March14, 2025 (Friday) @ VGL (TDX style practice track)

 

Goal - work on elements of TDX style track particularly bouncing off, working alongside, and entering the woods.

Things I liked: 

• Mila's overall tracking style (solving many of the turns nicely) 
• Strong first 3rd
• She tracked along the woods edge better than I anticipated (leg 2, not last leg)
• She learned from turn 1 and used it to work turn 2 & 4 
• Readily drank water on leg 4 (as well as back at the car prior to start)
• I was able to practice line handling and working at distance more
• This was a challenging track and she did great (longest track for quite some time at ~580 yrds) 
• Since it was warmish (for Mila) and the track was longer and challenging I kept it young (~ 1hr)

Improvements & observations:

• Too much testing in this one. I didn't really plan it to be, but I realized it towards the end.
• I should have broken the elements down and make this two tracks and reduced number of legs.
• Feels like 'what did you find' is becoming too much of a cue to get her to turn towards me to indicated the article. 
• It was interesting but several times after she ate a food drop, she'd show LOS before restarting (not sure why, but I found that really interesting) - it was more noticeable to me in the open field sections.
• Woods entry needs work - I should have maybe stopped before the woods entry (or just used a better strategy to keep us going).
• Woods exit needs work - I needed a better strategy at woods exit - she was tired and having a hard time solving that puzzle. I don't think I did great supporting that moment.
• UGH - not remembering to remember which legs had articles! I had some of the memorized, but I normally have them all nicely seated in my brain.  Unfortunately, I could remember if leg 3 or 4 had one (neither did!) and so I had to check my map (stupid hooman)
•  At turn 6, the breeze died down, birds got silent (except for the dang 'who cooks for you') and it became preternaturally silent - this meant Mila could hear distant barking, gunfire, and owls hooting.  Felt like my strategy to get her back to tracking wasn't as good as I'd have liked. I did try to get her to recall before she triggered, but didn't work.  Instead of the long toss of treat, not sure if it would have been better to do one closer to me, then a little further down the track, and then one more.
• Not sure I'm happy with my decision at the woods entry on leg 7. I did an article toss because I worried I had reached the bottom of her reserves but she seemed energized and my thought was if we could just get into the woods away from the noises then she'd be okay.  Maybe the decision to go into the woods was okay (seemed to be once we were in there), but I wish I had used a better strategy to get her across that transition zone.
• And I definitely needed to work closer to her in the woods (effing line entanglement!) - video is in two parts as I cut it off while I untangled the line - figured my video was going to be long enough that I didn't need to include that portion :). Mila waited nicely during that. After that, I worked more closely to her except in areas where I knew it opened up some.
• I wish I could have left the flags in/at the woods, but I knew it was going to be a bit dark by the time I'd be able to go back for them. I just hated having to worry about them or the clips...it took me away from supporting Mila and got on my nerves.
• Woods exit...talk about lack of strategies...you know when you tell your pup, "you got it girl..." you're reaching a bit. I pretty much disliked everything about how I handled the last leg...need to think about this one more and ask Judi & Mary Ann about this section for sure (and others).  She exited the woods very nicely but right when we got out there was more owl hooting and dog barking that bothered her and I think she was a bit stumped.  I scuffed the first 5-10, I'd have done a food drop too, but the article was 30 steps from the exit, still, wish I'd have done some food drops there.
• I repeat, too much testing in this one. 
  
  
  
  
  Part 1 - I stopped it to untangle shortly after we get into the woods (be forewarned, this is a long video so make sure you have snacks and a beverage :)!)
  
  
  
  
  Part 2 - Woods to end Article