April 6th, 7pm(ish)

It rained this afternoon so I went out after dinner in order to take advantage of the wet pavement. By the time we got out there were dry patches in places and wet patches in others.

Distance	R+	Spray	Notes	Success
? (see end)	12-30"	2"	All wet asphalt. She was a little frantic but only missed two treats.	80%
? a bit longer	12-24	"	Rough pavement with lots of cracks and sandy bits. Missed 9 treats but NICE. Most skipped treats were in the roughest area.	90%
32 steps	"	"	About half dried pavement and half wet. Went up and over a raised walkway about sidewalk height and width. Got lost once where track left a crack it had been following but refound it more or less herself.	80%
40 steps	12-30" before drop and 8-12" after	"	Beginning all dry with visible water line. Started on raised walkway running beside building. Went straight off the end (12" drop), gentle turn to the right, and then up 3 concrete (or aggregate) steps to the front doors of the school. Extra treats on stairs and right after drop.	90%

My dog ROCKS!

Don't know how long the first two tracks were because I laid treats first and sprayed second. Forgot to count my steps when spraying on one track and was distracted by a passerby asking questions on the other. I'm going to guess perhaps 25 steps for the first and 35 for the second but I don't really know.

She was definately working faster than usual and almost a little frantic but the picture was so pretty otherwise that I cannot complain. I wondered if I was asking too much of her with the last track but she hardly even paused before going off the end and didn't hesitate at all with the stairs.

(Funnily enough she ate one of my husband's chocolate covered coffee beans earlier - luckily not enough chocolate to be worrisome so we can laugh about her being buzzed while I was out.)

We've changed our start routine a bit. Now I always feed her one treat just before we get to the start pile and she seems to take that as a sign to dive at the pile. I don't even bother trying to drop additional treats on the pile and haven't for ages. That single treat tells her that the start is nearby. It'll do until we start to build the official start routine later on.

Next time I will try to resist temptation to throw obstacles at her and just work on lengthening the track and the treat spacing.