January 2, 2024 (Tuesday) - Adair's Farm - Brushing the dust off - Part II

Decided to give the new hip a try and put in a short (~120yrds total), young track for Mila to see where things stand after another long break.  My hip did okay overall and Mila did great (though we both need to build our fitness back up)!

So an underlying theme for all my tracks is going to be trying to identify how arousal states influence Mila's tracking and figuring out ways to maintain the arousal state that drives, drive rather than suffocates it 😁.  This ought to be interesting...

Mila typically comes out of the car gangbusters and excited to track and then sometimes, something happens along the way to snuff this out and she shuts down a bit (or a lot).  After thinking this through and from some discussion's in Judi's Foundations classes and that podcast about arousal (can't remember the name), it started to seem like her checking out was from overstimulation/too much arousal.  This is worth exploring.  So, I want to try and keep the energy up but channeled - this is the part that will take some learning for me for sure.

Out of the car (she was amped) so to focus her a bit, I did 10 smallest possible loops (which helped). Then we went to the start flag and about 10 yrds from the start, I put the harness on and did 5 SPLs.  She started (and maintained being) super focused and no smellsploration at the start...the only meandering was at one of the tall tufts of grass next to the track that she wanted to smell the calling card some other critter had left behind, but she went back to it in short order. LOS at turn 1, but relatively limited - overshot turn, checked left with head only, then looped back to leg 2.  Found the article that was about 12 yrds from the turn and did the Mila special indication (standing) - briefly offered water (refused).  We took a moment to play with the article (during which she downed and maintained article interest).  She nailed T2 (I actually anticipated LOS here because it was on a downhill slope) and stayed focused down the last leg to the article (same Mila special followed by article play - again she downed during this). Offered and drank water. I switched clip from back to collar, did a few more reps of SPLs then removed harness.

It's difficult to see my scrawl so my pattern was S5W15*9/10 with * being food drop, article, or 5 scuffs. I wanted each leg to have at least one food drop OR one article with the rest of the reinforcement being scuff. Start (canvas glove) and End (wallet) article did not have food; with article (bandana) on leg 2 having food. T1 was scuff in/out and T2 was scuff in/walk out.  I benefited from observing class on Sat so worked on keeping the line at 6 to 10ish feet.

September 16, 2023 (Saturday) - Old Field - Brushing the dust off

 

We have had a big break from tracking so for this outing I mainly wanted to just get out and track something simple and remind myself of what strategies I need to keep working on. I sort of picked up with things from the last tracking outing (even went to same location).

Two short, young tracks (~30min/ea). I had planned to age them longer, but then I started to get worried that kids would show up for soccer league games plus it was starting to warm up quite a bit w/ the sun coming out (had been overcast till then).

Track 1 (all scuffed, no food) - started strong (not distracted by dog & person at far end of the field though I could tell she was aware of their presence).  Overshot turn w/ a quick loop back to leg 2.  Unfortunately 'saw' both the article on leg 1 and the end article.

Track 2 (food+scent pad or article (NF) + scent pad) - start not quite as strong, but the dog & person was more in her line of sight. Still wasn't too distracted by them, more that it pulled at her attention a bit more. Slight distraction at the movable soccer goal, but quick return. Found both the article on the track and the end article w/ nose rather than seeing them. Very strong restart after the article on the track. Some shifting to left due to wind blowing right to left, but w/ quick returns to track. 

She definitely needs to rebuild fitness - unfortunately had been too hot for me to start her hardcore fitness walks so I could see her get tired (more from the heat). I need to work back in the reinforcement strategies (like TT at end of track or when she returns to track after difficult/worrisome distractions).

 

 

March 19, 2023 - Old Field - Training the Environment

Focus was mainly me practicing "training the environment" (so to speak) strategies while Mila tracked.

I did DB and/or TT at end of each track (after article indication/reward for that). 

Repeated pattern of some scuff; food; all scuff to see if I got the same as March 15 (and overall did, though the food track was a bit stronger than what we saw  March 15).

Track 1 (scuff, no food) - she had a moment where an electrical box scairt 😂her after a strong start.  I did two LAT...the first look back was weak, so I got closer to her for second LAT and the TT back to the track and she resumed relatively nicely.  At the turn she wanted to go smellsplorationing so I did an LAT (slightly better than initial ones) to get her back to work (not this was not LOS at the turn; well it may have started as such, but then it turned into these are smells over here that I'd like to hang out and smell for a while).

Track 2 (food) - she kept wanting to drift left (something caught her nose) so I did LAT twice - 1st LAT - returned, tracked a step or two, drifted again so 2nd LAT - returned and continued tracking.

Track 3 (100% scuffed) - No LATs needed; this was her strongest track; she wanted to keep going at end article

 Note: Tracks were spaced much further apart than what is drawn.

 

 

Image below taken close to parking lot

Image below taken at end opposite of parking lot:

 

March 15, 2023 - Short Cover & New Strategies

 

 Location: Crump Park

Ground Cover: short, athletic field grass

Track Layer: Judi Edwards

Conditions -windy, sunny, chilly (upper 40's/low50's)

Age: ~35 min

Short 3 leg track (leg 1 - some scuffing; leg 2 - had food; leg 3 - all scuffed) - Mila showed very strong preference to scuffing

Strategy moving forward: It seems as though Mila's concern for the environment is leading to a reduction in her tracking behavior sooo... Train the environment while tracking.  Use LAT with marking and treating for return; use TT or other reinforcement if needed (e.g., when returns from LAT).  

