River's Urban Track at Olds College today

Today I laid a track for River at Olds College. I can't Google map it, as the existing Google Earth image is from 2003 and there are new buildings and parking lots where I tracked today. The track was 450 meters with long legs and only four turns.

Overall, I am so proud of how River has clearly adjusted to the dryness and winds of Alberta. I had water with me and watered her at article two. It was not a warm day, but the wind dries you out! She is tracking far better this year than she was last year.

On the other hand, as I noted in the post below - you can see that she has aged, especially in the last video portion on the parking lot where she is working hard and is tired. When I watched this video tonight I could see that she is showing herself to be a 10-year old German Shepherd dog, which as they say, is like a 70 year old person. I hope when I am 70 I am as happy and have such a good life with so much activity!

No matter what, she is my girl and I love tracking with her. She works really hard, which I love about her. She may not be from working lines and have the incredible drive that Caden has, but she is still a hard working dog who never quits. And after tracking with a dog/partner for five years or so, you get to feel comfortable with that dog...like a great pair of old sneakers!

Here is the first leg and turn. If you select YouTube to watch it, you will see all of the other videos (I tape in short spurts so that I don't have one LONG video). Or, you can go to the sidebar of this blog for the links. PLEASE note my loose line. Even though I laid this track, I try to make it River's decision all the way, and I pretend to the best of my ability to not influence her, although of course, in a real test on a blind track the danger is to follow without reading your dog, and pushing them too far from the track to recover.

It started by a baseball diamond, turned to go on very dry, cracked earth along a building, then turned left to go along a sidewalk in front of that building. From there, we turned, crossed a road and did our MOT (moment of truth) turn on a parking lot.
A few interesting things about this track today: River's first leg was in a crosswind, and on very parched dead grass. She was DEAD ON and nailed her turn going into the wind. She remained very motivated on the dry earth. In the videos you will see how cracked it is!
She quartered a little bit too much but kept going forward and zeroed in on her plastic. Before the next turn, she followed grass edge before going over it to find the turn. She did a bit of weaving on the sidewalk. I think in part the wind was hitting the building and swirling along here. She overshot the sidewalk turn, but came back onto the track.
At this point, she was going onto the parking lot, and I saw two men and a cute little boy playing with a go-kart on the parking lot, right near River's last article! This kid was buzzing around in circles all over River's last leg. In the video you hear me comment "the joys of urban tracking!" River was going into the wind again, and at first, veered the right way for her turn. But she crossed the last leg, then cast around to find it.


At this stage in our training, I step in as little as possible to try to let River take ownership of her tracking. I pretend I don't know where the track goes. IF she was to get lost or go too far off, I would step in, but I guage this carefully. So round and round we go here. It occurred to me that the start of Jet's track was not far from where she was pulling me on the boulevard. Jet had run her track earlier, and maybe the smell was lingering from me and Jet in that area. Hmmm. Mental note to self about this, as I walked up to the boulevard to start laying Jet's track after laying River's but of course, if I run Jet's first, then the smell will hang around. NOT FAIR to River! She does find her last leg, and as soon as she does - you can see her dipping her nose which is what I look for. The go-kart kid had moved over a little!

Good job River! Here she is having a McDonalds plain cheeseburger, her favourite after-tracking snack.

Tomorrow I will post Jet's urban track!