Tuesday, August 12, 2008

Weaves .... then tracking

Today it was overcast and not as hot as it had been. I worked both dogs on the weaves poles when I got home from work. It took Bern 3 tries to get me a set of 12 clean poles... we immediately ran in and got cookies. Grace worked on 6 poles with some channel which she zooms through. She is going to weave quickly when she discovers that the straight poles are just a variation of the channel set.

We practiced tracking on the former golf course behind the neighborhood. Many thanks to Ms. Marie for letting us use her gate to access the area. While Grace's track aged, Bern ran a one turn track with no cookies. The track was fairly fresh and he tracked quite well for him. He dropped next to the glove and was eager for his reward. Next Grace tackled her track which was almost 30 minutes old. The grass was tall, the track ran between several large trees, over a former golf course green mound, and had several changes of cover including some briars/brambles. In some places the grass was above her head but she plowed through it like a trooper. She had some trouble at turn 3 but when she found the track after circling a few times she knew it immediately and headed off with confidence in the correct direction. She stopped at the glove today but didn't really have good article indication. I encouraged her to play with the glove in hopes that she may eventually retrieve the glove (so we can play) as her article indication.

All in all I was extremely pleased with our efforts today.