December 7: small field beside road and playground

We went tracking today in the drizzly weather. It was warm and not windy. We were near the main road on my subdivision that has an occasional car pass by but no one was at the playground. Cheeky was nervous but she tracked well for the first half of the track. Then she got distracted and seemed to move down the stack with tracking or eating the hot dogs. She seems to ignore the glove initially until she knows it’s what I want her to pay attention to. She laid down in front of the glove and ate all her cookies. Then gave her more cookies on the glove and threw some for her similar to what I’m doing with Fanny since she seemed nervous.

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January 5: Left Turn Track Day Four

I put in a track at the Battlefield Green Community Center near a line of trees. It was overcast and 63°F. The track was 80 scuff steps, left turn and second leg was 60 scuff steps. Cheeky was mostly happy and tracked well, but after the turn she really wanted to go backwards. I stood still and waited for her to decide to go forward. She was pretty determined. She seemed anxious either because it was getting dark or because there were dogs barking nearby. At one point before the turn I made the mistake of correcting her for sniffing some trash. I don't know if that caused some of her anxiety too. Eventually she did decide to move forward and did well on the remainder of the track. The video is below. You'll see her off screen for quite a while after the turn and that's the point where she was trying to pull me backwards.

December 17: Great class with Cheeky

She was very happy to see everyone and all the dogs. Judi asked everyone to say hello to her. She was a bit distracted at the start of her first track and didn’t seem to know what to do. The food was spread out and part of the track was not scuffed so Judi had Valerie redo the same track with scuff steps and good every 2 steps. I restarted her and this time she got right to work. A few times she got distracted but I just stopped and waited for her to get back to work. Judi told me to keep the leash very short and keep her on the track. She should not go more than a foot or two off the track and this stage. She did a second track and did great with much fewer distractions. Judi and I are both very excited about her tracking ability. Homepage for the week of 12/18: Cheeky-20, 30, 40 scuff steps (tiny steps), food every 2 or 3 steps. 3 tracks per session. Next time, 30, 40, 50. Next time, 40,50,60. Keep food the same. Maintain tight scuff (essentially walking heel-toe). Focus on ...

December 27

Today we went to Cold Harbor Battlefield for the first time this year. We have tracked near there, but not actually at the Battlefield until today. It was very busy around 2 pm (I guess because of the holiday). I was a little concerned it was going to be very noisy, but the dog walking group that was meeting up while I was laying the tracks for Cheeky moved along before she got out of the van. As we were walking over to our tracks, a man was about to walk his three dogs right into the start of our first track. I asked him to steer clear and he was very nice about it. Unfortunately, he lost his handle on his leashes not once but twice and his dogs came running over to Cheeky. Both times she didn't seem bothered by it and I picked her up until he had control of his dogs and moved away. It was 41°F and not windy when I laid three tracks for Cheeky that were 50/60/70 scuff steps and food drops every three steps. She got right to wo...

Cheeky's Tracking Journal

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