This was Heidi's first attempt at tracking on a line made by tracking shoes and blood. The reason being that I am entering the transition period from liver drag to blood, and am not quite sure the best way to do it. She seems very good at liver drag (with blood trail), so I feel its time to move on a bit. We've tried blood only with dubious results, so therefore now trying it with the shoes and cleaves. The blood was diluted with 'cleave juice' as mentioned in the previous post, and the track was around 100m.
For some reason I felt fairly confident of a good result, but still not sure of the outcome. Due to my incompetence with the video I've missed the first few seconds, but there's not a lot missing, it went like this:
We approached the start of the line, and Heidi seemed failrly keen before we got anywhere close. I suspect the cleaves in the shoes were dripping 'juice' on my walk to the start when I laid the track. Anyway we stopped a few meters away, threw out the tracking lead, and put her collar on. I'd barely said 'track on' and she was away. No ringing at the start, but just straight off.
She continued on her way at quite a fast pace, but seemed to have her head up off the ground a lot of the time. To me it appeared as we were almost going for a walk with her at the end of a long lead. Her line was pretty much OK, i.e. central on the track, but she did keep moving left to right slightly as she went. However she did not wander to far off the line this time as she had done previously.
Towards the end I had put in a slight right hand curve, gone a few meters, and tethered the skin. This she picked up with no trouble, and I noticed at this stage she was really using her nose.
Conclusions:
Was she going left to right down the main track because it was slightly easier walking?
Did she have her head up a lot because she could not pick up the track, and thought she was just out for a walk?
Was the scent so strong using the cleaves that she did not need to put her head down, or keep tight to the line?
Was this a very good track by her as she found the skin OK with no guidance, or a bad one, and the end was luck?
I love this tracking training.
Age of track: 1hr
Length of Track: 100m.
Type of track: Shoe and blood.
Amount of blood: 250ml (Cleave juice diluted).
Wind direction: From behind.
Wind strength: 5-7 mph
Temp: 14ºC
Weather: Dry, bright, but not hot.
Time: 19.30
Age of Dog: 13 weeks
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