New Season for Millie and Brigid

November 11 -- Millie Class. Three starts, two with blind turns. Cover close-cut soybeans. Sunny. Cold (upper 30s-low 40s), strong breeze, low humidity. First track (≅1 hour?). Millie found the first leg with minimal effort at the start, and stuck to the track reasonably well. At the corner, however, both of us fell into confusion. She did register loss of scent more or less at the right place, but then had great difficulty finding the second leg--we both struggled (my handling hurt more than helped her through the problem), and we could only get back with assistance. Even after being put back on the track we had a hard time staying with the second leg. In consequence, the two remaining tracks were double-laid with considerably more food drops. Second Track (again ≅1 hour after being relaid). A good start and first leg again. This time she found the second leg after going some distance through the corner, but showed discernable loss-of-scent behavior again. Third Track (about 2 hours old after being relaid.) Started well; stopped several times to go back a step or two to find food drop, but otherwise stuck to the track--only tried exploring off track once, which I quickly stopped. Found the turn without much searching, and then proceeded to follow the track through an overgrown gully and through to the final article--by far her best track of the three.

 Takeaways--several handling gaffes. Even on the third track I was a little quick to follow each time she stopped an restarted--I need to make her show me some commitment before I follow.  Otherwise she did reasonably well on a new type of surface under somewhat challenging conditions.

Video of Track 3


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