Soaked to the bone, Emma.

Emma had a "short" TDX type track on Wednesday. It was across from the cackling sandhill cranes, which caused her some pause at her start. It also turned out to be in the adjoining field where Blast and I ran into the deer leg last week. The rain began about the same time Emma started her track, and it never let up.

And guess what?! I believe this was another part of the deer from last week. This one was about 6' to the side of the track, and Emma never noticed it. I was actually hoping she would, as Tascha didn't think Emma would leave a bone on the track, after hearing Blasts' story. It would have been interesting to see what Emma did.

Emma is just entering the top of a very deep ditch. At this time I told Tascha she could help her across the bottom if "need be". It was very mucky and had water in the bottom of the ditch, and very weedy all the way. When I laid this track, it was difficult climbing up the far side into the next field.

Almost to the top on the far side. I love obstacles like this and so do the dogs! Both fields were in lovely condition.

I felt badly for Emma. She was just so wet, and had begun to shivver a bit. The temperature was much cooler than we've had for so long, and it was a pretty tough track for her..almost all of it was in fairly short grass, but by this time it was just pouring. She's a tough little dog.

Back to Birds!!!

Not the greatest shot, but put on as perspective to size. The hawks have arrived as they follow the blue jays in early fall. What a racket it is here! People think we live in the "quiet countryside"..ha.ha.ha. We have krestels hunting the jays as well, as I always know when they are here due to the screaming jays. I swear they play "cat and mouse" or "bird and hawk" with them.

This is a very photogenic merlin who is just biding his time, it seems, waiting for a careless jay.

I took these pictures from the bedroom window, and he obviously saw me there a number of times. It didn't seem to bother him at all, I wish the kestrel would slow down a little as he just zooms through and so far, too fast to get a picture.

Sandhill Cranes in Tracking Fields

The VERY noisy sandhill cranes are back, not sure why they are more "grey" right now, and earlier in the year they were quite "brown"....perhaps feed, or type, I really don't know.

Although not trying to scare them off, as soon as I got out of the truck, they began to take flight...however, I did want to try and get pictures of this......

We don't see a lot of them, but I've heard where the flocks are huge, everyone dislikes them intently. They are loud, they croak and cackle and some people describe the noise they make like chalk on a blackboard. I find them very interesting, if odd...

This is just a small part of the flock. There were about 20. I think the two on the right are immature birds, and they seem to be more of the brownish colour. They are in a field where grain had been grown and not really in one of the tracking fields we were using.

New Title! Carmspack Blast TD

Blast earns his Tracking Dog Title in Sudbury on Sunday, September 6th. He was 16 months of age on the 4th. Nice fields and very wet conditions from the 2 days previous. And COLD!!! After such a terribly long hot spell, it was quite a shock. I'm wearing a winter jacket.

He had just dug down into a clump of clover and found his glove and then just stood over it until I came up. I think he wondered why it was buried in the clover clump!

After I held it up to show the judge, we played tug a little with it...and then I had to try and keep it from him.....ha! You cannot play too much with it after the dog indicates at a trial, and the last thing you want to do is to lose it!

We stopped on the way home and took a few pictures, as it was raining too hard to take them with the judge at the trial presentations. This was unfortunate, as it's nice to have the presentation photo with the judge.

I think we took about 20 pictures to finally get a couple where he wasn't jumping around. He really wanted his glove - you normally get to keep the final article if you pass the test, and he knew I was trying to hide it at that time to keep it in one piece. He gave me heart failure a few times, as he kept turning around to the judges and tracklayer wanting to say 'hi'. But he did a good job and now has his first tracking title.

Uh-oh! A 'surprise' on Blasts' track

Thursday morning, this field was criss-crossed with tracks from a tractor that had removed all the round hay bales the previous day. I wasn't too concerned about that, it would be interesting to see if, and how much, attention Blast might pay to these. However, there was more of a distraction on his last leg. When I laid the track, shortly after the last and fourth corner, I came upon the remains of a leg of a freshly killed deer. It was no more than 2' beside the track. I could not just "stop" or veer off either. So, this became a totally unexpected "training opportunity". What would Blast do, and how to handle it?!
Blast has just turned on his first corner, onto the second leg here. The 2 red arrows point out the track which is quiet visible before the corner.

I took sooooo many pictures on this track, but since both of us were often running along it, most of them are complete blurs. Usually, the corners are a little 'calmer' so most pictures are there.

Here, he has made his second corner onto the third leg. This turn and the leg run up the centre between tire tracks. The third corner actually is centred in a crossing of four tire tracks. He worked this a bit but really had no problem.

Above, on his fourth leg, with multi track crossings; this is also where he seemed to pick up the 'scent' of where I think the deer leg had been dragged or perhaps even was brought down. He did veer off a couple of times, and had his nose buried in the ground, but a couple of verbal cues brought him back to the track.

Whoa! What's this?! Blasts' hind legs are ON the track, and he's just stepping over to his discovery. What a reward this could be! Knowing it was coming, I had moved up very close behind him, and I was holding tight, letting him smell it, but I definitely did not want him to lick or grab at it, and did not want him staying there getting overly stimulated. This was just too exciting for a "Leave It!" command at that time to actually "work".

I just held my ground, I did give him a little tug while telling him to leave it and repeated his find command more than once. The instant he started to move off, I praised him, told him to find again, and reluctantly, I think, he moved on. He did pause a couple of times to glance back, ever wishful, but shortly picked up his speed again on the track. I was very happy with this.

You can imagine how tough this must be for a dog.

The deer leg forgotten, he had rushed along this leg to the article. What a good guy!

I had thought, dare I let him loose to play with the article? It appeared to have been forgotten after the article was found, and we spent a few minutes doing a number of throws and tugs. I was just careful not to throw back in that direction.

You just never know what you may encounter on these field tracks!!!!!

Blast gets the pretty field!

One thing I wanted to accomplish today with Blast was to work on distractions. This has always been "an issue" at times. Today, having both Rosemary and Tascha out, I thought I'd have Rosemary follow very closely behind us, while Tascha was walking on the road taking pictures....so there was someone close behind and another further away. Plus Tascha was the "official photographer" today! The other goal was that Rosemary laid the track, so this was a "stranger" for him, as a tracklayer. Blasts' track was just over 30 mins. aged, a mixed alfalfa/clover field, five legs, four corners. Wind was pretty strong when all the tracks were laid. He is just turning a corner in the above photo. He only glanced back a couple of times at Rosemary, so I was pleased with this.

We are moving out on the fourth leg here. Isn't the background spectacular? The far hill, the tallest in our township, is called Bear Mountain (but really just a very tall hill).

Moving close to the article now, he has me running along behind, not by (my) choice, I'm really putting a lot of tension on the line.

Pleased as punch, looking at our "photographer" while he stands over his glove.

A Short TDX for Emma Today

This is Emma's first article which was on a long second leg. Of course, she wanted to play with it!

It was also nearly impossible to get pictures of Emma on her track...she had seven legs and six corners, a road crossing, 3 changes of veg. as well, 3 articles and a "surprise" cross track ( on her last two legs) which Tascha didn't know was in there!!! I'm so mean!!!

Absolutely no hesitation, climbing out of the field and over the road. Emma just loves it all!

Her track was aged two hours, it was quite hot by the time she began.

She is almost at her final article, a square of leather. Her first two articles were leather gloves. Even with the heat, she did not seem at all worn out. They both did great.