Didn't get out for many practices lately due to my elderly cat being quite ill, but thankfully he has amazingly turned a corner and is almost back to normal.
Speaking of turning corners...
Location: Field next to soccer field
Weather: Cool with showers
1st track: 50 steps straight track. Good dog!
2nd track: track with a right turn. Bad human! I only had one flag and I used it to mark the approach to the turn. He nailed the turn but then lost the track a bit. Then, I realized I didn't know exactly where the reward (tug) was. Uh oh. Big mistake on my part! Big no-no! One of the first things we learned was that in the inital stages, it's crucial for the handler to know where the track is. I didn't realize how hard it is to keep your eyes on your dog and your horizon markers all at the same time. Whoops. Sorry Walter. I tried in vain to locate my horizon markers but we had overshot them and, well, it was a great big mess, but just when I was about to pull him off, he found the tug.
3rd track: Determined to not let that happen again, I used a pylon (which was conveniently hanging around the parking lot) to mark the approach to the turn, and used the flag for the end of the track. Much better! He seemed to cast himself around counterclockwise a couple of times at the turn and picked up the track again.
In summary, jeez I seem to make every mistake in the book! On the bright side, learning firsthand from these mistakes I am determined to not make them a second time. :-)
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment