A Life With a Terrier

I have had lots on my mind lately. Last Monday I went tracking with Bella and honestly I just wanted to throw in the towel. I have been working on building distance to her tracks and it's just not working. I had to cut the track short as she had just stopped trying. However she did re-locate and finish and found all the articles so it wasn't entirely horrible.

 

So I decided to stop working myself into a frenzy about it and remind myself what Bella is good at. Being my pet and walking/biking companion. So we went out for a 7km walk yesterday evening.

I took her to an area that I used to bike in before getting her. I recall how I dreamt about biking these trails with a dog running around. I was only walking now but it was fun having the dog.
We landed right behind two women with 6 or 7 Cavaliers and Bella was about to hyperventilate out of excitement so I took her down another path so I could set her loose as this area allows dogs off leash. We took the photo above on the bench and looked across the small lake called Red-Lake (Rauðavatn).

Beyond the lake is the neighborhood I live in. I literally live on the outskirts of Reykjavík city and it's surrounded by nature. Highway number 1 is also there, this is the exit out of the city and to southern Iceland.

After taking the bench photo I went back to the trail and Bella must have thought we were returning because she bolted off back the way we came. One second she was there and the next she was just gone. I had to go back and had a good view over a large area but didn't see her. I knew she had followed the Cavaliers and just waited to hear barking. It never happened, after some time I heard her returning and called her to me and we were able to continue.

 

We also met two worried Golden Plover parents that were trying to fake being wingbroken to get us away from their young. Bella doesn't bother chasing birds and after being made a fool from another one last Monday she wasn't going to let this trick fool her again.

We kept going in the nice evening sun, we even met another older Cavalier who Bella liked so much that she was going to follow him the other way. It was just wonderful to go out and not frustrate myself with what Bella isn't. I'm going to take a few steps back and work on making things more fun for both of us.

Back and Forth

Last weekend was wonderful, we finally got some sun and it meant staying out as much as possible. On Friday morning me and Bella took two short tracks and since the weather was so good we went on a walk where she could be off leash.

 

I did the track to decide whether to sign up for the tracking test on 7th July. I thought it might be alright to go with the sole purpose of seeing how it would go. Another part of me wanted to be ready/was scared. I ended up deciding not to and wasn't too bothered.

 

Today I went and laid a rather complicated track, I meant to do a longer fairly simple one but I found such a nice spot with tall trees that I had to do all sorts of turns. It went well and Bella is already getting very good at marking with the method I eventually chose.

 

Then came the kicker. After I come home I check my facebook and the first thing I see is a notice that the sign-up date for the tracking test was pushed back until July 1st. Cue the start of yet another rollercoaster of what I want to do!

If I enter it won't be because I know we will pass for certain but rather as a test and seeing where we stand. I have until July 1st to make up my mind.

A Different Sort of Adventure

I recently tried my new bike carrier recently and took Bella and my rarely used Mountain Bike to a very exotic (ha! ha!) place right next to highway number 1. Like under 25 yards away from it. In my defense a small river separated us from the highway and it was late in the evening and I live in Iceland after all.

Considering the photos were taken around midnight I'm not sure I should say the lighting conditions were crappy, but it explains the blue hue.

Anyway, I biked 2 miles on a dirt rode with Bella unleashed and I haven't seen her this genuinely ecstatic for a long time. She ran like around the little devil she is, running some distance in front of me and stopped to sniff and enjoy the scenery before running off again. She ran alongside me and looked at me with pure joy in her face.

I'm glad she had so much fun because I love mountain biking and have been wanting to do this kind of biking with her for over two years but due to physical constraints and not having a bike carrier I haven't been able to. I'm not ready for more than dirt packed roads but we'll get there. I'm healing fantastically!

On a worse note, after getting home tonight from biking in the neighborhood I saw an announcement that a foreign guest judge will be judging Tracking tests for the German Shepherd division in early July and that other breeds are welcome to enter. My competitive side really really wants to enter but I'm not sure we'll be fully ready by then. Too many challenges, so little time! We'll see what we can do, at least I can observe the test if I fail to be ready.

Tracking

Me and Bella did some tracking this evening, I did a mini-tracking test simulation with 3 articles, two turns and half the distance a tracking I test is. I tried inserting the track below.

Sjá Capital Region á stærra korti

I'm really happy with how it went. This is the longest track I've done with Bella so far. It was aged about 10 minutes when I started and it took us 15 minutes to complete. The first leg was very good, then when reaching the turn she missed it but worked herself back to it after some swaying back and forth.
When she was securely on the second leg it was all rainbows and unicorns as before, until we reached the turn. She didn't quite catch the turn, but was a lot more confident in searching for it and it and was back on the final leg.

The final leg was without a doubt the most challenging. She worked half of it without a fuss but then she had clearly gotten less focused on the job and was swinging to the sides sniffing and biting grass. She even tried to roll but then I finally interfered and told her to track. Which she did. And finished. Yay!

If I nail the marking, we'll nail the test. I have the entire summer to build up distance. I think I might even just train for the Track II test in October because the Track I test is so simple. (Please no one bring this post back up if I fail the test down the line! haha)

Last Few Days

Last weekend me and the whole family went to a cabin we've been to many times before. We were hoping to get some sun and mild weather but spring in Iceland has been aborted so we got rain, lots of wind and cold weather.

In general it was a good excuse to be lazy. I did lay one track for her and it was excellent, except I jumped the gun a bit and forgot to give her plenty enough time to pee before putting the harness on. Once the harness was on she was just running around trying to find the start of the scent and when she found it she got her moment of zen and decided to pee on it. Pure handler mistake there!

I really need to start working on teaching her to mark objects when tracking. I am just torn between whether to teach her to  pick it up -which I just recently knew was allowed- or sit/lay down. I had started teaching her to sit down when doing the peppermint detection training but haven't gone very far with it as I had to throw my idea of using balls into the ocean. She's not toy driven. at. all. It had turned into her seeing the ball go down, then instead of trying to get the ball and sniff where the scent was she just stood back and stared at me, except she sometimes sat down because she knew that had something to do with it. Stalemate!



On Monday I crashed something awful, I barely got out of bed without getting ridiculously dizzy and whatnot. It took me two more days to snap out of it and yesterday I was next to normal, just in time to watch an Obedience competition. It offered Bronze grading and Obedience I. I am aiming to do a tracking test next fall and have been considering if I should give the Bronze obedience test a try. I spoke to a trainer there (and a Border Terrier owner!) and she was encouraging me to give it a go.
What cripples me the most is the fear of Bella running away from me during testing. Memories of me chasing her around the agility arena still haunt me. Since I'm on maternity leave this summer that it's an excellent opportunity for me to train her in areas with distractions and see where it gets us. I know she can do this, we just need to work hard.

I to the L

Tomorrow is election day in Iceland. Me and Bella used the opportunity to train tracking.

I went ahead and started training turns today by doing three short L shaped tracks, all with a turn to the right. I took a photo of the last one we did. The cone closest is the start and the one above it is the end.

The first two Bella aced, this one was interesting as Bella took the turn, went 2 meters and then suddenly made a 180° turn back until she lost the track, turned back and found it again and finished.

This is before she started that final track, eagerly waiting for my arrival.

Looking at how yellow and dull the grass in these pictures is makes me yearn for real spring and summer.

First Day of Summer

Somebody decided to make an annual holiday in April in Iceland to celebrate that summer has arrived. When me and Bella went out tracking today it snowed.

The track I laid was the longest one yet and went both up and down a fairly steep slope. The tracking from Bella was really good. She started out with her high speed but did slow down about halfway through and worked at a steady pace all the way to the end. I was super proud, especially since she's in heat and has been feeling a little under the weather.

'I'm what??'

In between Bella sleeping and sleeping more, we are also practicing with a method of marking. It involved buying tennis balls and making a 'scent box' from an unused flower pot and cardboard.

I bought these Kong AirDog balls which were bouncy and squeaky. I have always had better luck using treats to motivate Bella but wanted to try a toy this time. She has already 'killed' one of the balls and she wasn't even trying! It still bounces so we can use it but I had hoped that they would survived more than a dog's bite.

Anyhow!

The trick is to put the highly desired ball into a place where it's impossible to reach without help. Inside the box is the smell I want Bella to associate with the ball in time. So what I'm trying to teach her in the long run is that when she finds the smell she will sit down because sitting down when she finds the smell means fun/ball.

'I need monkey fingers.'

I like the theory and believe it can work but I am still on the fence whether I can use a ball to get where I want. I'd rather try not to involve treats if I can help it. I wanted to see Bella be more eager to stick her nose into the box to get the ball but after the second time of trying she knew she couldn't get the ball and just stood there waiting for something to happen. I'm trying to wait for her to get close to the box and stick her nose in before I tell her to sit and wait and then play.

That Time of Year

The obsessive sniffing. The non-stop scent marking. The Nobody-Is-At-Home feeling I get when trying to get her full attention outside on the leash. Yep, it's all indicators that Bella is going into heat and today she started full force. I highly recommend neutering female dogs, I would do it in a heartbeat if I wasn't being cheap and saving myself $500 to do something else (like buy camera equipment).

We did, however, go out and lay a track. I made it a little shorter than yesterday (75m) and really wanted her not to get lost so when I crossed a low bush similar to the one two days ago I was more generous with treats and went as straight through it as possible. Other than that I am slowly starting to reduce the amount. What surprises me is how fast she works the tracks and at first I thought she was definitely just sniffing out the treats and not my scent but now that I see how many treats she tends to leave behind and still not lose track I am starting to have more faith.

I am an air traffic controller and in my work I first and foremost trust myself to do my job inside the area I work at each given time. I don't think about whether my colleagues are doing theirs once the airplanes cross the boundaries of control sectors, I must trust them like they must trust me.
With Bella, I am finding it a challenge to stop worrying about whether she is doing her job and just let go. Maybe I am really a control freak at heart and that it's a good lesson for me. We are both learning and I am no doubt learning a lot more than Bella is. It's interesting to see her go slightly of track (in my eyes) and then jump right onto it as if she was never off it... which is no doubt what was actually going on.

Today I saw a video with a very brief explanation of how marking was taught for a drug/explosive detection dog using a wooden box. I may give that a try here at home using a very advanced tool -children's shoe box. The clip added the missing link.

Must Keep At It

It's the weekend and the snow returned. I used it as an excuse to not go out yesterday but today the weather looked too beautiful to miss. I had also recovered from the rather bad decision to go ahead with the track I laid on Thursday rather than create a new one.

Yep, I laid a track on Thursday for Bella and went to a spot that is rather close to a popular spot for people to let their dogs loose. I have visited that spot myself a lot but I chose another a little further away and didn't realize until I had started laying the track there that the area was quite dense with dog poop. If I had been thinking clearly I would have stopped while laying the track and found a better place since I wasn't planning on a long track but I went ahead and although Bella did complete the track she was really absent minded and I had to stop her from peeing on the track two times. I felt very stupid.

So today I went to a spot near a horse track. However, it's in an area that no one stops, like ever. It's too close to the highway to be exciting so I got a fresh ground to work with. I took a picture before I started, I went down there and up in the clear space between the trees, it was about 100 metres (~109 yards).

And coming back from the track I took another picture of my car. Bella is there tied to the back of it but she's barely visible. That white thing behind the rear wheel is actually her! What purpose the building serves I have no idea but it's built in the middle of nowhere by the company that provides me my energy.

This time the track started out really well, I did give her 3-4 metres of the tracking line and she was racing. It was interesting when I noticed that while I thought I was on the track and she alongside it that she was actually on the track and I was offset my about a meter. Good stuff!

Of course she then had to get lost. D'oh! It was in a patch where I had to go through a low bush and go a bit to the right and suddenly she went way to the left and then started backtracking and eventually just spinning into circles. I had to help her get back on track and she finished like a pro, so well that she was going to run away from the end spot to follow my getaway-trail and miss the jackpot at the end. So I had to stop her, woops!

I tried a new way to track the track that lets me upload to google maps. The track is awfully straight once uploaded!

 

Sjá Vegbrekkur Spor 9 á stærra korti

Don't Plan Too Much

My daughter got her name on Saturday and as I suspected I wasn't able to take Bella tracking that day. We had a birthday to go to on Sunday and I was tempted to be lazy after it but I went and laid a track anyway.

Yesterday should have marked the end of the first stage of imprinting but since I missed out on laying a track on Saturday I wasn't quite sure how to proceed. Continue with day six or take a break as I had planned? Yeah, I made myself a real dilemma there.

After sleeping on it, I decided to lay a track today since we had Saturday off. I also decided to proceed to stage two of imprinting. It wasn't a big step at all since stage two is about adding variation now that the dog is learning the game. The author recommends sticking to the same field for at least two next tracks but only change the direction to begin with.

So instead of going straight away from the road I went alongside it today. I have been laying the tracks mostly on moss but right next to the road was lots and lots of grass. Bella was racing down the track and would jerk to a stop now and then when she had to pick up treats.

Afterwards I stopped in a new place to allow her to run loose and the weather was wonderful. It's great to be back out there with my dog.

Days Three and Four

Things are a little busy at Camp Bella since we are preparing for a little get-together with family in order to announce the name of the newest family member. However I'm making it a priority to go out there and lay a track inbetween feeding the little one and cleaning the apartment. Then my body is fragile so I have to watch out not to go overboard and risk limping.

Yesterday the new lens arrived so I took a moment after tracking and shot a few photos.

