2/22/24 - 1st Try w Woods, Change in Cover, & Obstacles

Goal: Start introducing obstacles, woods, and changes in cover with high reinforcement and low age to see how she'll react

Location: Huguenot Park

Weather: 60*, low winds, cloudy and setting sun

Age: All track run 20-30 min 

Pattern: All legs in woods had food drops every 3-5 steps, field pattern S5W25F13

Track 1 = pink, Track 2 = yellow, Track 3 = blue

Track 1: 2 leg w/ 90* L that enters woods, article ~20 feet into woods

• Right before we ran the track, a dog walker came past all over the track so her behavior was more investigatory than usual
• Clear LOS at turn - initial search by woods, then circled back to the right side of turn and seemed confused (this is where video clip starts)
• Then she took a hard look at woods, was a little high on the wood line, and then entered EXACTLY where I went in (immediate verbal encouragement from me)
• Did a swing to the right in the woods rather than slight left angle but then came back
• She wrapped the line around a tree in her search and unfortunately both the line and I were completely tangled in bramble. I loosened the line around the tree and let her go forward without me
• She found the end article and downed! I threw the cheese at her from where I was caught in the bramble
• I gave her a hold command at the article and walked back to untangle line/myself (gaiters on order now!).

Track 2: Straight track from field, across a 6' dirt/gravel path, and into woods

• Initially distracted by lots of fun scents along the wood line (dogs, etc)
• This track, she seemed less "But I CANT go in the woods, Mom!" and more "Hey let me sniff this stuff first then I'll go in"
• Once she decided to search in the woods, she took the initial food drop and was much more nose-down and tracking along the leaf litter - I liked her focus to the track
• Hopped over a small low-lying branch without hesitation
• Found the article and paused but then sniffed around a bit - took another minute of her meandering around (somewhat along my walkout) but I kept leash length and eventually she came back to down on the article with some encouragement

Track 3: Was going to lay another field to woods track but then saw a different setup that may be fun to try - a narrow grass path between culvert and parking lot. The track crosses an elevated dirt/gravel path and then turns left (at blue post) down and out of a 2' culvert and then crosses a short grass 3' path, followed by a short dirt/gravel 3' path and then out onto a field.

• The elevated path seemed to trip her up initially but she worked through it after LOS and eventually went up and across it.
• I love how she worked the elevated path with bridge - she was clearly looking to recover the track (~0:40 on tape). At 0:57, she had a great head snap and galloped across to the grass. Not sure if she actually tracked on the path or just detected the track ahead on the grass and skipped ahead.
• Turn: Evie did classic Evie behavior and did an initial look left, then checked out and around to the right and then whooshed through the dry culvert.
• Short width path seemed to be un-noticed after the culvert
• Great article indication at end

Thoughts/Questions

• In the past, I've come to this park and really only looked at the field and lineups - moving past TD, I see the same space in a whole new way - it's fun to think of challenges/problems to work!
• I imagine circumstances where the down may be uncomfortable/a bother in woods (briars,etc). Should I stick with the down or start working on a retrieve indication?
• I laid woods with higher reinforcement pattern - I wanted this to be highly rewarding for her the first time in the woods. I am assuming I can do the higher reinforcement initially and then stretch it out similar to TD training. Throughout the different tracks, I placed a food drop just after some problem she had to solve (enter woods, cross the culvert, etc)
• I scoped out a woods area in another area of the park that was free of underbrush - will try to another time. If in dense underbrush, I'll plan to take my 6' lead.