Mist

Success at Sviland

Poor Mist has no real canine friends at home, so after a hard day’s tracking, has to make do cuddling up with Thomas’ toy dogs:

I signed up for tracking today, mainly because I had to be home by 1530 so Jon could take the train to Kristiansand for his training.

The plan was to do some ‘trail search’ and a B-assessment-like trail (~500m). It took quite some time to sort out who was doing what, where and ensure that all of us knew what others were doing so we wouldn’t mess up others’ training! Nina wanted to do pretty much the same as me, so we teamed up. It was 1115 by the time I got back from laying a trail for her up in the top (open) forest. Then we put laid the ‘trail-searches’ along the right-hand side of the main rundering track (noone was rundering today ). We put out 6 loops (3 each) from the track out into the terrain and back to the track, hanging a tape, visible from the track, once we were well out in the terrain and then leaving an article for the finish just 10-20metres further on. The idea was that, if the dog chose the wrong direction and ‘back-tracked’ then we would soon come back to the road where there would be so many trails that the dog wouldn’t be able to go any further. If they chose the correct direction, they would be rewarded promptly.

Mist was first to search for her trails. On the first attempt, she did exactly what we’d planned - she went the wrong way and led me back to the road where she looked at me confused! We went back to where we’d started, searched again and when she came across the track this time, she chose the right direction. Unfortunately she went past the ‘finish’ so I scooped it up, lobbed it in her direction and hoped for the best. Not the smoothest of rewards but never mind .
Whether she learned from that first mistake I won’t ever know, but on the 2nd trail-search she checked the wrong direction only 2metres before turning and going the right way. On the 3rd go, she took the right direction without hesitation. She found both finishes and seemed very pleased with her reward (a favourite home-made tug toy).

After Nina and Bina had done their trail-searches (very successfully ), we set off for the longer trail. We took a reasonably short trail-search (10m or so) and Mist set off in the right direction. Nina followed us, and collected in the tapes she’d hung to ensure she remembered where she’d been. The whole session went very well - she found and picked up all the articles (including a metal bike brake part, although I had did have to ask her to bring it to me… but she stopped at it and waited anyway) except for one which she missed on a turn (something to work on). She had to work hard when we first came out of the green forest into an open area just before a path. The path itself wasn’t much of a problem, but going from forest terrain to grass/heather etc. was something that required concentration. At one point Nina said we were off track, but Mist seemed sure so I followed her (I reckoned if she was pulling that hard, either she was right or she was onto something else and I should follow her and let her ‘fail’). Turned out she was right - we came across a couple of tapes before long. It is so easy to forget where you’ve been when you lay trails in forest terrain!

Right at the end, she was obviously tired and we went back into pine-needle terrain (difficult), and I misunderstood something Nina said to me. I thought we’d gone past the finish - which didn’t sound surprising since we were within 20-30m of the road. So I got Mist’s toy and chucked it in front of her. You’d think I’d practiced! It landed right in front of her on the track, and about 2metres from the finish…. which I only saw when Nina went to collect it. What Nina had actually been commenting on was that Mist was on a secondary trail because of a reasonable sidewind, and Mist crossed a wall further along than Nina actually had done. Ah well. If it had been ‘for real’ I would have found the finish as I wouldn’t have just rewarded Mist without her finding something and she was actually right by it! And not least because it was a brightly coloured lunchbox which was easily visible .

All in all, a really good training session . I will look for more opportunities to use the same method for teaching Mist to go the right way when she comes across a trail. And need to work on turns to ensure we don’t miss articles due to going too far past a turn.

Posted under: Tracking / Spor