12/5/25


Yesterday I drove up to Mt. Solon to track with a friend who lives on a cattle farm.

I was very specific on what I wanted. I even drew a map. A stair step with the legs 50 yards long.  I didn't get that. The map was very unspecific. I didn't have a start time or the length of the legs. I had 4 turns with two of them being open angled. The guess at the time was somewhere around an hour.

I had managed to forget my cooler with chicken so my friend cut up extra venison hotdogs. Those things have a strong smell! So the food drops were every 15. He ran over a lot of the food. He was good on the turns. He was moving so fast and strong I was just hanging on to the line or why my right shoulder hurts so much so often.

Things I need to work on: not trusting on the flags. I tend to get dependent on the flags. I'll need blind tracks or very discretely marked turns. Edgar and I also need to work on article indication. I've let that slide to get in the 2 days of tracking. My plan is to not go to the Y until January, walk Freddie on hills, and to work with Edgar on articles and a few other not tracking specific skills.

I also had my older girl with me.  Her track with almost 2 hours old. She was wonderful and I was told that I'm a bad dog mom for not having a T on her. 😂

Comments

  1. Anne (Mila)December 7, 2025 at 4:11 PM

    Sounds like a good outing overall. I'm guessing your friend put your track in for you and that's why it was not quite what you thought it would be? Sounds like Edgar was a real go-er for you - which is always nice! And glad you had fun with your older gal (maybe time to enter her into a T? :)). Since you are going to work on indications a bit, If you haven't had a chance to yet, I recommend checking out the article game videos Mary Ann did. They are posted on the Training Tab --> Article Games - have fund with it!

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  2. JudiDecember 8, 2025 at 10:57 AM

    Did you go see Kipp? OK, you made a longish list of things to work on…Not looking at flags, articles, and non tracking stuff. What’s your training plan for these?

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    Replies
    1. UnknownDecember 8, 2025 at 5:55 PM

      Yes, saw Kipp. For articles I plan on article tracks and article games. I need to make clothes pins with a little bit of tape and to cut some of my flags very short. I'll give these tools to my tracklayer. That should help with me being dependent on the flags.

      Due to circumstances that started when I was on a layover coming home with Edgar we're going back to the basics. Loose lead walking, starting competition heeling, positions, all that good fun stuff.

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