The drama and intrigue of urban tracking - Jet's UTDX track lessons learned

LONG PREAMBLE.

This was an interesting track - this blog post is like a mini-clinic on urban plotting and I hope you enjoy it. I always learn when I track with my advanced dogs. An hour after running this track with Jet, I ran it with Teddy and have video. Stay tuned for another post in the next day or so of Ted nailing this track on the run! I find a lot of value in letting my inexperienced dogs do this, as my advanced dogs are usually very track faithful - just as Caden ran River's yesterday too.
I laid this track at 10:36 AM in the rain and ran it at 3:15 in the sun. I was aiming for a test-worthy UTDX track for practice. The age of a track is 3-5 hours and this pushed the upper limit. I drove the area twice scouting a track out in a new part of the college where I have not tracked before (last half of this track). WELL, read on to see what I think about the track I plotted and what I learned.

Here is the map - Jet's track is on the right (the blog post about River's track is below):

Driving an area is NOT the same as walking it, and walking it is not the same as 'knowing it.' For plotting and especially for tests, you really need to be on the ground. If people are familiar with an area - they begin to learn the tricky areas too. But, it never hurts to run training tracks as though you may get tricky things in a test - - hoping of course a track will not have these elements. Jet's next track will have to be motivational and fun!
Jet did very well and is teaching me plus showing me what she can do. I try very hard not to interfere - however, when you lay your own track you will not follow too far the wrong way. I do try to assess how my dogs find the scent, and let them recover - but I would NEVER let them wander off to 'fail' as I always want to teach, help and ensure success and a feeling of confidence.

The track

Jet's start - 4.5 hours old, laid at 10:36 in rain and run at 3:15 in sun

I aim for short grass starts because in urban, you often get tricky starts on boulevards

Jet finds the turn

Road cross to parking lot. Note - a video of her great NNV (non veg) "moment of truth" (MOT) - video below

Jet is getting very consistent in her NV style - she stops at the turn, thinks and assesses, makes up her mind - then goes. I love to watch this and simply stay out of her way:

Jet at first article - wood. In UTDX there has to be a long stretch of non-veg AFTER an article.

Jet restarts and is on her way to that open breezeway.

Jet wobbles off track as she enters the breezeway

This is a weird, large rock surface and a big fan blows in here. But she gets through just fine.

She emerges and oversteps her turn by a few steps only. The red arrow shows the crack I lined up with on the curb for my turn. Turn is on gravel.

She turns.

We head in a straight line aiming for a grass turn just off the sidewalk. Red arrow shows a rock depression that I expect will pool scent.

Jet heads down the sidewalk. This is 'not pretty' or ideal - a short stretch of sidewalk with odd transitions on either side. As you can see, I turn on veg ahead - I put green lines to show my option to get to that other boulevard - I did not like it. But if she had found the boulevard that way, it would be OK in a test.

As I suspect - Jet checks out the rocks. Scent can pool here. This is OK and I let her check it out.

She takes the turn. The red arrows show my landmarks - a mowed line in the grass, a crack to follow on the road, and the lightpost. In urban tracking there are so many great landmarks.

Jet goes uphill on the mowed grass. I guess scent must have flowed in here. Interesting. I just watch and learn a lot of the time.

She crosses, down a bit from my cross. Scent can be moved about by traffic and this is not unusual. See the previous post and picture of River crossing her road - same thing happens.

I have no photos of her on the bikepath as I videotaped it. But it was too long to put on YouTube this morning! She avoided the asphalt the entire way - checking it, but preferring the grass. Asphalt is supposed to be the hardest surface as it has a lot of scent of its own. Very interesting indeed. Metal article ahead.

Jet indicates metal with no hesitation! No food under it - just dropped. I was happy.

When I drove around planning this track it looked good from my car. BUT I did not like the section coming up. I expected it to cause problems because it had weird angles and transitions. It looks straightforward but watch what happens...

You can see my landmark here - that big tree. I walked on an angle, crossing the tip of that boulevard. Jet carved left and followed scent along the curb - clever girl. She found the opening between the two buildings too. This would have been a heart attack in a test, I think.

Here she goes towards a residence to the right of the track.

Now she crosses the track. An arrow shows a ledge under a building. This was a godsend as it held scent and she actually went under there. It pulled her to the track.

Here you can see that ledge and Jet's track in green. She reconnects with the track! I was probably the most thrilled with her at this point - even more thrilled than I was with her MOT turn.

Right on Jet! This dog just makes me look good.

Here she is on her way to the last parking lot. The depression in the veg causes a bobble.

Jet is tired. That last section around the residences was horribly hard on her. She has a slight hesitation to enter this parking lot and eats a bit of grass when she gets stuck. I have NEVER seen her do this. I encourage her (I am usually quiet). And she takes off again. A bit of WATER here would have been nice - but the rules say water only at articles. She worked pretty hard back there and it was very humid. Ahh well, I digress.

Jet finds her turn on the gravel lot. In hindsight, I would not plot this. If a dog makes it this far on a test - it deserves an easier end to the glove. Put the hard stuff up front when the dog is fresh... (that's me, the judge, talking). But in training it is good to push a little.

She is a bit up from the turn as I centered it.

And reconnects here. It looks like it should be smooth sailing now, right? Read on....

It's not over till it's over. Now, I see this dip that I had not paid attention to when I placed my article. If I was to replot this track, I would put the article closer to avoid this issue. Scent from the glove is flowing down into the depression. CRAP.

Oh, good, here she comes! I can see the article (I pretend I am in a test)... just need her to indicate it.

CRAP again! She circles back to the damn dip. I would be having a heart attack in a test. Well, not really, I begin to encourage her slightly. Where is it Jet? Find it... - tracking IS a team sport - you save the verbal cues for when you need to haul them out and make them important, like now...

GOOD GIRL!

PS - Here are some comments I got when I posted this to Facebook, fyi

The question: So green is sometimes harder?

My answer:

I think it was humid from the rain all morning - and that caused more scent to be hovering, plus the temperature changed so much from cold to hot over 4 hours. The glove was soaking wet and it's leather, so likely gave off a lot more scent which was circulating. Dogs that get used to urban have much more sensitive noses on veg.

 

Also,  the more you expose them to aging, the more sensitive they can be to these things... even though I aged this 4.5 hours - in that humidity, I could have aged it for a few more hours and it would have been ok. Age is not always 'time' but also 'conditions'