Mist

Tracking (trail-search) & Indication - Sviland0

Today was ‘everyone training’ (i.e. not split into groups) at Sviland, so I fully expected to have to train down the road in another forest area due to us being too many. So, when there were only 5 of us at 10 o’clock we were all a bit surprised! However, a few more did show up and in the end we had ideal numbers for one rundering group of 5 and one tracking/indication/air-scenting group of 3.

Ronny wanted to lay his own tracks, and KristinT planned to train indication at long-distance (recently, Clara hadn’t brought the bringkobbel all the way back in to Kristin when she had had to indicate from a long way away). I wanted to try some ‘trail-search’ (’spor oppsøk’ - any better ideas for what this should translate to, suggestions welcome ) - getting Mist to search for the trail, rather than setting her to work right on the trail as I’ve mostly done to date - as well as some indication training.

The weather was horrible! Cold (a few degrees), raining, grey…… the kind of wet day when it doesn’t matter what raingear you use, you still end up cold and wet . So, we were all keen to get started and get moving! Kristin laid 3 short (~40m) trails for Mist, marking the place where I should cross the trail with Mist. Then Ronny and I were ‘bodies’ for Clara for an air-scenting exercise.

After the trails had laid for about an hour, Kristin (+ two ‘interested people’ who’d seen NRH on TV and wanted to observe) came with me and Mist to see how she managed her ‘trail-search’. I was interested to see how distracted she would be by other people around, but in fact she wasn’t at all bothered (until after she’d finished the 3rd and last one, when she ran off to find Kristin when she’d played for a while).
The first trail was quite close to a path, so to avoid Mist taking a possible trail along the path, I started the other side. This meant we were only a few metres from where we’d cross where Kristin had walked - but it was enough for the first attempt, since it ensured that she’d succeed fairly quickly. I was really pleased with how carefully Mist worked, nose to the ground and very steady. She found the trail and turned onto it, following it to the end with good concentration.
The second go wasn’t quite so concentrated - her nose came up now and again, but when she did find the trail, she turned onto it and tracked calmly and carefully. Once we were a good 10-15m along the trail, I was convinced for some reason that Kristin had not gone uphill, so stood still while Mist went the ‘wrong’ way, thinking she’d circle sooner or later. Then she found the finish - bite-leather Black mark for me! I must trust her!! At least I didn’t hold her back, thinking I’d let her solve her ‘mistake’ herself
And finally, the third trail-search was equally good, although she wasn’t quite as concentrated on the trail itself. Still, I was very pleased with the whole session since it’s the first time I’ve specifically trained this, and I was really happy to see how calmly she worked - definitely need to use trails of 1-hour+ to be sure it isn’t too easy (which makes her race off and lose concentration easily).

I was ‘body’ for Clara again, straight away so that neither Kristin or I froze completely! Then Kristin was ‘body’ for Mist for indication training. After one go starting Mist off directly in front of Kristin (i.e. no run-out) to make sure she knew what we were doing, I got Kristin to stand some 15m or so away and let Mist go to her. Her barking was ok - a bit hesitant at first, but got better. She still tries just jumping/stamping to see if that will do (without barking), but generally she’s making good progress. A dog barking somewhere nearby distracted her at one point - I think it’s the hardest distraction for her, as it seems she dares not bark if there’s another (unknown) dog nearby.

We had another air-scenting/long-distance indication session with Clara then a final indication session for Mist, on the grassy area by the gravel/tarmac open area. This time Mist’s barking was more confident, I thought - Kristin used the ‘hals!’ command to get more barks, and I think it’s a good idea to encourage her to bark more times, rather than risk her wondering what other trick to try when a couple of barks doesn’t get her the toy. We just had 3 run-outs, the last of which I asked Kristin to reward Mist with the frisbee - to give Mist some good exercise, so I don’t need to take her for another walk in the rain today

It was an early finish - but I was glad we hadn’t stopped for lunch…. I think we’d all have given up the will to live if we hadn’t kept moving

Posted: Indication / Melding, Tracking / Spor

Tracking & Indication - Dale0

Group 1 was at Dale yesterday (Saturday) - only 5 of us to begin with, but it turned out that Aud & Kåre had gone to Vigreskogen by accident (so it’s not only me that does that ). I had decided to train tracking instead of rundering - the last couple of months I’ve wanted to get in as much as possible rundering training, since it is more physically demanding of me than tracking (or at least, with tracking I can choose the terrain to make it less demanding!). But I thought it would be nice to have a change, and to get in some tracking training with company instead of alone for once.

