Spiritdancedogs on YouTube - My First Attempts to Create Tracking Videos

Tonight I tried to videotape my dogs using my little Panasonic camera and I created a YouTube account for videos called Spiritdancedogs. First is Caden's beginner track on grass, followed by a small portion of River's advanced track with two non-veg turns in a row. Can dogs track on hard surfaces? I think so! Here is her YouTube link -
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SY_l9Uv0zXk

Caden - click on link below or view in sidebar menu to the left

It was quite windy so I apologize for the noise. Also, I found it hard to multitask and probably didn't do Caden any favours as I really should focus on handling and not videotaping! But considering the wind, he did very well! At the end, I turned my camera sideways, which you shouldn't do when videotaping! But he did a nice platz (down) with the McDonald's bag between his paws. Inside was a plain double cheeseburger! I must add here that he has no article training at all, just a jackpot at the end. I asked him to platz for the camera. You see, having a camera can make you do weird things. Next time - no camera, better handling, less food, longer and a bit more age! This track was just over 200 m and 30 minutes old.


Watch Caden by clicking the link below. You can make it 'big screen' by clicking on the screen icon (a square box) in the bottom right corner of the video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HbinFcy5D-k

This is the description of Caden's track on the YouTube site:

I've never tried to videotape my own dog while handling at the same time. It
didn't do Caden any justice, but if you can forgive my ineptitude, this gives
you an idea of where he is at - tons of drive, nose down, small variations on
the corners and a bit too reactive to the wind, which was quite strong tonight.
My line handling is generally better than this! But he is learning to respond
well to praise and a gentle 'no' when he rushes or goes off track too much. I
think there was a bit too much food on track in the beginning and the track was
too short - by the 5th leg he settled in well. This track was a "Big Dipper"
shape. June 17 9:30 PM Red Deer College grounds, Alberta Canada.

Caden's track - the wind was coming strongly from the west (the left). The start is at the center, and the McDonald's bag is at the end, to the left of the map. You will see in the video that his track crosses where River had been about 45 minutes earlier. He does make a leap that way, then turns and takes his own track. It was not great plotting but this was the only good grass to work on with a soccer game just ending on the big soccer field you see to the south. I baited through the corner to help him out on that tricky turn near River's track. On the last turn it seems he is pulling to the road where I walked out. Once I called him back to the track, this turns into his best leg. He was going at a better pace and so nose down that he didn't look up and see the bag ahead!

River - click on link below or view in sidebar menu to the left. You can make it 'big screen' by clicking on the screen icon (a square box) in the bottom right corner of the video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SY_l9Uv0zXk

I laid a 700 meter track for River too - 480 m veg and 265 m non-veg. It was laid at 5:30 and I ran it at 8:45. River just nailed the non-veg. OF COURSE her brilliant non-veg turn was the one where I mixed up ON and OFF and did not get it on tape (I swear its true!). I was just giddy about taping it. What can I say?

However, I did catch the next non-veg portion of her track, where she had two non-veg turns. You can see her take the turn off a berm (I walked right over the manhole cover you will see). Her turn is at the wavy tar along the yellow line which she takes, and then she takes the next turn dead on as well, but overshoots towards the blue handicap sign, comes along the curb crossing the leg, then gets wind of her plastic article and gets a big reward for all that hard work! She was getting tired here - all we had left was a short veg leg to the end of 700 meters. She had worked for nearly 20 minutes by this point. I hope you can see that my line is always as loose as possible. This is my short (30m) line - for testing I use my full length line (50M). I want River to make the decisions and try not to get in her way.

She cast a bit more on her veg legs. At one point she was sucked into a gully of cobblestone and grass, which she had to pass on her way to the last article. As usual I let her sort it out. The only time I did stop her tonight was where she tried to roar across a busy road. Interestingly, I walked back on the opposite side of that road after laying the track. It was not best walk-out - even after nearly 4 hours, she detected it - in some tests, the tracklayers are actually picked up in a car if there is not a good way to walk out.

Below: River's track on Google Earth. Starts at the left (west) and ends at the right side of the map. There were articles mid-way on legs 2, 4 (non veg article), 5 (on the berm after the road cross), 8 (after the 2nd non-veg turn) and at the end. They were a mix of metal, plastic, wood and leather but I forgot cloth tonight!