 

March 9, 2023 - Back Woods @ Bryan Park (informative)

I did two short tracks in the woods (under story was mix of some open space, some thickets, lots of fallen logs).  Again, I set up "problem solving" situations for Mila with using the overshot turn where I walk about 5 steps beyond where I plan to turn.  I wanted to do the same "problem" at different ages to see what impact the aging has.  These were informative (as in lots of good observations) but not really sure what to do with the information 😏...

I continued to face perpendicular or opposite direction of track/turn and eyes closed at "smell stops" along track, at start, and at turns (when I could).  Lots of praise at food drops; articles - play at end.

Super motivated for both tracks with strong starts (though I'd like to increase that even more)... Note on starts - the past few tracks I realized that I had been scuffing too many starts so that when others have not scuffed the start in class, her starts got weaker.  I have started walking 10 - 15 steps and then scuffing - Judi - what's the next action here - make the "confirmation scuff" further away, reduce it to a couple steps; get rid of all together (I know that's the eventual goal - but when?)?

Track 1 - younger ~ 1hr 45min (running age in woods? I know woods keeps it "fresher" but by how much?)

Interesting observations - she likes to meander in the woods & chooses routes that don't always make sense (like looping around the large beech tree when the track next to it was clear w/out any notable icky footing).  Because the meandering, she misses intermediary articles  - Leg 2 had a glove that was missed in part because she was meandering and then my eyes were closed 😂) - Judi - Is there anything to be done to reduce meandering without losing motivation?

She ignored overshot steps at T1 for this track (not for track 2 w/ more age); LOS at T2 - glance at turn direction - check out opposite; return to turn & go down track.

 

 

 

Track 2 -  (~2 hrs 25 min)

More interesting observations - again, strong start (continued with walking 10 - 15 steps and then a short scuff ~ 5); she made an interesting choice at the second log she had to go over. Where the track went, the log was higher than I wanted her jumping, but too low to go under - so I did a turn along the log with a very short leg (not sure you can even count it as a leg) and then I went over at low/easy crossing.  I wanted to observe this one - so did turn opposite direction, but also kept glancing over shoulder so I could see what she did.  She checked out the initial straight direction (smelled over, smelled under, smelled a little left and little right - took her a couple min to be confident about direction and then followed the track - then smelled log where I went over it and decided to go around the end of it...about 8 steps from where I went over and then quickly made her way to the track.

At this overshot turn, she initially indicated the correct direction and took the turn, then decided to come back to the overshot steps and apparently found one particular scent molecule she wanted to follow around, so when she looped back from the overshot steps, she meandered through several small trees like she was inventing the pulley system such that by the time she was happily taking the turn again, I had to call her back for a minute to get us untangled. Once untangled enough, she "happily" continued down the leg to the article (the two gullies didn't seem to be a problem) with a nice indication.

 

 

 

 

 

March 8, 2023 - Backyard - Understanding Aged Scent (experiment)

Location: My back yard (not ideal, I know) - I used a section I had not let her walk in that day; it's also an area she doesn't spend a ton of time in.

Ground cover: Mix of grass, weeds, wild violets, wild onion (damp ground)

Conditions: Mostly sunny, quite windy, chilly = 46F (feels like temp 41F); DP-22; Humidity - 38%

Overview - I feel like Mila is missing a piece of the puzzle when scent begins to age so I'm trying to untangle where the missing piece might be. As an aside, this seems to have a greater impact the sunnier and warmer it is. Today's temps won't replicate that part but that's okay since this is just a start (and I may abandon it after talking to Judi).

Set up: 3 separate scent pads (~ 2x2x2x2 ft) approx 10 feet from each other (if done again, would like to place them further apart).  The entire interior of each scent pad was stepped on & ~ 10 - 12 food drops were placed in each.  Each was aged as follows: 1 - 1 hr | 2 - 2 hrs 5 min  | 3 - 3 hrs.  Pads were laid around 10 am and then run at around 11:00, 12:00, & 1:00.  No prompting was needed by me.  She wore harness as she would tracking and I moved clip from collar to harness at edge of each.

Observations at each:

Pad 1 - strong "start" - mainly started as eating exercise rather than smelling 😉, but as treat number reduced, smelling increased - for this one when she left the pad, there was a little confusion but that seemed more related to the 'newness' of the exercise. She returned to the pad for the final couple treats.

Pad 2 - even stronger - you could tell she had a better understanding of what was happening for this one - lots more smelling & quicker return to pad when her explorations drew her out of the square.

Pad 3 - increased strength of behavior all around w/ even quicker return to pad (she had left like 1 food drop that she looked for out of the square, then quickly returned with lots of audible smelling till she found it).

Judi - should I keep doing this? Suggestions, etc?

February 27, 2023 - Haley's - Continue Reducing Cues & Problem Solving

I wanted to again practice turning away from turns, etc plus adding in an element of problem solving for Mila on the track so I did an "overshoot" walk for turn 3. Mila initially turned left correctly at the turn, then came back and checked out the overshot steps, then glanced at me (this is the only time I noted that she was definitely looking for a cue of some sort), then she looped back to the turn and track and went down it nicely. Article indication for article on Leg 2 was strong, w/ very strong restart; and end article was okay (not as good as article on leg 2, but she "likes" bandanas so not completely surprising).