Today is the start of creating our new routine. OMG, am I tired. Getting up at 4:00 am to work the dogs before going to work is tough to get used to ;-) The good news is that my work with Tor on his demand barking is paying off and he didn't wake any of our neighbors this morning at 4:00. All right, enough of my moaning and complaining, on to the real topic of this blog ... the dogs :-)
Morning outing a little rushed today - each dog got about 20 minutes of ball playing combined with a walk around the park. Breakfast in the car and off to work.
Though it is hard to get up at 4:00 it is awfully nice to get off work at 3:30 or so in the middle of winter :-) Today we met up with a friend (F, J & R) and went tracking while it was still light.
Conditions: Park Grass, WET, WET, WET; mild wind
Tor's Track: 3 legs about 20 paces each, 1 right turn, 1 left turn, bait in each footstep
Tor tracked pretty well, he was a little too excited at the start and rushing but settled quickly. I had walked him before tracking to make sure that he had a chance to relieve himself but he was still too happy to be getting out of the car after a day at work. Need to consider establishing a calming start routine to tracking for him and/or throwing the ball a few times before we track after work. For the number of times he has tracked, ~15, he is doing great. Did not work a head wind with him but got the tail wind and cross wind from 1 direction. Wind light but still he stayed right on the track though went just a little wide on second turn.
Gata's Track: Big, wide open track about 250 paces, 1 right turn, series of big curving turns following the contours of the space, 2 articles, gapped spacing of bait
Gata tracked pretty well, sped up a little in gaps of no bait which is not surprising since we haven't tracked much in awhile. Good commitment to the track. Articles good though did not want to down all the way in nearly "standing water" for the last article. Worked all directions with respect to the wind. Probably need to go back to more technical tracks with her to remind her that speed kills. It wasn't bad today but she can build speed quickly when I'm not careful about it.
Finished up by playing ball with each of them a little, individually. Tor on Flexi since park close to the road and don't want to risk him chasing cars. Gata, of course, doesn't care about cars or much of anything else when there is a ball. Interestingly, both dogs wanted to go track the tracks laid for the other dogs rather than play ball. Who would of expected that with 2 ball crazy dogs?
Dogs fed, happy and ready to play. I'm ready for bed. Hopefully, it will get better once I really get into the routine. I shouldn't have let myself sleep in over the holiday ... oh well, live and learn ;-)
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