The above photo was Trust moving out on her first leg of her Urban Tracking Dog test in Ottawa.We are presently training for the Urban Tracking Dog Excellent title. This is a tremendous amount of work and time and a constant learning process, mainly for the handler!
A few years back we attended a Herding Instinct Test, which she passed. Trust had never seen sheep previously, and the instant she was brought to the fenceline, she perked right up. I couldn't believe "that instinct" was still so strong in her and she just "took over" the sheep when she was placed in with them. It was amazing to see. She was also very kind with them. Unfortunately, it wasn't something we could continue here, as I was not about to "get into sheep farming"....
Trust has always been a "pretty serious girl" and always was reluctant to "play" much. For this reason, I wanted to see what she'd do with Agility, just for fun, and to my amazement once again, she loved it. You could see a smile on her face when she finished her run. We continued to just do "fungility" when time allowed, sometimes as a reward after a track.Trust has also done pet therapy work, but is not doing it on a regular basis now. Being a German Shepherd, it is too bad, but some people are nervous of them. Trust loves to visit and is, without doubt, the most suitable and friendly of all our dogs.
We are concentrating on UTDX training this year, it is very time consuming and demandng work, for both of us, and amazing to see what our dogs are capable of.
