Gio's Post

Since the last THREE blog posts have been all about Romeo, I am dedicating this whole post to Gio. Only Gio. I won't even mention that Romeo nailed ALL his contacts at agility practice today, including the teeter! Nope, not going to mention that at all, just talk about Gio.

First, an little epilepsy update. This past week we saw a recurrence of the S-monster. Gio had another seizure on Tuesday evening, nearly 2 months to the day since his last seizure. It was a grand mal, but short in duration and he recovered fairly quickly. Even though the seizures have lately been coming in clusters, this was a singleton with no more since then. So maybe my new routine of double dosing him on phenobarb after the first seizure is paying off! He went to the vet on Friday for his routine bloodwork consisting of a chemistry panel, CBC and phenobarbital level check. I don't anticipate anything to be wrong, just a regular check that we do every 4 months or so. We'll get the results back early next week.

Anyways, on to happier news! Down but never out, Gio and I went tracking this afternoon. He is doing really REALLY well on his corners. He was having trouble with them for a while, lacking confidence in deciding which way to go, and then getting frustrated and giving up. We got some tips a couple of months back at a tracking seminar we attended here in town, and they have really been paying off! By rubbing a little bit of food on the sole of my shoes at each corner and then dropping a couple of treats about 5 steps after the corner, it is enough motivation for him to keep trying. I could really see the difference in how he was working today. He would cast out at each corner to figure out which way to turn, and his confidence when he found the correct direction was tangible! I really like that he is willing to cast around when he is less than 100% certain, but quickly runs back to the correct track once he has made up his mind. He's a very thorough worker, that is for sure!

Here are the two tracks we worked today.


I have a horrible sense of distance, so I have no clue how long each track was. Each track had 3 corners and the straight portions were between 30 and 50 steps, "steps" being normal brisk walking steps of a 5'5" person. We aren't really working on aging the tracks yet, just getting his confidence up and increasing the distance. So the tracks were only about 5 minutes old. Gio clearly wants to keep going at the end of the track, often continuing to follow my return path after the final food drop, so I will increase the distance substantially next time. Then work on aging.

Again, these tracks were both laid in a busy park, between two baseball diamonds that are shared play fields for two near by elementary schools. I really like using public fields like this, one because the grass is kept at a really nice length, and two because there is so much "background" scent that it really helps Gio learn to pick out one scent and follow it while ignoring the rest. I'm hoping this will come in handy down the line if we ever get around to trialing. The TD test is done in rural areas without much background contamination (other than wildlife tracks), but the urban tests are all done in public areas like this. I haven't yet laid a track over any other ground covering but grass, but I think next time we go out I will try crossing over the paths in the park to see how he handles brief bits of concrete or gravel.

Here is a video of Gio's second track. Sorry for the "Blair Witch" style, but it's a little hard to keep the camera steady while trotting after a dog on a mission, slapping mosquitos, and trying to pick up all those darned stakes!

Urban Tracking

About a month ago I participated in a tracking seminar held locally. There was a bit of discussion about "urban tracking", and I found out that that is what Gio has been doing all along! I was under the impression that urban tracking was all about tracking on concrete in busy city centers. Apparently, the CKC version of urban tracking only involves 1/3 of the track on "non-vegetative" cover. The idea is that the track is laid in a busy public area. I have been training Gio a lot in school yards or sports feilds since the beginning, and that is the situation he would be in in the urban tracking test.

We went out this morning to the school ground behind my house to do a couple more tracks. Three tracks in total, two shorter ones with one 90 degree turn each, and one longer track with 2 90 degree turns.

I also tried to video tape Gio's third track. Damn camera quit taping around the second corner, though, and I didn't realize it until we were on the home stretch. Gio got a little lost at the second corner and it took some encouragement and prompting to get him to keep working it. He got it eventually, though.

Wordless

No, maybe "speechless" would be more accurate. Because I can think of a lot of WORDS that I could say right now.

In my non-blog life, I have the mouth of a trucker ... who used to be a sailor ... and might have had some head trauma that results in him blurting out obscenities. I try to keep that reined in on the blog, though, as I realize that some Sheltie-loving children may be browsing through. However, today is deserving of some serious expletives!

It's been a long week. The only time that I have sat down in a somewhat relaxing fashion since last Sunday (when I played hookie from agility class) has been on the toilet. I am home only to sleep and shower it seems. So after this very long week, in which the world has tried its damnedest to be irritating, we finally reach Friday. Aahhh, a lovely Friday at the end of April ...

AND IT IS SNOWING!!

WTF, YO!? REALLY!

Yes, this is Canada, more precisely Saskatchewan, so snow isn't totally uncommon here. But at the end of April? Honestly? You're kidding right?

Okay, okay ... *deep breath* ... it does melt as soon as the sun comes out, it isn't really sticking on the ground much. Nothing that won't be gone by tomorrow, anyways. But the whole concept makes me shudder. It's actually quite pretty ... IN DECEMBER!

Good thing my dogs calm me down. I spent the afternoon away from work at a therapy dog visit with Romeo (have I mentioned I have the best boss ever?!). That always brings my blood pressure down a notch or two. And tomorrow I am helping to evaluate a St. John Ambulance therapy dog test, so hopefully we will have another dozen wonderful therapy dog teams to go out and spread the joy very soon! Then, this Sunday is our first weekend NOT having to teach rally-o classes in what seems like forever. The club I am with (Hub City Kennel and Obedience Club - of which I am also webmaster-extraordinaire*) usually takes a bit of a break in the spring/summer to allow our trainers to train their own dogs and travel to trials. Last week all of our classes graduated and now we are off to enjoy our break. What do dog trainers do on a break, you might ask. Well ... they train dogs! Yes, on Sunday, at the regular time we would normally be teaching classes, we are all getting together to go tracking with our dogs. And who says we don't have a life? Huh?!



