Early out Wed. a.m. after a long-awaited rain on Tuesday. I decided to check a place I've scanned going by numerous times, but it is usually occupied. There's a ball diamond, a basketball court next to a public school so it is well used both day and night. The towns' local legion is also in the front. So it's a really nice mix of short grass, gravel driveways, paved court, paved driveway/parking area. I was pretty early and there was no sign of action. Perfect! ha.ha.ha. Laid a nice track.
On returning, I planned to walk from the road to leave a special sardine treat package behind the finish article for Blast. Suddenly a door opened from a house across the road and a lady yells over to me..."Are you here about the coyote?" Say what?! I said I had laid a track for my dog and was about to start on it. She went on to say a coyote was chasing a deer around the ball park last night and they had called the OPP. Then she said I "looked official", was I going to take pictures. No...but wondered what I would take pictures of....did she think the coyote and the deer were still hiding in the bushes...bit my tongue, of course. Anyway, went about my business, but note once again....urban tracking....see if Blast pays any attention out there....No sign of anything unusual on the first leg.
He made his first turn, (this is where the night before action was, I assume) and we head towards the ball diamond, where he turns left by the pitchers' mound.
He worked the whole area very nicely, nothing seemed of any "extra" interest to him.
Good turn, and now head out across short grass stretch, across driveway, into another short grass area, where the first article (sock) is, and then a turn onto the basketball court.
Reaches his first article, just barely into the grass and I worked a bit with him there on his down. He's so reluctant to STOP at an article, but I had Benny Bully in my pocket for him as an inducement.
His turn was also close to the edge and he works so nicely on the track across here. Perspective is hard to see above, but he actually has a decent grass strip after the pavement and then turns right on the grass. This area had been recently cut, probably ahead of the rain the day before, and so there were mounds of fresh cut grass strips here. He works really nicely along this stretch until near the end, he began to occasionally 'woof' even though still working with head down. I looked around, wondering what was going on, seeing and hearing nothing. But then he finally raised his head with a low woof and looked behind me. He had also found his second article, metal, and had scratched at it...bonus! There was a dog following us, a long ways back on our track. Obviously, Blast realized it was far enough back not to be a serious problem but this was BLAST! and I just about had a fit. I yelled at the dog to get home and told Blast to keep working...which he was anyway.
No, it was not a coyote!!!! Totally amazed me that Blast had not paused in his tracking, even though occasionally woofing...and he wasn't overly concerned about the dog. Will I ever learn that he is smarter than me?!! When I first saw the dog, it would have been about where I was in the picture above, while we were nearing the hard surface up near the building shown above. Blast is always so alert to everything around us, it often causes some issues when we are tracking.
So, we've moved out onto the paved driveway behind the legion, and he made a nice corner, still the occasional woof, but still nose down. About here, I turned and snapped a pic. of the dog. (Maybe I should have thought to show it to the lady across the road!) The broken yellow line shows where Blast went over to sniff at something, checked it out, and came back to the track.
There's the dog, probably smelling where we were....very possible it was a dog chasing the deer the night before anyway. People often think Blast is a wolf or wolf-cross, as they are not familiar (up here) with the sable colour.
He cut this corner and is now on the last leg. So he actually had three turns on non-veg. surfaces this track. Track was just an hour old, trying to get it in to be successful before too humid and hot again. I was immensely pleased with him, especially the dog issue. This is something I always worry about in urban locations, and so many dogs in our area are "loose". (Think about it....I have a "wolf" on a collar/harness/leash and the dogs run free!)
Heading very nicely towards the final article which is a glove, just before the grass.
Tongue out, about to touch the article (glove) and sardine container is a few feet back from that. Another bonus, zeroed in on the article, not the sardines!
With one foot still on the glove, he reaches for the sardines, which I had pushed over to him. He was one happy boy when I took the lid off. Such a nice job he did today.
