Caden's tracking progress

Today was tracking day! I will try to get pictures of Caden tracking. I am always out by myself, and usually after work so it is too dark! In the meantime, here is a picture of Caden von der Kleinen Wiese.

I have been busy re-freshing Caden's memory about tracking. He remembered so much that I have jumped in some fairly large increments. After all, he has been tracking since he was 10 weeks old, and started on all surfaces. He literally screams when I come for him and get his harness out. And if you have heard Caden scream, you know it can make your ears bleed.

Today I aged his track for 45 minutes. The weather was crisp and cold and the track was on very dry, dead grass at my new favourite spot, the Westerner, an agriculture and trade show complex in Red Deer. Here is a map...

The track accidentally had one acute angle because I needed to get away from the building. A Festival of Trees was closing and suddenly there were a thousand people pouring out of the building. I generally HATE boxed in tracks like this, but I banked on a few things - he is pretty dead on when he tracks, there was no wind, and the third leg was adjacent to a chain link fence which I figured would help keep him there by holding scent. Also, that I just would not let him get into trouble, of course!

I put less food than the last two tracks - every 5 steps on the first leg, then every 10, then in strategic spots. As with his last two tracks, he finds the walkup and by the time he is at the scent pad he is already motoring. Today, he was dead on, and skipping bait, so I can reduce it even more. He overstepped the acute angle by two steps, then corrected himself. At articles, I run up to treat him, as I have not formally trained articles yet. He knows there is "something" about them, but he does not like the interruption to play (as I found two tracks ago). So he sits for a treat and then we keep going. I think he will use a sit for indications as he does it so naturally.

He crossed a sidewalk and turned left at a tree, taking this turn very smartly. He went nicely along the boulevard to a driveway into a parking lot. At this spot, I turned on the non-veg into the lot. He found the turn after casting back and forth a few times to the opposite boulevard onto the road, then finally, into the lot, but never once asked me for help. This was an incremental improvement over his last track where he looked at me and stopped on dirt.

Today, he was nose down on the pavement. Articles don’t register with him yet, as I thought he might see it and run to it, but he doesn’t think that way yet.

The track was 326 metres (about 300 yards) I did a track for River too but it was only aged about 20 minutes because it was getting dark and she said “this is the track of a simpleton!” Good for confidence, anyway!

I love this picture of the two of them playing - such joy!