It's been ridiculously sunny for several days now and it makes it impossible to see clearly if what I was doing was working out or not but it was fun nonetheless. Bella got a case of the zoomies and I just couldn't keep up very well. That was the first challenge, finding her since the camera goes up to 300mm and it's just wonderful. Next will be getting the focus to be on her eye/face rather than her back. I can't wait ti have more time with this lens. It's nice and sharp.

 

 

The last two aren't focused on her face but getting these kind of action shots has been my dream so now that I've got the equipment I must master the technique. I know Bella won't mind helping me out.

 

Not sure how much me and Bella can do this weekend, today we were only able to lay the track and go home. I don't know if I'll have time to lay a track tomorrow but we will try. Hopefully there will be time for photos on Sunday. That will also be the last day of the initial tracking imprinting, after that we start the second stage on Tuesday that will gradually allow more variation.

Day Two of Imprinting

Today was bitterly cold. The windchill did reach into the marrow of my bones, brr. It's supposed to start snowing tomorrow or Friday.

However, having started the imprinting program yesterday I wasn't going to hide inside and later regret it. I even had one of the nasties of Icelandic processed food industry bought for me yesterday to use for treats, a hot dog on steroids. I can't eat it myself but Bella loved it so much that she tracked super well for me.

The track I laid today had a lot of sidewind and I tried to make it so that it was rather more in my back than in the face. In the program she says to pin the dog to the track so it can't lose it but with the sidewind Bella was going a little to the left and then worked her way back up where the treats were so I gave her a little longer leash to work with. I was incredibly happy with her because right from the get go she knew what we were doing and she was raring to go and worked the track really enthusiastically. She was going a little fast at times but kept her tracking profile almost the entire time and when she realized she was going a little too fast she occasionally attempted to backtrack to where she skipped a treat and continued from there like nothing had happened.

It was a 180 degree turn in her mindset since yesterday. Hurray!

After completing the track and finding the article we headed back to the car and to a small lake called Helluvað which is actually only about 30 minutes walk from my home. There she got to run loose while I tried not to freeze to death.

Bella grinning.

I threw a piece of the treat into the grass and that resulted in me getting a picture of her tracking profile. She looks pretty good, if I say so myself! I have a good feeling about our future in this kind of work. At least we are both enjoying it which is the main thing.

Out and About

Today I decided to bite the bullet and get started on the tracking imprinting as described in the book I have by Deborah R. Davis in her book Making Scents of Tracking. I wish I could have returned with some heroic tale of Bella's amazing tracking prowess. Instead I accidentally made the track a few yards longer than the planned 10 yards, then when I started Bella on the track she showed absolutely no interest and actually peed on the track which is a big no no, obviously.

However I kept her on the track through a very short leash and did my best to keep her focus on the ground, she took slight interest in it now and then and then she would lift her head and meant to go somewhere entirely different.

But this is only the first day of six, and then the program continues for 6 days out of 7 for another three weeks before cooling down the frequency of it. I know Bella can track and this is a slightly different method than I had going so I still have hope. I'm going to use better treats tomorrow, she missed about 80% of the treats I laid on the ground so that wasn't helping at all.

Afterwards  I drove 2 minutes further and allowed her to run loose for a while so I could take photos. It was so super bright that I found it hard to see which shots were okay and which weren't so I just played around and got a lot of photos I deleted, but a few turned out alright.

I was shooting next to the road in a moss covered lava field.

I must confess, it's good to be back out there with Bella!

Spring is in the Air

Some days are just perfect in their simplicity. My fiancé kicked me out of the house today and told me to go let Bella loose. So I did.

This winter has been ridiculously mild and now that spring is in the air being outside is so refreshing. Unfortunately I forgot to bring my camera with us, Bella was running around like a racehorse. I even found some logs from trees that had been culled and made a small jump for her.

I honestly don't really feel like my physical health is improving much but I don't feel a lot of pain while I am outside. It's like a hangover that haunts me in the days after but at least I can enjoy moving while it hasn't caught up with me.

I may have a push factor in trying to keep going out despite the pain that follows, I asked around yesterday and there's a possibility that a tracking course will be held later this spring. I think it would be fun to be able to get out there and learn from experienced handlers. I just need to be able to deal with the walking a course like that mandates.

Lazy Bones and Dog Fences

Last 2-3 weeks have been uneventful at the household. Bella has been in heat and the first several days she looked pretty much like she was dead.

I don't like this time of year.

My mobility has been getting worse as well so this has been an awkward time for both of us. We've been a pair of couch-potatoes.

However she's been coming into her own the past few days and it's actually helping my own spirits as well. Yesterday I took a trip to one of the new dog fences that was built about two weeks ago. It's very close to my place of work so I figured that since I only work a few hours a day I could take Bella with me and allow her to run free on our way back home. At least until she's definitely past her fertile phase and I can let her loose in our usual spots.

