Reply To: Lois & Monza (DRTDT)

[Alana McGee]

It’s been one of THOSE weeks, and we have not done much training.

[b]Assignment[/b]: buried hides. I’m shooting for finding 3 out of 7 hides.
[b]Location[/b]: water feature area, mix of leaves, mulch, dirt
[b]Hides[/b]: 5 tins and 2 hides in cloth. All bured ~2 inches.
[b]Run Order[/b]: Monza 1st.
[b]Conditions[/b]: upper 40s, cloudy. no wind
[b]Aging[/b]: ~60 minutes

The water feature area is great because I can gate it off, it’s all easy to dig in without damaging, and I’ve been wanting to see if Monza can work near the water feature because water is HIGHLY distracting and I figured we just need to try. She and Speed had a good romp in the woods before this session to work off ‘the jet fuel’.

She immediately gets in the water feature and I realize she probably didn’t stop by the water bowl when we got home. I was so pleased that she got to work and didn’t revisit the water! GOOOD GIRL MONZA!!

The 1st find was a bit of a surprise because I apparently buried a tin where I had previous buried a cloth hide and forgot/didn’t find it. So there’s a truffle piece out there but she’s so funny flipping the cloth in the air while I dig out the tin. I briefly look for truffle piece but she’s moved on to another find so I go with her. This was cool. It felt realistic to a truffle hunt where there may be small truffles in the same dig area.

Find #2 I delay reward looking for a little more precision.

She investigates a couple spots where I purposely dug to disturb earth and leave my scent. She moves on quickly.

Find #3 she does a nice job nose touching.

I turned camera back on because she was interested a hide I stuffed in the side of the rock wall to simulate a creek bank. I put it there just to see if she would notice it. Since she did, we stopped to look and I worked with her in a small area. I didn’t turn the camera on soon enough, but you get the idea. I wanted to place it back in the wall for Speed but she catches me! LOL

Find in rock wall:

Overall it went well. We’re headed to a tracking workshop with Lucy for the weekend. I will bring truffles along and if she’s not worn out, we can do a couple easy games in a new location.

over the 2-week break, we’ll work on some precision games. I’ve not studied this weeks homework yet, only a cursory glance.

and yes Monza had a haircut on Sunday, I trimmed her down fairly short, she had some mats and I had to go for the German Short-hair Pointer look……..She had this look of “you decided to cut my hair this short NOW that it’s turned cold?” She doesn’t really care, as you can see, wading in water….