Well the girls are coming out of season and I am ready to try some things with Drifter. Drifter’s agility career is supposed to be over until or unless he learns to settle down and make decisions a little better. After giving it some thought I have decided to try him on the 2 X 2 Weave pole system. My hope is that he will learn to offer behaviors without the stress and panic of being wrong. I think that has been his biggest problem in agility, he is so worried and stressed that he may make a mistake that he tries to do everything possible at once. He really enjoys training in Rally and Obedience where the choices are much clearer to him. He also may really enjoy tracking. I think there is a chance that the process of teaching him 2 X 2’s may show him that it is ok to make mistakes in agility, that the world will not come to an end and perhaps I can get him back into the ring someday. I will continue to work him in rally, obedience and tracking when the weather permits but for today we are going to start teaching the weaves. Drifter was doing weaves in class and competition before so this will be a re-train. He has the classic “see poles run fast” issues that makes him miss the entry and pop out of poles at trails. So in addition to teaching him it is ok to be wrong, I am hoping he will learn to collect for the entries and then go fast. Anyways here is the set up for the first lesson.



The object of today’s game is to simply get the dog to offer the poles by properly entering. As soon as the dog does you toss a cookie to the reward line. It sounds easy but I expect this to be tough for Drifter. Again he does not like to make mistakes and when I line him up by the poles I expect him to sit in heel position awaiting some sort of direction. That is exactly what I got out of him. I waited him out for about 5 minutes before he finally engaged the poles. At that point I tossed the cookie which he was happy to go get. It took several more slow successful attempts until he seemed to figure out why I was throwing the treat. After that it was just a matter of working our way around the entry arc.

           


            

This whole process took longer with Drifter than it had with Disco. He was very slow to leave my side and engage the poles at each new position. Once he did he was comfortable doing so again from the same location. I may need to take it much slower with him in the beginning as he learns to move away from me and attempt to offer the behavior. I was very pleased that he was able to focus on the work at hand and was not running around looking for girls. Overall a very successful start.

It is now Thursday of the first week and I am going to lay another serpentine track for the dogs to do. The big difference this time is that the track will be in the farmer’s corn field next to the house. This track will be a little longer than the one in the yard. I am also sure there will be several deer cross tracks. I am using less food since Dynamite does not seem to need it and less will help Dixie will stay focused on the scent. This track is about 200 yards long and has big arcs. We are still not ready to work doglegs or 90 degree turns. The track is flagged! Dynamite, Dixie and Daphine have already been out tracking so now it is Drifter’s turn. This will likely be Drifter’s last turn tracking as we have girls coming into season which tends to make him lose his mind and bad weather is suppose to be moving into the area. I will not try to track this powerful dog outside on snow until he is a little more predictable.

He continues to work the track very fast pulling me along the way, the real problem with that is he makes sudden and unpredictable turns which can be very painful to my shoulders  He is proud when he finds the food drops and gloves along the way. He does really get into following the scent and I think he is going to be fun to work in tracking. We will pick up his training once the girls are out of season.
Happy tracking!

It is Tuesday December 9 2008 and I have laid my first a track at home. For those that may not have seen Dixie’s blog I started attending formal tracking classes with her on Mondays yesterday. I have decided to train some of my other dogs at home on her tracks. I laid a track across the front of my yard. It is the same serpentine type course that we did in Dixie’s class with a very big arc. I would estimate my track to be about 100 yards. I have been looking for some new things to do with Drifter that he may enjoy and have decided to give him a try at tracking as well. He is the fourth dog to work this track. I really think this is something he could really enjoy since he can make decisions on his own and does not have the same stress of being wrong that he had in agility. I am a little concerned with his pulling power  I would be very concerned working him on snow or ice. We are also expecting several girls to come into season and he tends to lose his brains when that happens so I am not sure how long we will get to train before he will need to take a break. Anyways back to the track. I take Drifter out and exercise him before heading to the front. I show him the sock, hold it up and let him smell it. He really does not seem to get what I want so I drop the sock behind me and move forward a little on the track. He soon puts his nose down and seems to “get it” and starts pulling me up the track. He is really excited when he finds the food drop. He is even more excited when I let him eat the treat out of the container (he is the last dog today so I am picking up the containers as we go). He is quickly back on the track pulling me even faster to the next drop. I think he has the basic idea although he is cheating looking for the next container and he is hard to work because he wants to go so fast. This likely goes make to the same issues he had with agility but hopefully he will learn to settle in a bit and not try to sprint the track. It may also help if he gets to cover that hides the containers. He manages to stay on the track and finds all the drops. He is very proud of himself as he finds the glove. He really wants to please and be right! I think he will need to slow down a lot before he will be able to handle any real turns. I am pleased that all the dogs seemed to get the basic idea and they all seemed to really enjoy the game. Ok until next time happy tracking!