I have taken the small piece of escaped beef from Shaki who was left to wonder why. 

I stuffed it into the waistband of my shorts which was gross but I did not want to have it in my hand while asking her to track on. Then I verbally praised and encouraged her to continue tracking. Frustration was evident for a minute, then Shaki decided to follow her nose on to hopefully better things. She displayed excellent effort over a couple of physical obstacles on the way. And she was obviously not 'hung up' by the heavy long line dragging behind her for the first time. I tried my best to keep the line from yanking on the harness. When it did, though, Shaki yanked back. 

At the end of the track, Shaki again evidenced my actions. This was where I'd discovered the bag was empty. I had intended to go another 20-30 yards for a 200 yard track but decided to end it there. I had no clue how far back the meat was on the ground. I did not want to push an even longer footsteps-only hour-plus dry track on my puppy. Shaki's end of track behavior told me that another 30 yards would have been fine with her. It is easy, however, to take undue advantage of willingness and I am not interested in that.

So I'd stood there looking around, taking a step or two forward, then back again, considering my options. I am sure I left a pool of scent in the area. You can see it by Shaki's actions. When she arrived at the empty drag bag, Shaki received her just reward. Good girl, Shaki!

No track yesterday because after a morning meeting and trip to the laundromat, it was a ready-to-rain-humid ninety degrees and I said not today. I swear that Shaki's downright bratty behavior this morning was telling me more loudly than anything that I needed to get her out there and give her some work to do. You know how errors can be helpful? I made a couple of them on this track.

First, the mesh bag I used to hold the little piece of meat was not in good shape and I used it anyway. (Side note, I have gone from roast size to small-serving sizes of meat to lessen the size and weight of the drag to leave less drag scent as I walk.) About 180 yards out, I realized the meat had come out of the bag and was lying somewhere behind me on the track. Oh well. Stop the track here, I thought, leave the bag, let's see what she does.

2nd goof was that I wanted to use a very light long line but couldn't find one right away when I was ready to run the track. I have three of them and none was in the first places I looked - but my regular, heavier blood tracking line was right there in front of me. I debated, heavy line, larger and heavier snap, the track is over an hour old and in some ways more difficult than what she has done before. Well, this line is here, I will snap it on and use it - and (again) "see how she does."

3rd mistake was when we began the track in tall field grass before going into the woods, I found that I was recording myself instead of Shaki. I realized this when we got into shade near the woods and I looked down to be sure I was recording. I saw that I was watching myself. lol I changed the mode from selfie to Shaki mode began recording again at this point, near the woods. And Shaki is showing you exactly what I did here. I walked right up to the edge of the woods, then decided to go right instead, and enter the woods in a different spot. I stopped recording momentarily when Shaki found the meat I'd 'lost' and bent to take it from her.

This track is an hour and 10 minutes old and the woods floor is very dry.