We moved to the back field this morning. Different cover, more grass, a little shorter, not so much alfalfa and clover. 8C with no wind, lots of dew, so really nice conditions.  I laid three tracks, using bear sausage for food drops.

First track was about 120 feet long, the longest I've asked Morley to do so far. She did well, but I could see her hesitate just before the 100 foot mark, the longest track she'd done on the other days, but she kept moving and finished the track nicely. Her nose is deep, she's putting weight into the harness and her body language, so far, is good and "readable", with her nose down and tail waving. Her tail stops moving when she's not working, so hopefully most of that body language will remain as time goes on.

In light of her hesitation on the first track, due to the length, I elected to make the second track shorter to boost her confidence, with an eye to making the third one longer than the first. So, second track was around 80 feet, she was strong on that one, moving quickly yet methodically.

The third track was about 150 feet, still shuffling in the grass, food drops about every 6 paces. She missed a few drops, but didn't hesitate when she didn't find one immediately. The distance didn't seem to bother her on this one at all, so I'll mix the distances up again for her next week. While Morley isn't offering a down at the glove, she is going down more quickly when I ask her to, and she doesn't get the contents of the glove until she is laying down.

Miss Morley is really interested in having the tracking harness put on, which is cool and I can see her starting to work before we get to the start stake, hunting for my track into it. We'll be taking the next three weekends off, due to visitors and two agility trials, but those breaks are good for both the dog and the handler. I'm pretty pleased with how things are going so far.