Just like the big dogs!

Just back from taking Kira through the forest. She's run on ahead, just like the big dogs, to the 'scenting post'. She spent quite a bit of time going up, down, and around it. Would be nice to have one of those motion cameras out here to see what's going on. All the dogs just love this

oh.....spring?!!!!

Remember the old childhood saying...."spring is here, the grass is ris.....I wonder where the birdies is".....
Oh, I wish! We sure have the 'birdies' eating us out of house and home, but no sign of the grass. A few somewhat bare areas but snow, ice, and sooooo cold still. It's almost April!!!
Yesterday, when the temp. was a little warmer in the afternoon, Trust, Tank, Blast and I went into the forest. No signs of spring there. But it was a nice walk, anyway.

Blast just LOVES Trust, and is trying to get her attention with one of his favorite balls...she couldn't care less.

Blast and Tank ran around so much out there, Tank is pooped and probably hoping Blast will keep bugging Trust and leave him alone. Blast never seems to wear out, not matter what.

Heading up the trail home, Blast has picked up the second toy we started out with and loves to have two at a time in his mouth. Looks like he finally gave up on both of them.

Walk with Kira after the other three, but we went out into the front field. A bare spot! Only reason the snow is gone here is because it's rocks! One nice thing yesterday, we could walk on top of the snow, it was solid enough to hold me up, so we could pretty much go anyplace.

Tomorrow we plan to go tracking again, and I'm sure we will still have problems finding a decent place to work; overnight temp. called for is -20C. This is really nuts!!!!!!!!!!!

Tanks' Track on Wednesday

Tascha laid the track for Tank before we went and did Emma's two tracks. Again, the weather was horrid, so cold and so windy. But at least we had a decent mix of grass/snow/paved surfaces. I gave Tascha some regular kibble to put down for Tank on hard surface or any very difficult area. And there's a funny story about this at the end....Tank pretty much ignored most of it.
I couldn't see where the start was and so just walked him in to find it. He did pick it up, but we had also seen a few people walking in this area (an employee door) and he didn't have a very good start leg.

First corner, was also not working strongly on this leg, but he also hasn't done a track since last fall, and this was not a good "first" day out.

Nearing the corner on his second leg, and he seems to be 'getting down to business' a little more

He's doing well crossing the wide driveway at the building entrance area on his third leg and I don't think he picked up any food here.

At the corner and just moving onto the fourth leg.

I was a little distracted here (part of the story at the end) and just going back behind Tank here. I think he had turned to watch me, and also had gone off the track.

We had turned another corner, on 5th leg, and note the big green apple circled in red. Tank loves apples! I hadn't seen it at first, then thought it was a large green ball. He had picked it up, happy as you please, and brought it back to me. I had put it down, he picked it up, put it down, picked it up, until I finally gave him a stern "leave it" and felt badly as he was so happy to have found it. Anyway, he moved on just fine, and we are about to cross the same driveway again.

These flags are from recent construction being done here, and we are on a diagonal now after crossing road, and heading around the side of the building to the back.

Tank has just found a cotton glove and we have a little tug with it before moving on.

We've gone past the second row of parked vehicles here and almost at the next corner. With the strong wind, I'm surprised at how well he worked the hard surface. He really hasn't done that much, and not a very long time.

Tank went past the turn (yellow line) and then turned and came back. Right here he is moving to the corner and will find one piece of kibble here, then continues on along the track.

He had me running along most of this long leg (last one) on pavement. He was only about 2' to the left of the "real" track all the way along here, and the wind was wicked here, from the right.

I'm looking for the glove, figuring it should be in this vicinity, when he suddenly rushes over to the right and in against the snow on a strip of gravel. There it was!!!

Playing with the glove. He did a really nice job...I think he was really happy to be back tracking again. So now we're working Blast, Tank and Emma towards UTD. Lots of planning, sure hope we get some snow melt soon and more places we can get out to.

So, the funny story:

When we were planning the track, driving around, we saw more security people than noticed ever before...seemed odd. When Tank and I had gone 1/2 way across the front, I saw a security guy heading out the front door towards us. I kept going, and he went to Tascha. I wondered what was up, but wasn't going to "lose" this track! When we were done, she came up and said he was just asking what we were doing as someone had come in off the parking area and said we were dropping things...Well, I never had, and didn't want any problems here, so unhooked Tank from harness, put on collar, gave him the glove to carry and went inside to find the security people. (no dogs allowed sign on door) I found the same fellow and we had a little chat.

He said he had a yellow lab and figured we were doing 'search work' and patted Tank, who I said was also a pet therapy dog, meanwhile a few other people walking by came to pat him.....

Fellow was ok, but someone actually picked up some dog food and took it in wondering what we were doing and dropping. The security fellow knew it was dog food and saw us working but he had to check. Talking about how paranoid people are now. I had to laugh; whoever picked this up, did he think it would explode??? Poison??? Regardless HE PICKED IT UP!

Anyway, we had to laugh afterwards, but the world sure has changed...

Funny How We Forget....

