Kelsy and I met Kat and Zeke in Federal Way to train on a trail two days old. At 3 PM it was raining steadily, overcast, with little or no wind. Kat had walked Kody on the trail two days earlier, and she told me the route ahead of time so that Kelsy and I could try to work out our problems. Although Kelsy has done well on many cases, on one or two, she has gone off the rails without my being able to tell until much later. I want to be transparent with anyone who hires us and let them know exactly how we are doing, to the best of my knowledge.
To try to fix our communication problem, we started off with a negative scent trail. I presented the scent article in a place where Kody had not been, and asked Kelsy to search. She took off a bit more excitedly than I would have hoped, given the lack of scent, but she gave me the negative after about 100 feet. Then she checked in several other directions, and gave me her negative signal much quicker. Her negative signal is to slow down, start walking sideways, and then turn back to look at me.
Next, we started on the scent trail. I pointed her in the right direction because I didn't want her to just run right back to Kody, standing half a block behind us. The route was about 1.25 miles long, and Kelsy did well for the first half a mile. Then she took me into a yard where I know Kat and Kody had not been. If this had been a search, I might not have known that Kelsy was leading me astray. Hopefully, it would have been a dead end, and we would have gone back to the right trail. She increased her pull as she started on the new trail, and I might have interpreted this as getting close to our target. She did this one more time, speeding up to follow an animal other than Kody. I stopped her from following the wrong trail, and I would hope this would encourage her to stick to the right trail. I hope it does not teach her that I know where the lost dog is, and she can rely on me to correct her when she goes astray.
Another thing I noticed while we were searching is that she tends to cast about with her eyes when she is losing the trail. When she is on track, her head is forward, a bit lower than level, and she is just in a groove. Another way I have seen her get off track is when her nose works right on the ground in tight little turns. This usually means a critter.
When we approached Kody's hiding spot, Kelsy burst into overdrive when she entered the fresh smell, as opposed to the two day old scent. She charged into the park, and took many wrong turns, frantically trying to sort out where Kody was. I think she was following the footsteps of Kat, who had been in the park working with Karma. (So many K names.) I took her back out to the entrance of the park, where she first caught Kody's new scent, and started her again. This time she got on the right track, but she cheated a little when she saw Dianna in the bushes, holding Kody. But, she did find Kody, and I rewarded her with treats and fetching, so hopefully this will reinforce the things she did right today. She was right, 95% of the time. Those two wrong turns might have made the difference between a successful or failed search.
After Kelsy's turn, I ran Zeke on the same trail, on the scent of Kody. Zeke did fairly well, although I did have to stop him from taking a couple of wrong turns. When we got back to the park, he zeroed in on Kody much faster than Kelsy had. My left knee and right ankle hurt after being dragged for 2.5 miles by two dogs.
Next, Kelsy and Porter and Tess all went to the Grandview off-leash park for a frolic. Fetching at Grandview is just about Kelsy's favorite thing in the whole world, so I want her to know that a day of searching doesn't mean that she can't go to Grandview.
I wish I had brought a towel. Note to self....