So, in the end Kåre and I trained tracking while the others (Aud, Jørn, Krissi, Ritva, Nina) did rundering.

Morning
Overcast but no rain, very little wind
Trail-layer - me (2)
Waiting time - 1hour
Length - ~100m
End - biteleather
Terrain - young, deciduous forest, moss, grass underfoot

Before Aud & Kåre got to Dale (after a scenic detour via Jæren ) I laid out two short trails in the forest to the left of the main Dale footpath (between the barnehage and the sea). Given it’s been a while since we’ve done any terrain tracking (only tarmac and gravel recently), I wanted to give Mist a chance to ‘warm up’ with something fairly easy. I planned to have Kåre lay out a trail or two in the afternoon as more of a challenge (I have tended to set up most tracking training such that I know where the trail goes).

Both went well. The first one, I’d hung up quite a few tapes to ensure I could remember where I’d walked, but I still didn’t know exactly where we were going to cross the trail at the start. We approached at right-angles to the trail, from what I thought was just a few metres away. Mist went over it to begin with, but had her nose down so I let her work it out, and it wasn’t long before she got on track. She tracked quite confidently, and a bit faster than I was comfortable with (ducking under branches is a bit more effort at the moment), but followed the trail fine, overshooting the 90degree bend just before the end by max. a couple of metres.
The second one went across a marshy area, through heather, over a broken wall, 90 degree turn to the left and up onto a rocky area - the finish was about 10metres onto the rocky part. After racing across the marsh/heather, she stopped up quick when she came to the left-hand turn and didn’t take long to find the right direction. Onto the rock and she had to work a bit harder. I’d trodden on the small patches of vegetation on the open rock to make it a bit easier, and she soon found the finish. The ‘finish’ overlooked a huge marshy area, and I could see she was itching to run around in it so I made sure the tug game with the bite-leathers was as energetic as possible, to keep her interest and make the play a good quality reward. Then, I took away the biteleathers and said ‘Ok’ and off she raced to zoom round the marsh in crazy puppy mode

______________________________

Afternoon
Overcast but no rain, little wind (constantly changing direction)
Trail-layer - Kåre (2)
Waiting time - 15min; 75min
Length - ~100m; ~400m
End - Kåre; biteleather
Terrain - grassy field (cultivated); field, open forest, field

After lunch, Kåre and I decided to drive up the valley a little to get to less popular areas, so that we could use some less ‘used’ areas to lay out trails - Speedy had struggled with the trail I’d put out in the morning, due to other fresher trails in the area (and most likely crossing mine). I laid out a 700m trail in the grassy/open sheep field at the top of the valley, managing to just avoid losing a welly in the smelly boggy area where I’d cleverly planned to put the finish
Then Kåre put out a simple trail across the grassy field (I learnt a new word too - ‘åker’ = cultivated field….. thanks Kåre ) and waited at the end. I took Mist out after only 15minutes, and in that short time the wind had shifted completely, and I think she caught scent of him in the air, before we even started tracking. Still, she pulled like a train across the field - I wasn’t 100% sure she was right on track, but the trail was fresh and the wind had changed, so there was probably scent in a wide band around where Kåre had actually walked. And she was very pleased to find a real person at the end of her trail for once .

Kåre took Speedy out to follow the trail I’d laid - which went very well. Seems Speedy was particularly happy with all the treats that had been left lying on the ground for him (by the sheep ), but found all 4 small items I’d left along the trail, and the finish, so the distraction of sheep poo obviously didn’t hinder him too much.

