Urban Tracking plotting and training questions

I was out tracking on Saturday and have a couple of questions. First of all, what your experiences have been – when turns are plotted before, even with, or just after the corner of a fairly big building? From a 'best practices' standpoint, what would you consider the best placement of a turn in a UTDX track?

Overall I was really happy with her work, and the conditions were great - rain the night before hail while I laid the track (I know, weird hobby).

The place where River went off to a major degree was when I turned away from a building at a corner (90 degree right away from the building). I was following the sidewalk which, at that point curved away to the right as well, to follow the road. River cast about in the area of grass beyond the turn then down a slight slope to a roadway into the next building. Looked under the stairs, around a garbage bin, and finally turned right to parallel the original track.



Here is the map – red is the track, yellow is her path. It was 3 hours old and 800 meters (480 veg and 320 n0n-veg). I have been contemplating this since Saturday and wonder what experienced urban trackers or judges might say. It hailed when I laid the track and was sunny and cold when I ran it. There is a slideshow of this track to your left in the sidebar menu.


I love taking pictures, even though it is torture at times to see what I missed. Look at the first photo below - River is LOOKING in the direction of the turn where there is an article - at this point we are probably 30 meters from that darned article.


In this photo you can see the automatic doors closing - they opened when River walked by but she ignored them (once before she tried to go in!)



So I am feeling pretty happy, she is humming along, and I am clicking. I just let her do her thing and don't overhandle. Having a camera prevents me from doing that! Suddenly, when I was expecting her to turn right, she disappeared around the corner.


...and wound up past the corner. She explored, got stuck downhill from the track, then paralleled to get back to a spot where she hooked up with it again! This was good for problem solving, but I would not want it to happen all the time.
Paralleling the actual track. Amazing to me that she was able to sort this out! The track is actually about 30 meters to our right.
When she came to an open area where I crossed the road, she caught the scent and came back in on the track. The wind was blowing over the building in the direction of my 90 degree turn, if anyone feels that has an impact. Also, I followed her to let her work out the problem, even though I knew it was wrong. But from now on won’t let that happen as I can see it crossing the line from problem solving to eroding confidence. It is a tough one!

Also of interest to me is that I Googled this and she was never beyond 30 m from the primary track. But it would take a lot of experience to see that. Most times I think 40 m is a lot of line in urban for going off track. But in this case I had to eat my words! Would people think this is the kind of situation the 40 m off is meant to apply towards? Unfortunately she missed an article too – perhaps not the best article placement? I thought it would reward her for the turn (groan – even when I plotted it I wondered…I am just getting to know this venue!)

I would love some comments if you know my email, or use the comment function below - all comments are not public until I moderate them. If you do not want it to go public, just let me know - and be sure to give me your email address if you want me to respond!

THANKS!
Donna and River!


Good girl!