Both these pictures were from Spring, 2006....five years ago and were taken 8 days apart. This is Tank in the upper half of our driveway. The rest was pretty much the same. And note the amount of snow still in the fields. This was taken March 28/06. Today, our driveway is rutty and I've hit bottom a few times in my low van. But it's frozen. The snow is down and bare in some spots in the field. But so terribly cold...this would be ice not water today!

And this was the east field, directly beside the above picture on April 6/06. A lovely pond for the dogs to play in. That's Tank in front with a ball, Trust following behind, and then Jess, who loved water. This was a lovely day, lots of pictures with all the dogs out here. This was my usual "spring" picture on my (former) website. They had such fun that day.

And I can only wish for this REAL, REAL SOON this year!!!

Tough Urban Track for Emma

Wednesday we went urban tracking for Tank and for Emma. A terrible day for newish dogs to urban and first time out this year. If Tascha hadn't taken the day off work to do this, we wouldn't have gone. We waited to mid-morning to begin, but it was sooooo cold and windchill was in the -20's, it sure wasn't near ideal. Then...we had to find locations, as ones we thought might be bare were still just covered in piles of snow. We decided after this to let the urban work go for a week and see if locations/weather had improved. Having said this, both Emma and Tank did pretty good. We were prepared to help them along but actually didn't have to step in many times at all.
Tascha had laid a very short "track" for Emma and already run it in another area of this property. She did quite well, I didn't catch up fast enough for many pics. there as I was laying the second track for Emma. We didn't wait long to age because of conditions, and Emma just worked along like a Trooper. Here, she has just made her first turn and moving towards pavement.

We were scrunched in this area and I have to say this was a poorly laid track that I did for her. She had crossed a driveway, and up onto this sidewalk and turned - correctly. What a good girl! The corner of this building is about 20' to the left and the high winds were rushing right at the corner, so going around both sides. Look at that nose!

Emma had moved up the other side of the building, but recovered and out across another driveway, up onto this tiny island and another turn. How hard is this?!!!! A car was directly in front, and I made the turn as shown in red, and she was dead on.....again, the wind is whipping directly towards this turn. She went briefly left, then right, at the cars, and then rushed right through between them.

Tascha had her line all rolled up as she wanted to work close to Emma and our lines were whipping around with the wind and picking up tons of junk, hard to work. Would have been a good day to just work on a 10' line and not have to worry about the excess. They had gone through another driveway between cars, an article (right on) and into a more open area where the scent likely had blown clear across (yellow lines) and she followed quite a way up, indicating loss of scent, but with a little line tension, back she moved towards the track.

Emma is working back to the track, and no doubt, the leather article scent was drawing her over.

I think Emma will be a great little working dog on hard surface. She's close to the ground to begin with, ha.ha. but she works slow and deliberate and concentrates on her job. Nothing distracts her when she is tracking. She worked like this on the TDX and is very tenacious and motivated. Really nice work in rotten conditions, with Tascha being very helpful and handling her so well and calmly.

Trusts' 2nd Track Sunday

Off we went to check out the second location we were planning to use. This was perfect, very different from the lakefront spot.
We've started down our first leg and again, Trust seemed excited to get going. She actually has seemed more "puppyish" in the last few months, she turned 9 in January.

I laid this track, and had put down a fair number of little cooked turkey pcs. where I thought they might help or reward. Funny thing, she ignored 80% of them all along the track, and I was picking them up as we walked over them.

I had been a little concerned when laying the first leg and saw there was no way out of this spot other than to go through it. I didn't want to step on any plants, and was able to squeeze through, as she did also. We move onto a brick walkway from here and make a left turn.

This is a very interesting area, lots of scent traps, and surprised how well she kept moving along the track. To the left is the front of the building with a large entranceway and circular driveway into the front; a car had gone in just before we reached it.

Trust is on a corner right here, and this is one of the food drops she did get. I had planned to continue on up the ramp, but realized at the last minute there was no way out to the far side, which is where I was going! So I had to turn here and go down a walkway towards the road.

Trust has turned left off the walkway..I'm still on it..and we cross a narrow grass area toward a wide driveway.

She is almost dead on the track, where I went over into the parking lot. She has just turned right, where the scent is no doubt, collecting there. This driveway goes down into a loading dock.

And since she didn't go right over the raised curb, this is exactly what I expected. I wanted to let her go, and figure out for herself that the scent normally drawn into an area like this was not her track. And she did. Shortly after this, she turned and came back out. This was a bonus training event.

And back she comes to the same place, leans over, finds the scent and climbs up and over.

She's fringing off to the right of the actual track, and shortly makes a left turn.

Which brings her up to her first article, a plastic lid. She's gone a long stretch on hard surface by this time, and doing well.

From the article, she goes up on the sidewalk and over to the building to check out the scent there. The track actually turned right through a little walkway between snow, and she did come back to that shortly.

We head down the sidewalk to crusty snow/ice and she's about to make a left turn across that.

