Sunday, Emma's TDX track

I took these first two pictures as I began to lay the track for Emma and Tascha. The fog had almost lifted and the fields were beautiful. I just love early fall tracking. This was a field I've not used previously, 200 gorgeous acres just down the road from me.

Heavy dew, frost in a few areas, and the sun coming up behind the fog...beautifuEmma has just made her first turn and Tascha is "catching up"! The first leg turned out to be quite wet for little Emma, wouldn't you know it?!

The second leg was very long, up a hill. Here Emma is working out the scent on the top of the hill, and just turned in the right direction, pausing and double-checking.

Then she takes off hopping and Tascha begins to follow her from the corner.

Now having turned onto the fourth leg, and after finding her first article, Emma is 'on the run' and very confident along this leg, heading downhill. It's so rare to get pictures of Emma on tracks where you can actually 'see' her, usually the cover is too deep.

Emma has found her second article and Tascha is rewarding her for that.

I looked 'back' to take this picture. It was a tough go for a little dog, but Emma worked through this thick and tangled bush area without a hitch. Way back is the hilltop we had been on earlier.

After the last turn shortly out of the bush, she is now heading to the final article. She was really working well and enjoying every minute of it.

Yay! There's a leather glove down in there. Her tail was wagging a mile a minute. What a happy little worker.

Tanks' 5th Birthday Party!

It's hard to believe - Tank is already five years old! A 'small' party this year, just these four. We were remembering our birthdays of the past with 8 dogs in a little circle, and trying to figure out how we did that!!! Blast celebrated indoors with his cake and ice cream, he didn't seem to mind. It was just too chaotic to try and include the "can't sit still" Blaster with the time involved in getting Jess and Storm ready and comfortable.
Sunday was gorgeous, so we could go out on the deck for this. Trust didn't like her cake and just stared at it for a while before deciding perhaps she should eat it before someone else did. You can see who gobbled down 'his' the fastest!
And now Tank's watching and waiting and hoping someone might leave some for him! As if!!!! Jess and Storm could only have a tiny bit each to begin with. Tank enjoyed an extra special walk (actually, he had three) through the woods yesterday and lots of ball time.

Delightful or Deadly Forest Fungi?

We have never seen so many mushrooms or colourful fungus in the forest as we have in the past three weeks. Conditions are perfect, I assume, and some pop up overnight. I can't believe how fast they grow! Here are just a few very colourful shapes and I've no idea what they are. We just bought an Audobon book to try and identify them, but there are thousands and many are so similar.
Each walk through different areas in the forest always surprise us.

Every day there is something new. It's almost like magic.

I don't know what, but something nibbles at many of these, so hopefully something in the forest knows if they are safe to eat!

I think perhaps anything red is to be avoided, but they are certainly lovely to look at.

Some just pop up on wood, or dead leaves, they don't need earth to grow on or in.

Windy UTDX Track

The location I had planned for Tuesday was completely covered by Canada Geese! Having done one there last year at this time (migration), I wasn't about to walk on or dodge so much disgusting squishy poop again...so moved to second choice. Turned out to be very good and worthwhile. A couple of good distractions, and extremely high wind off Lake Nipissing in North Bay.
Trust had a very, very long first leg in grass, except for this little sidewalk crossing. Lots of cars, people, dog walkers, ducks and gulls out; track aged 3 1/2 hours.

We had just finished standing and waiting for a man and a little dog walking towards us on a flexi, and dog having frequent 'pit stops'. I decided to wait, rather than push her through, as it was also barking at us, annoying, and he seemed fixated on watching us. Trust was distracted, and then as you see with the broken yellow line, she tried to go over where the dog had "been".

I turned and took this picture after they went by, and darned if he didn't turn around and come back behind us, more or less following along behind. I had to sternly remind Trust a few times to get back to work, as she was a little uptight about them coming up behind us.

She had found a wood article earlier on this leg, you can sese the wind is blowing the line across to the left. I made the turn purposely ahead of what was obvious...the change and a crack all the way across the road. She turned to cross, and a nice driver stopped and waited for us to run over the road. She was nearly right on the track across the road, and hitting the other side. I was surprised how close she was due the winds, which were then strong behind us. Always windy by the lake, but had increased immensely from laying time.

The wind whips across here, over the steps and down into a tunnel area. Quite a difficult place to work in even without high winds. I was standing on top and without the wind, this line would have been a straight line down to her. The plastice article was blown about 3' to the right on the second step down, from where I had left it. She made two circles here, one not far enough, one past it, and then came back up to get it. It was white plastic, so couldn't be seen.

Before this shot, she had to work out on an acute angle from the last picture and curve into a paved walk/bike path along the road and then turn up this hill of sparse veg. The gray car is now parked right over the track into a large gravel parking lot. Again, the wind (blue arrows).

When we reached the car, the lady rolled down her window and called to Trust. I told her we were working and the track went under her car....she was going to move it...I said, no, if she was still there, we would come back and tell her all about what we were doing. The track makes a left turn in the parking lot, and there's an article along the next leg.

And there it is, a metal article which she had almost gone by, as she was following the scent close to the fence. At the last minute, she turned her head and rushed to it. I think she wants a treat, don't you?! She got one!

Further along, the gravel turned to asphalt and we went between two large cement dividers hitting strong gusts again. Look at that line, even Trust looks like she's being blown sideways.

This was not a strict corner but a long sweeping turn following the driveway now, in the middle.

She had moved towards some grass and another fence at this point, but was surprisingly quite close to the track.

All of a sudden, she turned and trotted over to the track and just zoned right in to the article.

All things considered, especially the unexpected high wind, I was pretty impressed with her today....well, she always impresses me, but she seemed really happy about working on this track today with the difficulties. The only issue really was the strange man and his dog, she was too focused on them. We did go back up the hill and had a nice talk with the lady in the car who was most impressed about all this 'tracking stuff'. Had I seen the man later, I also would have spoken to him. He may have just been curious and not realized that he and his dog were a bit of a problem for us.

Emma and Tascha on a short TDX

There were almost no pictures where you could actually see Emma on this track, she was lost in the deep and thick growth. Honest...there really is a dog at the end of the line! In the picture above, Emma is just approaching a deep ditch -down and up- through some brush and then immediately across a dirt road and into another ditch to a separate field. She loved it!

See!!!! That's Emma! Her last field was short growth; she really had to work hard to push through the majority of her track. They both did a great job, Emma working steadily and Tascha reading her really well. Wet again!

A nice track today with Rosemary & Reece

One of our lovely local fields to train in again. Lush, thick and wet growth, almost too difficult to walk through for smaller dogs and short-legged people (me!). I put down a long "tophat" (TD) track today for Reese. It was aged 50 mins. and some drizzle began just as she started.

As you can see, Rosemary is doing a really nice job with her line-handling and reading Reese well at corners. Reese has changed so dramatically in the last few weeks and just works steadily, nose down, on her track.

Rosemary is right on the corner, and about to follow Reece. She had overshot a little, straight ahead, and just finished circling back and beginning to pull along the track.

Here they are moving quickly, at a nice steady pace, along the last leg toward the article.

And there it is! Reece just plopped down on her article, waiting for Rosemary to come up. Very nicely done!

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.