February 18, 2026 Millie -- Article track. Overcast, 58 degrees, moderate breeze. RH 80% Little age (<15 minutes) Article track laid exactly as described in training guide. Criteria were that she stop in front of the article and down within 2 seconds. In this exercise she scored 9 out of 10. But... She is down, but not fully committed. She is ready to bounce up as soon as I move. I guess I have to be quicker at dropping the high-value treat on the article to nail her in place. She recognizes the exercise as the exercise--I want to get it to carry through to more general situations. The trouble seems to be getting the behavior so ingrained that when we are actually tracking she does it automatically. Good, but we have to keep working. Next time Starts. Brigid --Aged track (2:15). 270 yards, 3 turns. Overcast, 58 degrees, moderate breeze. RH 80% Grass and bushhogged weeds, damp. She started well--we went in at 90 degrees to the first leg, but she made the correction immediately. The f...
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February 14 Millie--obstacles--changes of cover--short grass to long grass to woods; I also wanted to get her out on what little snow/ice was left. 370 yards, 4 turns. 1:15 old. Primary purpose was to give her something relatively easy after three weeks off. Three articles plus start. Fair start, good attention to track. Two turns needed little or any searching at all; two required work, but she got them in the end. Since I have been laying all the tracks myself, I'm not sure if I have been cuing her. Stopped at each article, but did not go down. February 16 Brigid--long track exercise (535 yards). Old Longwood Golf Course. Overcast, 47 degrees, moderate breeze. Ground damp-wet after soaking rain the day before. Because of the lack of a long stretch (the golf course was littered with fallen branches or trees), I had to do this exercise with six turns. Age 40 minutes. Food drops every 30 yards to provide motivation. Granted the relatively easy conditions (aside from the Force 4 win...
Millie 11/21 Obstacles Goal--to give Millie experience working TDX-like obstacles on a young track, including crossing asphalt road and handling transition from one type of cover to another (in this case back and forth between groomed field and roughly bushhogged brush). Five turns, 364 yards, 2 intermediate articles. Aged 45 minutes. Cover groomed grass, medium field grass, rough-cut brush. Several very new accidental cross-tracks Cover slightly damp. Mostly cloudy, 63°, light breeze, rh 83%. Good start, stuck nicely to first leg (although here and elsewhere she frequently stops and looks to side searching for the food drops that she knows must be there). Clear loss of scent at corner, but had to work a bit to find the line. Finally started in the right direction, although we had to stop to bark at a cross-country runner. My mistake in getting momentarily confused by the wrong line-up, but when she got the the road Millie corrected my mistake and crossed at exactly the right plac...
Brigid 11/15 Class Relatively short (≅100-≅50yard), one-turn track; food every 10 yards. Scuff out of corner. Sunny, low 60s, light breeze, rh 42%. Fairly dry medium length field grass. I was very pleased with the way she worked the first leg. Good work at corner, although I started to follow a bit too early before she showed real commitment. For the most part a good second leg, although she was seriously distracted by something to the left halfway down the leg and needed to be restrained. Finished the rest of the leg well, although she missed the article completely the first time past it. Aside from the distraction on the second leg, she worked the track well. We have to work on article recognition as well as indication. Did well on short, straight-line track on soybean stubble. Brigid 11/17 Starts: Four one-turn start tracks (30, 60, 90, 120 min old.) Each 75x40 yards. Sunny, 47°-53°, gentle (force 3) breeze, rh 24%. Short, groomed grass, dry. First and second tracks (30 ...
Thursday, November 13, 2025 Millie. Six-turn stairstep, 350 yards, articles on every other leg, food drops 15 yards past corners, and in middle of non-article legs. 45 minutes old. Laid by a third party--I knew where the corners were, but owing to the rolling terrain not the direction of the next leg. Medium-cut field grass. Sunny, high 50s, gentle breeze, rh 30%. Goals 1. to give her an easy confidence building track after difficulties on Tuesday; 2. to give her more work on corners; 3. to work further on isolating loss-of-scent behavior. Good start and first leg; easily negotiated the first two corners. At the third corner she showed loss of scent, but convinced me that the track went in a different direction that the actual track. Did well on all the other corners. What I liked--clear reaction to loss of scent when she got to each corner; noticeable and consistent behavior; stuck very closely to track with little distraction. What needs work--she still takes corners very widely, com...
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 behav...
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...
March 11-16 I've combined several tracks into this long blog. The first was the long article track that Mary Ann planned and Susan K laid for us. She is slowly learning. She could have done better, but she is picking it up as we go along (see below.) Unfortunately the GoPro cannot do a narrower angle than this, so it is always at long-distance, and the lighting is not great. But I wanted Judi to see what happened on Tuesday. Second Segment is something different.(14:53) I know that we did obstacles recently and so we are out of rotation, but I wanted to give her a bit more work in woods and heavy cover before ticks, and especially copperheads, get to be a problem. Start her in heavy cover, transition to manicured grass, and into medium length field grass before turn. Nice loss of scent and turn on first corner, She handled the challenges of the second leg well, and, after a bit of searching, made the turn (open right). Third and fourth turns were open as well, owing to the terrain...
