we have a long way to go--she did find each and every article, but only twice, later in the track, did she give me a good automatic down. Her mind was clearly on getting at the food in the article. My timing is still off as well--it's more like two or three seconds between her starting to nose the article an me saying "Down".  3/25 (starts around 10:13). ≅300 yards, 1 turn. Good start and work on the track all the way through, although once or twice she had some difficulty recognizing the article when it was among debris or in the only long grass on the track. This time I had one piece of food in each article: if she gave me a down only after the command and gesture, she only got the one piece of food. If she gave me an automatic dow...
Read more
Image
 January 14, 2025 Millie in Class Tuesday. Judi asked me to post this one. This one actually precedes the one for 1/16, but I had problems downloading the video from my phone (I hate Apple!). No commentary necessary, except for Judi's comments. A lot to absorb.
Read more
Image
Millie -- Obstacles Practice AM, Article Game PM Two different sessions with Millie today, since the weather was beautiful. Morning--5-turn (4 open, 1 90°), 275 yard track with changes of cover and two road crossings. Sunny, 56°, calm. Low humidity. Food drops every 30 yards or so, and high-value food drops after negotiating challenges.      The start and most of the first leg were mediocre--I thought that distractibility was going to be a problem all along today--she was sniffing hard at everything but the track, and she seemed to lose it for a bit after the transition from medium to short grass. But she made the first turn ok, and about a quarter of the way down the second leg she started working the track nicely. She had to work a bit on the first road crossing, but made got to the far side about 2 feet wide left. She made a nice transition from medium grass to the rough stuff with no hesitation, and negotiated the second turn and the long third leg through the brush w...
Read more