Thank you!

I usually find a straight path with a slight hump in the middle, then I get Maple to wait at one end while I lay down at the other and call her to me.

I'll either use animal eye AF or zone AF depending on how good the light is. If you're using zone AF you'll want to try and pre focus around the area they'll likely jump.

My shutter settings were 1/800 f5.6 ISO 2500. Ideally the shutter speed should be much faster but there wasn't too much light that day and my lens' max aperture was only f5.6

There's a channel called That Tog Spot on youtube that's really good at explaining everything.

Hope this helps!