The Spaniel Annals
working and living with performance spaniels
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about
I’m a retired English instructor, now devoted full-time to training, showing and enjoying my spaniels in many sports.
- agility
- Behavior
- competition
- conditioning
- dockdiving
- dual champion
- English Cocker
- English Springer Spaniel
- Fetch!
- field work
- Freestyle
- Gordon Setters
- heeling
- heeling journal
- Irish Water Spaniel
- match
- mental preparation
- new freestyle behaviors
- puppy training
- rally obedience
- retrieve
- scent work
- TEAM
- tracking
- training
- Uncategorized
- Utility obedience
Category: tracking
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Kerrie’s tracking is coming along! That’s a good thing, since the local tracking tests are coming up. This track was 360 yards long, 3 turns, with spacing of reinforcements at about 20-25 steps. I’m in the process of reducing the reinforcements and increasing her understanding of turns, so next we’ll work on dog-eared turns.
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I spent an entire winter quarter telling my creative writing class to blog more consistently, and yet here I am coming back to my blog after a long break. Oops! Brian has shown promise as a tracking dog since puppyhood, and here is today’s track, consisting of two 100-yard legs with 1 open turn. We…
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We’ve been tracking twice a week all summer, and Robbie is starting to show improvement on his turns, although his start is still a work in progress. Meanwhile Brian is running tracks of about 125-150 yards with one turn. He loves it and shows a lot of drive! Thanks to my tracking partner Martha for…
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Brian hit his 14th week birthday this Wednesday, and has had lots of adventures that I have been lax about posting! A play visit with his sister and a haircut, some spaniel training parties, more tracking and his new online obedience class starting. This weekend he’s off to a hunt test training event, where he’ll…
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Brian joined in on our tracking session today, with his 3rd baby track. He had moments of distraction, but also had good moments of finding the yummies on the track.
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Brian’s second day of adventures meant coming along to Robbie’s tracking practice, which I’m starting up for the summer with a friend who wants to track her young Irish Water Spaniel. So Brian got to meet Martha, a new human, get his feet muddy and see the wide world of the Snoqualmie Valley for the…
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Rozzie started tracking a few weeks ago, and today showed excellent progress. In rainy weather with no wind, we did three short tracks of increasing distance, some change of cover, and diminishing food drops: 50 yards and 60 yards in short mowed grass, and then 70 yards in short pasture grass. They were all about…
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Two Sundays ago Reardon and I hit a milestone in his tracking career: earning his TD! In winds up to 20 mph, he completed a 455-yard track that had been aged 35 minutes. Here’s the judge’s map: The 1st, 3rd, and 5th legs of this track had crosswind, and I was very impressed with…
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This tracking photo, taken by the talented photographer Lisa Kaufman, does not at all capture the soggy fields of Bow, Washington today. I just forgot my camera! Today Reardon and I drove up to Bow to practice for the tracking tests coming up. Bow was his nemesis in the spring, and so I wanted to have…
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We came, we saw and we failed the last tracking test of the spring in Sprague, Washington, with Reardon starting beautifully, and then hitting a critter mound. He never quite recovered after that first glorious drowning in critter scent (mice? bunnies?). His expression veered back and forth from “Bunnies! Whee!!” to a somewhat confused “oops,…
The Spaniel Annals 