Wednesday, December 28, 2011

A Special Presentation for Trust!

Trust was presented with an engraved medallion from the Cross Country Tracking Club earlier this month. She was the first "member" dog to earn the CKC Champion Tracking Title. I joined CCTC back in 2000, when Spook earned her TDX there. At that time, no-one else was tracking in Northeastern Ontario, where I live, and it was great to 'head south' two or three times a year and be a tracklayer, or enter tests. We have a lot of fun there, and have made some special friendships. This was an honour (and a lot of work!) to earn the TCh title and being presented with this medallion was such a wonderful award from the Club. As a picture with Trust wearing the medallion was requested for the newsletter, I decided to do something a little special for this. Also, Trust will be ten years old in January. It just seemed right...I wanted something nice for her, and arranged a photo session.
This picture includes her CKC Tracking Champion certificate and her final UTDX rosette, and includes her long line, harness and glove. She completed her fourth track at CCTC with judge Marie-P. Babin, and tracklayer Joseph Weir. Her TD was at CCTC, her TDX was at Sudbury, and her UTD was in Ottawa. Of course, she is wearing her lovely medallion.We did a number of different "arrangements", both of her and the "props". The photo session took about 45 mins. and we had a lot of fun doing this. Trust just loves being fussed over, and was so easy to work with. The two young ladies working on this session had a lot of fun as well. The photographer was Jenny Brunet.I've included an assortment of pictures here...would you believe there were 60 in total?!! I am quite certain that Trust knows she is 'special'...she is definitely a real poser....and so very pretty, too! And she knows it!!
I'm breaking off a piece of cookie for her in this picture when we decided to play around with a few pictures. Although I take a huge number of pictures of the dogs, I have almost none with both of us together. So we played a bit and wound up with a bunch of candid shots. The young lady taking the pictures had not worked with a dog before and thought it was amazing. Of course, Trust is very well behaved, well trained and great with people. She has previously done Pet Therapy work with seniors and is very good in unusal or busy settings.
I just love this dog! I am so proud of her, as we struggled for some time switching from field work to urban settings. I learned so much from her, watching her figure out what was going on with the scent in tricky areas. We had only each other, and one little book, to learn how to become a good working team in urban locations.
The medallion presented to Trust by CCTC will be a cherished remembrance of a very special day when she earned her Tracking Champion Title. And a special day having earned it in the presence of good friends. Thanks to everyone who cheered us on along the way!