Friday, March 5, 2010

Finally...got out for an Urban Track!!!

It's been 3 weeks since we've been able to get out tracking. Sunny, cold, windy and location varied from mud, snow, ice, sand over pavement. I had no idea a girls' hockey tournament was going on when I planned this track....talk about distractions. Above picture I took after it was laid overlooking the main parking area. Purple line shows parts of the track.


Taken from same spot, but actually showing the "end" area of the track in purple. The double orange arrows show area where Zambonie runs back and forth, single orange arrow is pointing to noisy air exchanger from arena, and squiggly orange line is where a HERD of girls were exercising - right over my track and final article!

Trust has just begun a curved first leg going down an incline, which started on gravel/snow/water. She's heading to parking lot and will turn right.

Purple line denotes track. Not sure what she found to check out here. About 1/2 way up the line of vehicles, she veered up between two cars, came back around it, then veered up behind the one car and another again. Came out and picked up track again. I couldn't figure out why she did this, until I saw a little dogs' head pop up in the car and begin to bark at us.

Here, we've gone past all the parked vehicles, she went through the puddle so was past the left turn (purple line). She was watching some noisy and active kids before turning (yellow broken line) and going back to the track.

Trust has crossed the main entrance to parking area. This is another curved line following the edge of snow/ice along the gravel driveway. The orange arrow points to a parked car over the track. On route, a bunch of kids came out of the arena entrance towards us; she ignored them. When we reached the car on the track, she just cut around behind it, and between another car with a man and 3 kids unloading their equipment. She's gone all this way with no article yet, as I had forgotten to put one down, trying to figure out how to handle all the commotion.

We've passed in front of the arena entrance and post office, and were just moving out past the corner of the building. Look at the stance! I thought I'd better get up there quick, something is going on!!! Yikes! A group of girls jogging straight at us! I stood near Trust and suggested they might like to slow down - they had to go between Trust and the building. They totally ignored me, and Trust wagged her tail. She was probably glad we didn't have any of "those" at home...
By the time I pulled my camera out again, the second smaller group was jogging AT us...and I realized they probably couldn't hear me as they had wires coming out of their ears - aliens...

Then I also realized, besides being the zambonie route, all these girls had been jogging right around the building and over our track. Purple x on track denotes her first article. We hit solid ice up here, you could barely walk, let alone jog.

As is normal, with scent collected in doorways - there were two here - Trust swerved over to check them out, and came back onto the track.

Except for both of us slipping on the ice up here, she had no problems moving along the track.
At least the zambonie didn't come out while we were on this leg.

Continuing up this driveway area, this is a long, straight leg with another article before the corner.

As you can see here, Trust is well to the left of the (purple) track. This area was still ice, and truthfully, I'm not sure if she was following collected scent along the building and snowbank, or following along where the girls ran (orange). The zambonie (also orange) had also been out here before us, so scent was acting pretty weird through here. Trust moved further past the article, picked up the scent and came back across the track to the right snowbank. She then zeroed in on the article.

And there it is...what a good girl! Amazes me how she could do this, in this area....And no, she did not use her eyes, until the last few feet.

Trusts' indication is a sit - never a very happy sit - but....

So, we've made the left turn, and are now at the back of the arena. She has veered to the left and is checking out the air exhaust thing and is also over where those girls jogged again. The broken yellow line shows where she moved back to track and to her 3rd article. It was a dark brown switchplate and had somewhat melted into the snow/ice so she had to dig it out. The orange squiggly line was those girls again, doing exercises and cheers back and forth sideways, right over the last leg of the track and article. It was kind of funny, they'd pop out and pop back out of sight again a few times before we reached them. The small building is the library where we started the track up on the hill.

She's digging out the article here. I did not expect or ask for a sit.

Last leg, last article and there they finally go away. They had been swarming this area.

Trust follows the collected scent along the edge of the building, nearing the article.

Trust is telling me to hurry up and get it, and let's get going back to the van - her favorite place - and some of those super yummy treats...