We then spent 10minutes or so on some indication training with Mist. Her first bark brought on an impressive response from Speedy and Odin in the back of Kåre’s car, which put Mist off temporarily, but it’s good for her to learn to have the confidence to bark even when there are other dogs around. We only did 5 or 6 goes (I think!), and her barking got more confident each time. And, despite sprinting out to Kåre, she stopped before getting to him and started barking, without feeling the need to jump on him first (apart from the first time he squatted down, when the temptation was obviously too much ). It’s good to use the opportunity to train this little and often, as it’s important Mist gains confidence to bark at anyone and everyone. So, a good session

Finally, Kåre laid out another trail for Mist - starting out over the grassy field, then into the open forest, along, and back out over the field. He did say something about 400m when he got back but I actually thought he was joking (in reference to how far he’d had to walk to get back)….. next time I should ask! Mist had never done more than 120m or so before, and we let the trail lie for well over an hour before starting .

So, I was very pleased when we actually went out to follow it and she worked the whole way, and found the finish, with only a couple of ‘hints’ from Kåre about which direction to ‘wander’ in when she’d lost the trail.

Across the grass, she managed fine, and according to Kåre she crossed the broken down wall into the forest exactly where he had. But then, although she seemed to be quite set on where she should go, she actually lost the trail in the forest. I had no idea and therefore followed her, but she went apparently 40m or so before realising she wasn’t on track - at which point it was obvious to me, too. Kåre suggested to drop the line and wait and see what she did, and after circling wide and back in the forest, she found it again, and I could run ( ) to grab the end of the line again. Kåre’s advice is to just stand still and observe when going from one terrain type to another, as Speedy apparently often does the same (continues confidently, then realises he’s lost the trail after some 10’s of metres). Once the dog is clearly on track again, grab the line (not always as easy done as said!) and continue.

I have to admit, not having a clue where the trail went was good training for me . I had to leave it to Mist (and the odd hint from Kåre), and trust her enough to just hang on the line and follow. I’ve got a long way to go to be able to ‘read’ her - when we first started tracking her tail was a good indication of whether she knew what she was doing or not. But now, her tail is much lower as she has to concentrate so much more…. and is therefore, to me, much harder to ‘read’. So, I need to ensure more training with other people (so I can train on unknown trails, but with the trail-layer following to let me know if we go completely off track). Probably a good idea anyway for Saturdays in the next few weeks, as I ought ( ) to be resting more….

I was really pleased that, even at the end of the day, with a trail as ‘old’ as anything else we’ve trained and much much longer than anything previous, Mist’s concentration was good and she didn’t just give up when she lost the trail (although she was clearly unsure what to do, when she’d lost what she was following and I wasn’t giving her enough line to go back far enough ). It was very encouraging to see what she could do in terrain (as opposed to tarmac/gravel) and try something challenging. And it was fun to train tracking with someone else for once - so thanks, Kåre

Posted: Indication / Melding, Tracking / Spor

Tarmac and gravel tracking - Risavika2

Wednesday 14th November
Dry, little wind
Trail-layer - me
Waiting time - from 5min to 20min
Length - 20-100m
End - biteleather/kong on rope
Terrain - tarmac; gravel/hardcore

Tried 2 tarmac and 2 gravel/hardcore trails at Risavika…. using tiny pieces of fårepølse as tidbits at close intervals for tarmac and only very occasionally on the gravel/hardcore trails. To be honest, I can’t remember exactly where/what we did , only that the gravel ones went ok, and the tarmac ones I’m still not convinced that she is doing any more than searching for tidbits. I laid out a ’scuffed’ square with a number of tidbits in, followed by a ’shuffled’ trail about 10m, then a turn (to see if she was actually ‘tracking’ at all, then another 5m to the end. Although she ‘works’ well with her nose down, she doesn’t keep to any particular direction, even when away from the square and onto the so-called trail. She wanders around with her nose on the ground, seemingly stumbling across the tidbits every now and then….

On gravel, she works equally carefully, with no tidbits to search for, but actually looks like she’s tracking (i.e. she has direction!). Both gravel trails went well.

