February 22, 2025 (Saturday) - Class @ Cool Water

 I'll have to add details later - Judi was track layer - track included long leg and crossing driveway

 

 

 

February 15, 2025 (Saturday) @ Adair's

The goal for this one was at least one long leg and a few obstacles.  We were also trying to get this done before the rains came.  Our last two outings had not been super reinforcing for me 😁so I wasn't sure what I'd get today.

I wanted the second leg to be long...however I ended up being a bit foiled in my plan by the fence. If I know I'm going to have to go through the fence, I normally line up with a section where the bottom rail is sagging to create an easier pass through for Mila.  For this one, I was thinking I could do a long diagonal approach and then continue diagonally through the fence if I dropped one side of the bottom post. However they were too tight so I had to do a turn at the fence until I got to a better crossing spot. I haven't done this with Mila before so was curious about it.  The 2nd leg was still somewhat longish (about 105 yrds).  Before realizing I was going to have the turn at the fence, I put an article about 2 feet to the right of leg 2.  

All-in-all, this was some of our better efforts in a while (very reinforcing for me😁 and more importantly hopefully for Mila too!). I actually have decent video of this one - two videos because I knocked my phone off the chest mount when we went through the fence.  I wish I had my longer and thinner line for this one as Mila's tracking style allowed for practice at distance and more line handling practice. The line I had was heavy and has larger knots (it's self knotted a few times) so isn't my favorite for line work.

The end article was the hiccup - right was we were approaching, Adair came home...and right at the article approach, in the distance, you could just hear the garage door closing and Adair's little dog  - Mila was a bit transfixed...

I sort of wish I had stepped in earlier and thrown a treat on the article, but I'm not sure that would have been the best idea either (need to ask Judi & MAM).  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

February 14, 2025 (Friday) @ Emmanual Episcopal (Short Article Track)

   

Lots of unanticipated distractions - tree limb clean up so sawing and leaf blowers along with contractors working outside one of the buildings.

So, in light of that, she did a nice job - we were  just far enough away from most of the distractions. Since I was trying to control her proximity to the people, machinery, noises, I had to use less space so only ended up with five articles. I also opted to run this very fresh (20 min)

 

 

February 9, 2025 (Sunday) @ VGL

 

So this was an odd one for the books...I cannot really say what happened, but we didn't seem to find a good rhythm...we started at the top of the bowl, so I anticipated a little deviation and confirmation on Mila's part and it was okay(ish).  The track turned at the woods and went about 25 steps before turning into the woods. We entered the woods a bit off the track and didn't really recover from that. For now I'll chalk this one up to 'just not our day...'  The day was a bit warmer (near 50) than it had been so perhaps that was a factor.   

 

February 2, 2025 (Sunday) @ Adair's (starts)

 

This was a bit of a mixed bag - first three starts were good.  Right as we were starting the fourth one, someone was firing a gun in the distance so I had to do some treat tosses to get her going and then after the turn, partway down the track she encountered an area she did not want to walk through at all. Something there was aversive to her...then once we got going again she stopped a few feet from the article and I had to again encourage her... 

Tracks were: ~1.10; 1.39; 1.45; 2.08

(will post maps and if I can get it loaded, video later)

January 25, 2025 (Saturday) Class @ Edwards

I’ll add details later

January 12, 2025 (Sunday) - Class @ Holly Ridge

Mila has a low threshold for certain environmental stimuli…sadly, barking dogs is one of those and this class featured The Hound of the Baskervilles (the only thing missing was Holmes skulking about in his trench coat and deerstalker)…seriously though, I was so lucky to have this happen in class (although you can imagine I didn’t necessarily feel that in the moment 😂). If I hadn’t had Judi there this likely would not have turned into such a good training session with Mila!

This will show many great lessons that you can glean (my pain will be your gain😁)…Judi will likely comment on the good stuff (you’ll hear her remind me about loopy training and you can see in Mila when my timing is better vs too late). I’ll mention a few other things too:

Notice that when Judi steps closer, I generally start making better decisions. And yes, it’s in part because she’s talking me through it m, but also, though you may not be able to tell in the video, I feel a little more confident with her there and reinforced to continue (hmm, wonder why they sometimes want us closer to our dogs😁). I wish I had walked up the line sooner. Instead you see I had to make the choice to step up when she wasn’t tracking. In that moment though I felt like it was the lesser of two evils.

You’ll see my handling behaviors degrade under the pressure of the situation and you can tell from Mila’s behavior when I’m handling better vs worse. Notice when Judi reminds me about steering and a few seconds later I step behind Mila and she returns to track.

Thanks so much to Judi for getting me through that and the classmates being patient too! Mila is appreciative too 😁.