First Class for Second Group

 Above is 'Cruiser' and Lori, in the Scent Circle.  I introduced this method to four of the 'new to tracking dogs' today.  They all worked in the scent circle then were put away.

 There are two blind dogs in this group.  Above is 'Charlie', a double dappled dachshund, blind due to breeding.  Karen got Charlie from a rescue. A happy guy, that doesn't stand in his way.  He worked nicely in the scent circle.  Below is 'Abbey' in her scent circle, tail never stopped wagging, trying not to miss any piece of food in there!  She is a miniature long haired dachshund.

 Rosemarys' 'Hunter' is our second blind dog, a hound blind from birth.  He is also the senior dog in the class, and worked wonderfully with his nose constantly down.  In this picture, we have brought the dogs back out to do another scent circle and then work in a serpentine track.  They are part way through the serpentine.  This method teaches the dogs to keep working with their nose down on the track.  Once they may move off the track, quickly they recognize there is no scent, and they almost immediately move back on to it and keep going.

 Hunter has just found his article at the end of his serpentine. Rosemary is rewarding him with treats at the article.  Hunter was very happy!!!

 Cruiser in his serpentine, also working nicely through it.  They are required to work at a slow pace in the serpentine, steady and with nose down.  The handler keeps a relatively loose line, and walks behind the dog, giving the track command they are using when the dog picks up a treat. 

 As long as there's food in there, Abbey isn't going anywhere else.  Each flag marks a food treat, so the handler knows exactly where it is.  The dog is scenting the tracklayer through the curves and the food is gradually spaced further apart and then randomly placed.

 Karen started her serpentine with the food treats a little too far apart, but Charlie kept his nose on the track and continued on with no problem.  He was really clear to everyone watching, when he moved off the track, says nope nothing there, and turned back onto it. Below, Charlie has moved past his last flag on has just about reached his article.  Really nice work.

 Brenda had previously started some simple tracks with 'Pippin" (a Lowchen) before this class began.   I lay a track for them to see how they were working, and left a glove on the first (long) leg, and took his favorite toy with me to leave at the end.  He was in the windiest area with a lot of dead grass, so had to work awfully hard in some areas.  In the above picture, he has found his first article, and Brenda plays with him tugging the article...great fun!

Pippin has just turned a corner and after a bit of searching (crosswind was strong), he puts his nose down and moves off nicely.

He is just about reaching his toy at the end of the track, Brenda with a nice, short taut line and good communication.  He "killed" his toy after he reached it!

I also laid the track for Rosemary and 'Reese'.  Distance between a TD and TDX, as Reese (our cute little beagle) has her TD and they have been working towards a TDX.  Reese had three articles on her track, mainly long legs, with four corners.  Above, they have just finished a lovely corner and are on their fourth leg.  Below Reese has just reached her final article and Rosemary is looking for her "down" on it before going up.   Reese always lies down on her articles, taught well by Rosemary.
We had a good first class today, interesting with the various dogs at all different levels.

Blast Earns His Urban Tracking Dog Title!

What a great day we had yesterday in Whitby at the Cross Country Tracking Clubs' UTD/UTDX test!  Blast is now Carmspack Blast TD UTD.

 Judge Jack Wilhelm, apprenticing was Louise from New Brunswick, and our tracklayer was Eileen.  We were just approaching the start.

 And off we go, nose down on the track, a good start for sure...

There were 5 dogs entered in UTD, and 4 dogs in UTDX.  Although there were some really good working dogs on the tracks, and three were soooo close to 'making it', (including our special little Emma who just couldn't seem to make the last corner but worked her heart out) Blast ended up being the only pass of the day.  He did a lovely track, and thanks to many people that forwarded pictures, there are enough to put together the track from start to finish!  Hope you enjoy it!

 We are headed toward a driveway which we will be crossing.  A vehicle drove in and stopped to unload something into the building we were passing, and Blast turned and paused to check that out, before coming back onto the track and proceeding.

 He crossed the road and came to a few obstacles that had to be navigated around.

Apparently, the track turned left after the posts, but he cut this corner right onto the next leg, so at least we didn't have to worry about getting tangled up.  That is the vehicle in the background with the person that caught his attention previously.  Once he hit this second leg, his nose never came up.

