Another Rubber Hose/Walk

Lovely afternoon today for a walk down the driveway. Yesterday, the drifting was so bad, I couldn't get out the driveway, and my snowshoe trails are gone again...frustrating.
But, dogs didn't care, another old rubber hose was found!
Since David was coming with us, we decided to take all three at once and thought Blast and Tank could have a good tug session. You can see they did! The snow is from chasing the hose multi times out in the deep snow in the field and plunging through the 'banks' at the sides.
David can throw much further than I can, so I put him to work! Trust is intently watching and wishing she could jump like Blast does. Blast almost got the hose before David threw it.

Trust is getting very excited and trying to figure out how Blast goes straight up...let's see, is it this leg first?

And the final result! Got the hose...got the hose...run back...got the hose...get another throw...

Fun for all!

"Leaping Lizards, Batman!"

For those not as 'ancient' as me....that blurb was from the old Batman movies...in "our" case, Batman should be replaced with Blast!
And here he comes, through the snow, bringing the ball over to the snowpiles to play.

We've never had a dog that just loved to jump so high, often straight up, and catch anything. I was throwing snowballs, more than the ball, actually. This day it was snowing like crazy. Hence the blurry pictures, even though you don't really see the snow coming down, plus he is too fast for clear shots.

He has very solid landings as well, but we do this on the deep snow and only a few at a time.

He LOVES to jump!

If you feed them...they will come...

The birds are pretty amazing this winter; we seem to keep getting more all the time. I'm afraid we must be spending nearly as much feeding them, as we are on dog food...that's scary...
I was just heading out for the third time today when I saw this "assortment" cleaning up the remaining seed on one of the ground areas. We probably have more ground feeders than those that use the hanging feeders, although a lot feed in both areas. Above assortment: redpolls, male and female evening grosbeaks and pine grosbeaks.

At the back of the house at one feeder station, one withy nyger and other with oilseed...redpolls and mourning doves.

A male hairy woodpecker flits back and forth from pole to feeders.

This female downy woodpecker was continually chasing the male away...

Out On Snowshoes This Afternoon

Well, I was, the dogs had a hard time getting through the deep snow, and even on snowshoes, I did also. Blowing like crazy here today, but temp. way up, and sunny.
This was the amount of snow we had yesterday (above). One of the few remaining piles on a tree branch that hasn't yet blown off. It blows off "in blocks" and almost got one on the head. We were NOT supposed to get any snow yesterday, it was S.Ont. that was supposed to be hit, and instead, most of the storm moved up this way.

Trust is having a hard time pushing through the snow. I will have nice tired dogs for a few hours!

Tank takes leaps ahead of me, and then turns around and comes back. I don't have a shovel, buddy, having enough trouble of my own...I lost one snowshoe and almost took a header, but managed to get it back on, without falling down.

And here's Blast taking leaps and bounds as well. He's loving it. He had gone way ahead before coming back to see what was keeping me. There was not a track of a single wild animal out there.

Pristine, deep snow, nothing else. That was very strange. I imagine by tomorrow, there will be tracks all over where we've gone today.

Carmspack German Shepherds

How cute is this?! I believe this pup is around 6 1/2 wk. old in this photo. This litter was born on November 3/2010.
Both Trust and Blast are Carmspack breeding. My first tracking dog, Spook, who will always be my "best dog ever" was sired by Carmspack Kilo. I've always loved this dog. He is also in the background of both Trust and Blast.
They are sound in mind and body, wonderful loyal companions and great versatile working dogs.
If you are looking for a good German Shepherd, you might like to contact Carmen Duggan, who is in the Whitby area: www.carmspack.com carmspack@can.rogers.com

"Scent Work" this afternoon...

Well, I'm afraid it's the closest we've come to "tracking" in a long while...This afternoon, I took Blast down the driveway, and set him up to run off ahead of me while I tossed (first) a glove to the right, and further on, tricking him again by throwing an iceball, I tossed a white piece of leather to the left. And we kept walking. Almost messed up with the leather piece, it didn't go far off the driveway. Light wind coming from the NNE, (shown in blue in some pics.) temp. -17C, sunny. Red arrows point out articles. Just a little nose game, I was amazed I was able to hide them from him going down there.
Shortly after we turned around to go back, I just calmly said "Go Find" and he was off! So here's what was interesting. Rather than head to the right, where the leather piece was, he was determinedly searching in the snow on the left. He was in and out, nose buried. I thought, this is strange for him, he often takes off and circles in ever-smaller circles and pinpoints something buried in the field under the snow weeks ago. I half expected him to pull something old out of there. So, looking at the picture below, maybe you can figure it out.

He was reluctant to leave this area, here is circling around and heading back into the same spot.

Problem was, I was freezing, bare fingers numb on the camera, and didn't want to wait terribly much longer. Eventually, I began to walk up the driveway, and got past where the article was lying. Meanwhile, he had worked back in the same area again, and finally came out.

And here, he has gone right past it, and is heading to where he turns off into the field. Something weird going on here, right?! I was getting so cold, I was close to pointing it out...

This shows where he took off and made a circle "past' where the article was. The large circle is normal, he comes back out on the driveway, moves down again below the article, and then back into the field to up to circle again which would take him past the article once more.

There's his first circle on the left, note the article. (blue arrows wind) Now note where he suddenly stopped and looks my way. He's picked up the scent and is about to cut the circle back.

And races (green line) back below and then up to the article. This little exercise was soooo interesting. Not what I was thinking would happen at all, but a lot of thinking...

So we played with this article a bit, I put it in my pocket and said again.."Find".

And this time, he went straight to the left, into the snow, and made a straight be-line to the glove. Night and Day! So what was going on....will I ever know....he's not talking!

Here he is coming out with the glove.

Blast dropped the glove as his nose had "discovered" the little piece of fox poop I had covered over with snow on the way out.

And then he brings it back to me for a wild and crazy tug session. Kind of fun, just wish we could get back to real tracking....soon, I hope.