Now, I work in a very urban area and the city decided a dog fence was perfectly placed on a rather small patch of grass surrounded by big traffic lanes. This is what me and Bella found:

A dog park - Reykjavík style!

It's not a very good photo but apart from the terrible half-muddy ground there is a pretty big gap under the fence. This was one of the smaller gaps. Bella could have left the fence pretty much everywhere along the entire length of the fence. Much larger dogs than my Border Terrier don't need an iron will to escape.
And right outside this gap in the picture is a street with rather heavy traffic on most days. There's traffic just a short distance from anywhere outside this fence.

So my terrior-in-heat didn't get to stretch her legs much inside this fence. I was really excited to see these small dog parks get built in the hopes of a dog friendlier city. This effort just fails on so many levels.

So in the meantime until I can turn Bella loose outside a fence we are working on our contraband-peppermint scent skills at home. Bella is doing well but now the handler needs more knowledge.

Twilight Tracking

Me and my son went to lay some tracks for Bella tonight before it got dark. I took some videos and totally forgot to turn the camera correctly but I did remember to turn the flash on. I have been buying a lot of reflective gear for the winter so Bella is almost invisible due to reflective light in the video.

I laid out three short tracks but the second two had some turns in them. The video below is from track number two. I'm pleased with how she worked that one.

Track three was a bit of a mess, I forgot where exactly I had left it and was distracted from trying to record Bella tracking it, Bella got distracted as well and started marking (the peemail kind!). I stopped my attempts of recording and started fresh from the start with my full attention. I don't think Bella went the right way but she ended in the right spot so it wasn't a failure. But it taught me that perhaps it's better to focus on the job at hand.

Yesterday I downloaded a book on tracking, Making Scents of Tracking by Deborah R. Davis. I don't actually know much about this kind of work but would like to know a lot more. Finding books proved a little tough as I don't really know what exactly I was looking for and some I found that looked somewhat promising didn't get very good reviews. I'll see if this one sheds some light on the sport.

Freedom

Today brought more action, we went fishing, did some tracking (proving to my fiancé she can do it) and played frisbee. We also met a Vizsla that Bella thought appropriate to bark at. Bella also ran into water a little deeper than she expected.

Unfortunately I need to be picky with photos as I'm on expensive 3G internet during my holidays and can't upload much.

I'm really enjoying the photo opportunities I've had so far. Bella still seems a little sore in one leg since one week ago, I am pretty sure she's limping a little after we go out but it's barely enough to notice. However if it persists I am going to have a vet look at it.
One thing I wonder if I should have some shoes for her in case she does get sore. I have no experience with such things though so if any of our doggy friends know something me and Bella would appreciate any advise or recommendations. Same with what's best to do if she does get sore.

Biking and Tracking

A week into November and me and Bella have already covered 18 km so far. A good start to our 50 km goal!

My fiancé overslept this morning so instead of him taking baby Magnus to daycare we split up and I biked him to destination. Bella was pulling the trailer like a husky, she's amazing.

I took her with me again when I returned to pick Magnus up and my fiancé was with me this time around. We're giving alternate routes a go, in the morning run I found out just how much traffic there is in the area. I did consider leaving Bella at home but she had planted herself in front of the front door so how could I? She ran like a champ although we did go a lot slower on the way back, she was running low on gas!

We were both feeling pretty cozy after that and thinking nice thoughts of the sofa when I remembered I had made an appointment after noon. Yes all the biking had happened before noon, 8 km in one day. I scheduled meeting my cousin because she was going to teach me how to track with Bella. She has two dogs and has trained them both for tracking, she has done considerable search and rescue training with them.

I really enjoyed this, even if there was a storm approaching and pouring down rain. We laid in total three short sausage laden tracks for Bella and I really enjoyed seeing her improve with each one. I have spent a long time wondering how to teach a dog to track and now I am starting to understand.

Seeing the trained dogs work was interesting as well, for the younger bitch she laid a track for her to follow and with the older one she asked me to head to the trees nearby and lie down. What amazed me was that she explained pretty much how the dog would go before finding me. She looked like such a pro, she ran downwind and when she caught a whiff of me she ran almost straight towards me and when she saw me, ran off to let my cousin know and together they came back.

Seeing people work their dogs is not a common thing but it is actually one of my favorite type of dog-watching. I like beautiful dogs but more than that I enjoy seeing a dog in the 'workzone'. A dog who is happy as a clam having a job to do.

I wanted to take my camera with me but because of the awful weather I didn't want to risk it. Thus, I only have camera phones of Bella! Maybe next time.