The track stays on the snow/ice to the walk up the hill and curves around there and up the rest of the hill to the final article.

And there is her glove, near the tree. What a good girl, Trust!!! I was really proud of how well she worked on both tracks.

Another Kira Adventure

After Trusts' first track on Sunday, we went and laid the second track, took the dogs both out for a pee break and to stretch and on to Timmies' for some libation. When we were ready to leave, I spotted this double tanker at the gas station on the next corner and decided to go over and pay it a visit with Kira.
The fellow wasn't "overly enthused" as it was barricaded off for him to work but seemed ok for a brief visit, and I made sure to hold her snugly so she didn't knock anything near him. We first checked out the rear part of the truck and the tire wells.

OK, tire no. 2 now; of course the gasoline smell was fairly strong there, and normally, this would be something I'd avoid!

Next the rod that he sticks down the holes - you can tell I really know the lingo..not. And move up closer.

He nicely said to make sure she didn't get the rag as it had gasoline on it. She wasn't trying to anyway, but was just checking everything out...no concern, just interest.

I wasn't sure if she wanted to go closer to the hole where he was filling it up, but wasn't going to let her, anyway. I know the truck driver had to be concerned about safety/insurance, etc. so was doing this fairly quickly anyway.

A quick sniff at this glove and we backed off. Thanked him for letting us visit, and I got out a reward for her.

The good old rubber hose, and off we went. She was great there, curious, calm. She's a really neat little puppy.

Promising Conditions to Track...

Finally, what a change a day or two can make. We went into North Bay on Sunday with plans to do two "short" tracks for Trust - different locations, aged one on short side, other longer. We were fortunate to have a good mixture at the waterfront of grass, snow, dry pavement, puddles and ice. Tascha was laying this track and also took the photographs.
Trust is just moving off the start here, how lucky to find a small portion of GREEN grass from under the melted snow. This track was aged a little over an hour, and had five articles.

She is working nicely along the first leg, coming soon to a left turn across the road. Lots of construction going on down here, not sure what they are doing, but gave us added obstacles.

We had to climb through and over this yucky buildup of crusty snow, she had no problem at all and moved right across the road 'on' the track.

She is just sorting out the corner here, a right turn onto some snow.

Off she goes, firmly committed along here. We run into a little glitch further on, we hadn't been able to see it before planning the track.

There was no way straight ahead here, fully blocked by a long pipe and a big mound of dirty snow. While she checks something just off the track, I figured the likely way our "tracklayer" would have gone was to the right, which was correct.

Her first article had been a little past the obstacle (prevous picture) and then moved onto sand before turning right. Obviously we were crossing the road again. Here she had gone a little too far and had also come back too far and now found the exact point to head out on the road. I've gathered up my line for crossing and moved up to her.

After waiting for a few vehicles to go by, we crossed the road, climbed another snowpile down to some grass again and a left turn. A wood article is up front (red arrow) and then we make a right turn along a strip of grass towards a parking lot.

Trust went right across into a snowy area, and up to a little hedge to smell something. I gave her a very firm leave it command there as it was obvious to me what she was doing and certainly no reason for her to do so. She came back onto the pavement and fringed along the snowpile to the right of the actual track until she reached the end of the snow.

She moves back towards the track, but goes across to the other side and moves a bit along there. Then she comes back to the track and moves ahead to the left turn corner. I was pretty happy how she worked here. We had to cross slippery ice here.

With some sun, there was a moist film on the ice that wasn't there earlier, and by this time it was pretty slippery for both of us walking across. She goes over the snow onto some grass again where a right turn is coming up.

After she made the turn, we moved a ways on grass and then came onto snow. There was a metal article left on the snow/ice, and now it had melted a little down into the snow. Trust actually went right over it, paying no heed. I saw it and assisted her to circle back to find it. She came back and scented about 2' around it, but totally missed it again. I decided to point it out, but she couldn't get it. I had to use my heel to dig it out, surprising how it was embedded. I still thought it odd that she didn't get it, though.

So now I'm showing it her. She doesn't have a problem with metal articles normally, but I wonder if this was a temperature thing...

On we went, up a hill and on top. She found the leather article that fell out of our tracklayers' clothing, which was meant to be the final one. Didn't matter, it was a bonus for her. Trust then went a fair way past the turn and here is coming back, fringing along the snow until she picked up the track scent.

We climbed over another big pile of dirty old snow, and over the road again! We were pretty much right on the track...I cheated...I saw the footprints in the snow when we climbed that snow pile so knew we were there, and Trust just moved onto the snow a few feet to the right. Then she came back over to the track on the snow and we moved up the hill.

Last turn, left, and along we go to the final article, now a cloth glove. She worked very nicely, we had a couple of glitches, and wouldn't have passed if it was a test, but I was really pleased with her. More and more I've come to think the pass for the UTDX involves so much good luck. The dog can work really, really well, but miss something along the way. The fact that she is enthused and doing so well after months of no tracking makes me really happy.

It's over! Yay! Look at what I found, I'm so happy, because my mom is so happy!!!!!!