* So, maybe I just made that name up for myself right now. Maybe I'm not REALLY an extraordinary webmaster. Maybe "web minion" would be more accurate.

This Nose is Made for Sniffin'

This nose ... yes, this one right here. THIS nose did a LOT of work today!



There was a seminar held today on tracking, put on by Carol Aitken of Regina, SK. The seminar was geared at brand new beginners to tracking but I have heard great things about Carol, so even though Gio and I have been playing with tracking for a while now, I decided to attend.

Definitely wasn't disappointed! Carol is a lovely lady and was very helpful and patient with everyone's questions. Very knowledgeable in the sport, both in training and competing, and was able to give great suggestions for a wide variety of breeds. She really knows her stuff!

Gio and I try to get out tracking at least once a month in the summer time. Not as often as we probably should, but with all the other activities that he does, we don't really have the time to do much more than that. Last summer we had sort of plateaued at a certain point. He could do a good length of track, probably a couple hundred yards with one 90 degree turn. But if I tried to add more turns, he wound up getting frustrated and lost. Carol gave some great pointers, suggesting that I lay articles after every turn so that he gets a reward more often. It had never occured to me to place more articles along the track, we had only been working with one article at the very end of the track. So I will definitely be putting this into practice. He has great basics and can problem solve his way through turns, but tends to lose motivation if challenged too much. Hopefully the extra articles will serve as reward enough to encourage him to persevere through the turns.

He had a great time out today, and was thrilled that the little one (aka. Romeo) stayed home so he got to go out working with me, just by himself!

Thank you to Heather for organizing the seminar, Karen for volunteering her beautiful home and property as a venue, and to Carol for traveling up from Regina to share your wisdom with us newbies!

Tracking Fun

Not as often as I would like, nor as often as I should, I take Gio out tracking. It's just something fun that we picked up a while ago, so every so often we head out either by ourselves or with a couple of friends and lay a few tracks to sniff out.

This evening I went out with a friend of mine and her dog, Tetley. You may remember Tetley the English Cocker Spaniel from a previous post a couple of weeks ago. We went to another friend's place just outside of town. They own a couple of acres that are perfect for tracking, especially this time of year when everything has been baled up and the remaining grasses are quite short.

It's taken me a while to get it all straight, but I finally remembered to bring everything I need! There have been times when I've apparently been quite dense and forgotten just about everything except for Gio. This time, I'm quite proud of myself! A harness, long line (20 feet), 6 foot leash, scent article (this time a glove), bug spray (epilepsy safe pet bug spray), a large jug of water (all that sniffing makes a dog quite thirsty), a crate, treats, and some stakes (cheap portable fence posts from Peavy Mart).

We take turns laying tracks for each other, I find that Gio follows someone else's scent much better than he will follow my own. Maybe because he smells me so often, he doesn't find it odd to find my scent in a field? Just sort of tunes it out? No clue. Gio's currently just working on short-ish tracks, with only a couple of turns. Tonight he successfully completed two tracks of about 170 yards each, each with two 90-degree turns. Tetley is a pro, so he is working on tracks of 300+ yards. Of course, that means more walking for me as I lay the track! Tetley's owner gets off pretty easy laying little tracks for Gio!

I'm still at the stage where I ask the track layer to rub some stinky treat on their feet before setting off. Just a couple of swipes per foot with a chunk of treat and the scent is easier for them to find. Of course, the food smell fades quite quickly, but it it helps the dog find the right line to get started on. Then at the end of the track, a piece of the same treat is stuck inside the glove, the glove is dropped at the end, and the track layer stomps on it a couple of times.

I leave the track to age about 5-10 minutes, and then we are off! I switch the long line from his collar to his harness just as we are approaching the beginning of the track, and give the command to "find it". The nose goes down and off he goes! In some of the pictures you may see a small piece of blue tape tied to a piece of grass or brush. That tape is just to mark the corners so I know where I am going and can judge as to whether Gio is doing it correctly or not. The dogs don't pay any attention to the tape, when their nose is to the ground it is as if they are completely blind and deaf. Nothing matters but the scent. Because of that, it is possible to practice tracking in shallow bits of snow. The foot prints that the track layer leaves won't clue the dog as to the correct direction, they don't even seem to notice the footprints, just the scent.

Once they reach the end of the track, a great big party with the glove full of treats, I ask for a "down" (the signal I want him to use when he finds the article) and then reward with the treats from inside the glove. Back to the car to kennel the dogs and lay a new track.

It's getting dark quite quickly here now, so the quality of the pictures rapidly went down hill. I took Romeo out with us as the area that we were tracking in was perfect for a bit of a run. After Gio and Tetley were finished their tracks, we let all the dogs off leash to have a bit of a tear-about. The owner of the land we were on has an 18 month old English Cocker Spaniel named Abby. We let her out of her run and she joined the boys for a bit of a romp. Oh, how they would LOVE it if we had land like that. I would never be able to get them inside the house! It's bad enough now with Romeo, he would live outside 24/7 if he had the option. All 4 of them tore around for a good long while, until Tetley and Abby flopped on the ground, and Gio's tongue was nearly brushing the grass as he ran. Romeo gave up chasing Gio and Abby (he doesn't bug Tetley ... knows better than that!) and resorted to standing and barking at them. A quick drink of water and back in the car to come home. They are currently passed out, Gio on the floor and Romeo on the bed. Oh how I love happy and tired dogs!