So, wan’t sure what to do about the tarmac tracking - use fewer tidbits i.e. longer stretches between them, where the only information about where the next one will be, being the trail itself…. or right back to the start (which doesn’t seem the least bit attractive and I’m not sure it would work anyway). Talking to Kåre today about it, he suggested just trying terrain-change tracking… i.e. start in terrain she’s confident in, and then onto some tarmac - she will then ‘lose’ the trail and have to search for it, but hopefully will thereby learn to find and follow the trail on tarmac having ‘warmed up’ already. Sounds definitely worth a try…. now need to find the ideal location….

Posted: Tracking / Spor

Rundering & Indication - Vigreskogen0

Morning - rundering, 9 run-outs, no sounds cues except first go. In the ‘grownups’ forest (rather than the very open, easy forest)
First run-out didn’t go quite as planned. Tried to send Mist on non-wind side (didn’t think!), and despite her seeming focused straight out, she just looped back to the midline almost straight away, less than 10m out into the forest. Called her back and tried to send her again by running a few steps out with her. But same again, a little further out, but looped in, and with nose up…. clearly had the scent of the ‘body’ on the wind-side (doh, should have ensured that couldn’t happen ). Tried to call her in, but she carried on. I told Frode (’body’ on that side) not to reward her and called her back in to me, successfully. Whether that was ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ I really don’t know, but my split second decision was based on the belief that she has to know that she has to go where I send her and not just where she feels like, and that I believe her desire to search is high enough to tolerate such a ‘failure’… this time

I got a sound cue to make absolutely certain she’d go out, and it worked fine. After that, all other 8 run-outs were great…. if missing out on her reward from Frode that first go had had demotivated her, it certainly wasn’t noticeable . Frode also got her to bark while he rewarded her, by withholding her toy…. it certainly made finding them easier

I was very pleased overall - she runs pretty much straight out without needing any sound or visual cue. Could perhaps do to ask ‘bodies’ to hide always more than 50m out to just make sure she always runs far enough out, especially on the wind-side.

Afternoon indication training, with Frode
In the open forest, we started with barking directly in front of the ‘body’, then increased the distance. Frode’s an excellent ‘body’ (must be careful how I word that ) - he consistently got real deep barks from Mist, and she loved playing with him with her bite-leather. Her habit of jumping up at the ‘body’ when she first runs out, which I was wondering about (whether there was anything I could do), Frode reckoned would just disappear as she learns that it’s only barking, and keeping her distance that gets her her toy. And after the first go, when she did jump once, before starting to bark, she didn’t bother jumping up at him again. The only jumping was part of her barking ‘routine’, so I was very pleased.

A good day’s training.

Posted: Indication / Melding, Rundering

Tarmac tracking - Kvadrat1

We had ‘dugnad’ (fund-raising) at Rimi in Madla again today - stock-taking (! ) starting at 10, so I set off a little early so that I could try a new technique for tracking on tarmac at Kvadrat shopping centre on the way there.

I hadn’t expected to see anyone there, but not only was there a big group of cyclists at the bikeshop next to the Kvadrat carpark, but also people at the bus-stop, a woman collecting bottles from the bins ( ), a man on a bike…… Anyway, they probably all thought I was crazy, but such is life if you want to train a dog

I had bought sliced fårepølse (a kind of dried sausage made of lamb) as the best ‘disguised’ treat to use on tarmac, and ’shuffled’ my feet across a 1m x 1m square within which I put 10-15 very small pieces of pølse. I did this right from the car door, then drove the car 10m forward, and repeated, twice. The aim was to ensure there was no other ‘human trail’ scent in between the squares.

Then I laid out two more squares in the same way, about 5m apart, and ‘joined’ them by dragging/shuffling my right foot held out of the car door, as I used my left foot to control the clutch and drive forward!!

I drove the car 20-30 metres away, took Mist out, put on her tracking line and wandered over in the direction of the first square. It took a minute or two before she came across the pølse bits on the ground, but once she’d found them her nose went ten to the dozen as she searched for more. Once they were all gone, we wandered towards the next square….. same process….. and once again.