Blast moves along this leg never lifting his nose.  Our "three followers" are moving to catch up.  It felt so good to be behind Blast when he was working so well. He zoomed pretty quickly down this leg, and there's no picture on it, as no-one could come up behind until we turned the next corner onto another driveway.  When he reached the corner, he turned briefly right, said "nope" and took off to the left, crossed the driveway and up onto a tiny grassy island.

 From that, he moved into the paved parking area, and rushed up to his first article, a sock.  Above he is on it, and I'm just bending to pick it up. Our track here was near the curb, and after we moved past the article, he went up onto the curb/grass area for most of the rest of that leg, when he lost the scent near the next corner, he came back on the asphalt and turned right.  We headed past a sewer grate (hmmm maybe that was the corner marker???) and out onto grass.

Our "official followers" could see clearly enough, to stay well back of us here.  On the grass alongside the red brick building, he seemed to have a little problem, circling as if having lost the scent.  Not sure what was going on there, there was a structure that began to buzz and we both looked 'upwards' when that happened.  Seemed to be some kind of venting system, but not sure what from.  He 'regained his composure' and shortly picked up the leg, I believe he had gone just past the right turn.

 Once he started along this leg, he was nose down, again, and picking up speed leading to the final article.  YAY!!! I KNEW it was close!!!

A square of leather in the grass, I couldn't see it until he reached it, and paused briefly.
I ran up and picked it up.  Blast would prefer to just keep going, he likes gloves that he can rip apart!!!

 There it is!  After holding it up, I 'traded' it for the sock (first article) in my bag so he could play and tug with it.  Now "that" was rewarding for him!  And then I hear Eileen yelling at me "that's my good sock" and of course, I thought she was kidding.  Blast was having a mighty good tug session with it and it turned out Eileen was serious!  We "argued" over whose sock it was, I gave it back, but I don't think she'd be too happy wearing it again!!!  I also didn't know that it had a rock in it to hold it in place on the track.  It was quite a windy day, so rocks were used to hold down articles that may blow away. They thought I was going to hit myself in the head with it.

What a good boy!  He could knock me down at this point and kiss me to death...he did a really good job, and now has a UTD title.  I just love this dog!

And this was baby, Blast.  Almost three years ago, what a little cutie he was.

 Judge Jack Wilhelm presents us with our lovely Rosette and map of our track.

The wind was still pretty strong so I'm trying to keep the ribbons from blowing around over Blasts' head.  We were pretty cold all day, and the sun just came out near the end of the day.  Blast works well in the wind, so it was really a great day for us!

 Most of the group of spectators waiting for one of the UTDX dog to start its track.

The tracklayers who are so appreciated to volunteer two days to work at these tests....or is it the fish and chips lunch on plotting day that brings them out?!!  Thanks to Jack Wilhelm (our judge) and Louise Weaver (from New Brunswick) who was apprenticing in UTD this weekend.  It was so nice to meet Louise, as we've only 'met' on the Tracking Council Conference calls, and great to talk to her about German Shepherds, as well.
As someone pointed out later, there were four CKC judges attending, and there were also four CKC Tracking Reps.  Kind of unusual. 
We would sure have liked more passes on Sunday, but I think everyone enjoyed the day anyway, watching some nice dogs working and enjoying each others' stories.  Thanks to everyone from myself and Blast, who got a lot of attention! (and there's more pictures, yet, thanks to everyone that contributed).  A really good day!

First Day Tracking Workshop

I've not offered classes for over a year due to the amount of time I needed and wanted to spend with my own dogs last year. Getting Trusts' UTDX (and TCh) was very time consuming, along with continuing Tanks' and Blasts' Urban training. However, a few former students or ones attending seminars in the past were interested. I decided to do a four week workshop for those already having some tracking knowledge, so it would not start as a "beginner" class. A few of the dogs will be beginners but not the owners. Ending up with enough to split it into two days, we began with the smaller group today...three owners and four dogs.