Combined Post--March 6&7 March 6, 2025 Millie Starts. Four short start tracks, each roughly 125 yards (60-75 first leg, 50-60 second leg), laid exactly to the pattern of scuffs and food drops shown in the exercises, except that the last and oldest track was double-laid. Partly-cloudy, 53°, moderate to fresh breeze. Humidity ≈40%. I changed the orientation of the tracks from what I have been doing, to see if she was doing things from habit. Odd-numbered tracks started in the short direction of the field, while even-numbered tracks started along the long axis. I'm not going to go into a detailed play-by-play of each track, but will make a few general observations. Starts on 1, 3, and 4 were pretty convincing. I was especially encouraged that the longer tracks created little difficulty at the start. Track 2 gave her some trouble. The area where we were working was badly rutted, and that seemed to give her some temporary trouble, but she recovered. She is having trouble making tra...
Millie and Articles, March 4 Started late in the afternoon--I had to buy an SD card for the camera. In consequence a lot of the area we were working in was in shade, but we can pretty much see what is going on. Millie thinks this game is a riot. She starts barking and dancing around whenever she hears me making preparations. At first she just stood trying to paw the article open to get at the kielbasi. But after I once gave her a signal and a gentle command to go down, the penny dropped. Each time she came to an article after that she did a down, and after a few more she seemed to understand that she was to remain there until I picked up the article and gave her the reward. The only problem here is my timing--I'm getting better, but occasionally I found myself clicking just after she broke the down.
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...
Millie Stair-Step February 23, 2025 Not much commentary on the video. What is here is here, and it can be interpreted by anyone. Millie and I discussed it, and after a cup of Joe for me and a biscuit for her we decided we needed to get out and stretch our legs. Sod the article exercises. What was supposed to be a 6-turn stair-step (strictly accordingly to the manual as far as scuffs, food-drops and turns were concerned) turned into a 7-turn exercise, because the useless sack of s.... handler lost track of how many legs we had done. Nonetheless, Millie had a good start ( any arguments ?). Some of the turns had markers (clips with streamers [my washers are still in the other car]), others completely "in the open" without markers). Did all of the turns close to the mark, and on one of them (particularly turn 3, after all the tire marks), like she was on rails. Not perfect. She seems to go 10 or 20 feet beyond the turn before she really shows loss of scent, bu...
Millie--Article work February 22, 2025 Worked with Millie and articles in a larger room today, trying two variations. In the first I scattered 7-8 articles around the room and then took her in, and waited for her to look at each and indicate. The second is a little more along the lines of what Mary Ann does in her video; I walked Millie around in the room where I had dropped something, and waited for her to indicate, then threw another article (hopefully while she was busy eating the reward from the first one), and repeated. I liked the second one better, although the timing of my clicks and rewards still is really off on many articles (although spot-on in some).
Millie Articles February 21, 2025 This time I scattered numerous articles around the room before leading her in. I got some nice response, and I think I was probably too strict in waiting for a down right in front of the article instead of simple near or next to it. Tomorrow I'm going to move the exercise to a new. much larger room, where I can walk her around better. We're also going back out into the field for a stair-step exercise. I'm putting out a few articles on that track, but am not expecting miracles. I think it will take a while to move from the specific, controlled exercise into something more general. Still, it will be fun to see.
Day 5 of Article Game with Millie February 20, 2025 We're getting lots of downs on articles on the floor now. From a standing position I'm trying to observe exactly when she's down without making eye contact, but my peripheral vision needs a bit of training yet. Also trying to treat her in a way where she is not constantly looking to me for the food, but when you're using kibble to reward raining the kibble from the sky onto an article on a hardwood floor means kibble bouncing all over the room. I'll have to refine the technique.
February 19, 2025 Articles Giving me regular downs now. I'm still having a hard time coordinating articles and rewards, but she loves the game, even if it means her breakfast is delayed. I need to get a more stable ottoman on which to sit--this one kept tipping forward whenever I'd have to lean over to treat on a distant article.
Articles Day 3 February 18, 2025 She has caught on very quickly. She's giving me not just a sniff and a nudge at the article, but at least half the time a down. Of course, smart girl that she is, some of the time she will just try a down in front of me, wherever the article might be--if a down or sit works, it works! Once or twice I reflexively rewarded that, which of course was counterproductive, but I have also learned to wait and make her go the the article and try it again.
Articles Day 2 Millie has really caught onto the idea of showing me the article. At 4:30 this morning, before coffee, I was having a lot of trouble coordinating the articles, clicking at the right time, and rewarding promptly without losing control of the bowl of kibble. But she is a smart and eager pupil, and I am excited about how quickly she caught on. Back to it again next Monday.
Millie--Indoor Article Practice. First time doing this, and in spite of numerous difficulties I think she made some progress She was frantic, FRANTIC, after the other dogs had gotten their food and she hadn't. It took her some time to calm down enough to even pay attention to what was on the floor. Timing. I didn't always click at the right moment, and I kept knocking the lightweight container of food around. Sometimes I suspect I shouldn't have clicked at all. Camera--positioned too low, so that Millie's body is blocking the action. I only realized this morning that the GoPro does not have a threaded hole for mounting to a tripod, so I had to put it on a chair. I've got a tripod mount coming on Saturday. Nonetheless she started to get the idea. She did things right several times in a row after minute 16.