After a short break, we moved on to the next area, and found the start square. Mist sniffed around and found all the bits of pølse, wandering away from and back to the square a number of times. She then vaguely followed the ’shuffled’ trail to the other square, zigzagging back and forth across the ‘trail’ (not sure what the ‘official’ view is on whether this is wrong or not, but I reckoned she wasn’t getting any ‘reward’/pølse unless she was on the trail, so she shouldn’t be learning too much wrong). When she’d finished all the pølse bits in the second square, she got her bouncy orange ball as a reward and we played for a while in the empty carpark.

I laid out one more ‘2-squares + shuffled trail in between’ and we did the same again. There was a man at the bus-stop only about 25m away, which distracted Mist somewhat, but when her tailwagging got no response, she went back to searching the ground for treats.

It’s hard to know what Mist learned from today - it’s only the very first step of course - , but hopefully we’ll see next time we try…..

I don’t think Kvadrat is actually the best place for this exercise, since the tarmac really isn’t ‘clean’ - in that there are often other edible things on the ground - chewing gum, bits of food that people have dropped, litter…… although I tried to stick to the road-ways where there was less rubbish instead of the parking spaces themselves. Next time, I think I’ll try to find an office carpark where, presumably, there will be less ‘other stuff’ on the ground!

Posted: Tracking / Spor

Rundering & Indication - Dale0

Training was at Dale today - it’s a long time since I’ve trained there, and this was Mist’s first visit (apart from the day a few weeks ago when we went there to do some Tur-O, when I lost her ).

We weren’t many, since there were lots of people up at Tjørn for the A-assessments. But almost everyone (7 of wanted to train rundering so the morning session became a long one, with ‘lunch’ not until 2

Mist and I were first out….. I planned to do much the same as last week - straight out with no cue. And that’s pretty much how it went. On two of the run-outs, Mist didn’t go far enough and I had to send her again, but I did it by running a few steps out into the forest with her (kind of ‘passering’) to keep her momentum, rather than stopping up and sending her from standing again. The first couple of goes, I called her in to the midline (to save my energy - which I’m starting to have less of , and time) once the ‘body’ was finished playing with her. But then on her second run back in to me from the non-wind side, she knew there was someone out the other side and just continued without stopping - great that she wants to keep searching , but not so great that she completely ignored my recall It’s something I suspected may happen, as she’s so keen to go and find people. For today, I just decided to go out and fetch her instead - the terrain isn’t too tough at Dale and I didn’t want to ‘nag’ her to come back to me when she was so keen and otherwise doing
everything right.

I was really pleased with her run-outs, especially since it was only last time that we started to remove the sound cue. It was good to have a good breeze from one side, which clearly provided a scent cue when sending out on the left-hand-side of the path. Mist was slower running out today - but whether that was because of having no sound cue, or that she’s learned a little that she needs to keep going for a while, so needs to hold back some energy, or whether it was just that she was still tired after a long walk at Hellestø yesterday with Ghita and her 3 dogs (most likely, in my view!). But she was consistent, and was equally pleased to find the last ‘body’ as the first

In the afternoon, I chose to train indication instead of having another rundering session. Given that Mist seemed a little physically tired, and the morning session had gone really well, and that it was late when we started the 2nd session, it made more sense. Jørn was the ‘body’ and we used the small gravel carpark by the Dalevatn path. Same as before - Jørn got Mist to bark with the ‘Hals!’ command, and we gradually increased the distance (from nothing to about 10m) that she ran out to him. On the last go (we had about 8-10? in total with a break in the middle) she barked without any command

When she got to run out, she jumped up once at Jørn each time, before barking and jumping up and down as normal. I don’t want her to jump up at the ‘body’ at all, but will just monitor it for now (and hope it goes away as she learns it doesn’t get her anything). Using a ball as her reward, or another ‘throwable’ toy, is best because it can be thrown over her head and behind her, to encourage her to keep her distance. But, since the rag-on-rope is her favourite toy, I decided to start with that when introducing a new ‘body’. It works fine as long as she doesn’t get to run out, but I suspect it encourages her closer in to the ‘body’ by being a ‘close’ game .

Despite being a new ‘body’ and a new location (which definitely affected her concentration), Mist barked ‘properly’ and multiple times each time. Forward plan - more of the same….. vary number of barks required to get the reward.

Posted: Indication / Melding, Rundering