Funny, there are two dogs named "Gracie" in the Wednesday class. Cheryl and Gracie have finished their first track. We did a refresher on how to lay a proper track to begin with, then each person went out and laid their own tracks, just two legs and one corner. Our "other" Gracie, with Ramona heading out to the second track. The second tracks were laid by me, two in my socks, no boots, how lucky were those dogs!?This is Ramona and Gracie on their first track, nearing their first corner. Nice fields and good conditions today for the first class.Where the heck did Maurita go? She is out laying her first track, and finally spotted a tiny, moving speck way out there just left of the trees on the right.She did come back! Actually this is her on her second track with Thomas. He earned a TD over a year ago, and had a bit of layoff, but think they will now work towards their TDX this year...I'm hoping...While I'm out laying the last two tracks, the "attentive" group is waiting. Well, at least Libby is watching!Rewarding Thomas at the end of his first track...lots of play with Maurita and the glove.Gracie nears her article on the first track, and Ramona is moving up to play with her.Cheryl and Gracie with their glove ending their second track. Gracie's saying give it to me, it's mine!!!!I love this picture. Libby is an "older" girl and has finished her second track today. Ramona has the article in her hand, and I think this picture just shows the bond between them. Libby had the last track of the day and a very long walk in and out when the temperature had become warmer. She certainly earned her reward.

Two Dogs, Two Tracks...cont'd...

Like Emmas' track below, Blasts' first one was laid by the "stranger". The second one by me in another location.

He was certainly interested at the scent pad to get going!Blast moved off nicely on the scent. The temp. had warmed up considerably by this time, each track on Sunday had different conditions.I included this photo just to show he moved off the track to a piece of garbage, quickly dismissed it as "not ours" and came right back to the track.The track navigated through a number of obstacles on the first leg, we also had someone park and walk across the sidewalk ahead and into the building. After the last picnic table, and before the spruce tree, we will turn left onto the parking lot.

Out a ways on the asphalt, he found his first article, which was a folded in half sock.

Still on the same leg, as we move past this car, he is directly on a left turn, just indicating that, and beginning to curve around into it.A long leg here is taking him to his last article.And he's found it. I was exceptionally pleased at how he worked on the "strangers" track, aged an hour. After this we moved to the other location. Just a few pics. here from 1/2 way through the track.Moving off the grass onto the sidewalk, and then crossing the road.I move closer on the line for the road crossing, he has his nose down working great. And just as we start to cross the road....In comes a truck, parks over our track, two fellows get out and start putting things in the car. Oh, well, I'll just stay close to Blast. They walked back and forth two times before we reached them. Blast just went around the truck to the back and worked to find the track there. There was a left turn and we continued on through the parking area.Where's the article? When I had begun to lay this track, there was a fellow picking up twigs and garbage in the area. I left a flat piece of white leather (directly in front of where I'm standing) and on it clearly marked "dog search article please leave here". Well, it was gone! Blast was exactly on the track leading to this. If it had been there, he would have found it. However, while I'm looking in ever direction in case it was just moved...he continued on to the grass (still on my track after the article) and then circled and came back. So...I can't really say he was "searching" for the article...but he would have found it, had it been where left. So in a test...judges' call. Was he actively searching for it? I doubt it. On aged tracks on pavement? I doubt it. But had it been there, knowing he was directly on the track, it 'should' be a pass...at least I think so...

Two dogs, Four tracks...

Last Sunday we had a "stranger" lay very short tracks for Emma and Blast and gave him flags to mark the corners to make sure we could determine how the dog was working following someone "new". They both did great, so we were very pleased.

This was Emma early on her first leg, going through garbage. She totally ignore all of it.She's just confidently taken her first corner (see green flag) in front of Tascha.Last leg, Emma is running by this time, to reach her article. Very nice. I've just put a few pictures from each of her two tracks on here.

New location, track laid by Tascha. Emma is just turning off the first leg, crossing some dirt/gravel and on to the grass again. When we came back to do this track, we had to wait to let the little tractor (seen below) go by. He had been running back and forth right over her first leg while we were gone!!!The fellow in the tractor and the one raking were quite fascinated watching this little dog. They were kind enough at this point to wait while Tascha and Emma went past. I had previously stopped when driving through and explained what we were doing. We figured this complete track had been walked, raked, or driven over many times before Emma did a good job on it!She had a little trouble at this corner, Tascha standing on it. The turn was in the middle of the driveway, lots of contamination, but she worked hard and got it and off she went. Shortly after this, a man stopped, blocking their way, wanting to talk about 'the little dog with the bushy tail'....you just never know. She went on down the driveway, made another turn up onto grass.And shortly found her article. Such a little cutie Emma is!!!