Started out the day with a nice walk to the park, a few throws (how can the 2 of them lose the ball when neither of them ever loses a ball alone) and then some tracking. Met a friend down in San Jose near the airport. The grass is definitely longer and rougher than anything we've tracked so far this year. Early morning, plenty of moisture, wind is very mild, temp in the low 40s. Ground is pretty hard though. So conditions are moderately difficult overall.
Tor - roughly 100 paces, evenly spaced through 3 legs, left turn and a right turn. Grass made it difficult not smooth, very patchy and ground underneath was pretty hard. I didn't make it any easier by having my footsteps too long. He did well but definitely not his best track to date. I need to remember that he is just getting started and make things easier for him when the conditions warrant it. He has plenty of time to learn what he needs.
Very pleased by the way he handled having Vic around with us. Payed no attention to him walking alongside me while we were tracking and said a relatively friendly, polite hello as we walked back to the car. Confident and social but not overly friendly - perfect.
Gata - roughly 250 paces, serpentines early, technical turns to end, 4 articles. Worked all directions. Tracking was good, nose deep, mostly footstep to footstep, but a little fast. Wanted to walk the articles. Not surprised by that given it was her first track in deeper grass. Was ready for the first article. I lost the second article and she totally walked it. Third article was OK. Fourth article was good. Need to do better than that. Have to figure out how to mark the articles so she can't walk them in the next few weeks while we make the transition to grass. Transition to grass is a difficult time with her.
Afternoon session for each dog consisted of just fun stuff at the park for both of them.
Tor: Position changes starting out with food rewards to build the speed and fluency, switching to tug/ball to start the transition to toys, and ending on food to reinforce the positions and speed. He thought this was great fun. Also did some hand touches. Have done those previously but this time I had food in one hand and made him touch the other hand and then get the food from the other hand to reward him. He has a hard time working away from the reward and has a very low threshold for frustration so this is very hard for him. He did well though and was getting it pretty well by the time we finished. Then a few long play retrieves and he was done.
Gata: Did some Agility distance work again. She thinks this is great fun and loves to jump the pots with these big, long cross-country style bounds. It's really wonderful to watch - she is such a graceful jumper. Alternated those with a few sets of positions for food reward. She also had a great time.
Got home and the dogs zonked out for the evening. I think Tor was well and truly exhausted for the first time since he came to stay with us :-) It only took 3 days in a row of really significant physical work ;-) Just think how much fun it will be to wear him out when he is a fully mature dog - YIKES!
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