I am so very proud of Blast. Yesterday, October 21st, he earned his UTDX (Urban Tracking Dog Excellent) title at Cross Crountry Tracking Clubs' Urban Test in Whitby/Oshawa. Judge Marie Babin is presenting us with his rosette in the above picture.
Blast earned his TD in fall of 2010, in Sudbury, judge Sharon Smith. This year, in April, he earned his UTD in Whitby, judge Jack Wilhelm; his TDX in Sept. at Powassan, judge Laura Mackay; and the UTDX yesterday. Earning all four levels of CKC tracking titles now makes Blast a Champion Tracking Dog. He is just three years of age. What a great dog he is.
TCh Carmspack Blast was bred by Carmen Duggan, (Carmspack), Whitby...just as TCh Carmspack Trust RN CD was. Determined, willing working dogs. Thank you to Carmen for these two special dogs, and going back to my wonderful Spook, as well, who was from Kilo. Spook had her TDX, which was before urban tracking came into play. However, Spook did, what we would now consider, urban tracks in a couple of demonstrations many years ago. They were in very well aged, high traffic areas, and I remember wondering how in the heck she was able to do this, and so well, back then.
Yesterday, Blast began our track on newly mowed grass, with very windy conditions from our right, and the line was winging out to the left in a convex curve. Blast had a good start, but with the wind, was going slightly out to left and back onto the track as he worked along it. The first leg was the longest leg, and made a left turn after brushing through some trees. Shortly after, he found his first article (cloth). We had another right turn coming up, then a left, and this area had some little rolling hilly areas with a mucky ditch running through. He had to work very hard in this area. I found out later, there had been about 50 Canada Geese down in there when the track was laid. Surprisingly, I didn't notice the 'poop', I was concentrating on his body.
The wind swirled around in this area, but I was surprised he was having as much difficulty in there as he seemed to be. He worked very hard and eventually got back to the track, down another hill and across a paved driveway opening into a parking lot. I remember feeling a little relieved at this point. Blast is normally excellent on hard surface. So we had the strong wind at our backs now, and were working down alongside a building to our left. He "looked" up a couple of times to the right, but didn't make any real attempt to turn. I remember seeing a Timmies' cup, upright, out in the parking lot, wondering how come it wasn't blowing off, and thought perhaps this had caught his attention. But...he was moving ahead. Then he began to turn and circle back towards that area. He passed the cup, and then I thought (maybe) I saw what he was headed to....a wood article on the centre of crisscrossing yellow parking lines. Could it be? It was! Such a good boy. However, this meant we had gone past it, off the actual track with the wind, with him coming "back" to it. I was a bit confounded at that point. (Blast has always been terrific at 'finding' items that have been lost for ages or buried under snow in winter.) I believe his earlier "looking up" that way indicated he picked up on 'something' but had continued to carry on. So, he then had to work the direction from there again, went ahead a little, climbing a knoll which overlooked a busy road. On the other side of the road was the gallery! These people staring over at us required being barked at!!! Gave me more heart failure at this point, as I verbally encouraged he get back to the job at hand. With the occasional backward glance at this group, he continued on the grass section, right of the actual track, through a bushy spot at the corner, a turn, and headed back to the track on the pavement. At this point, he returned to his normal Blast hard surface work, and took off down the final leg to his last article, a leather glove. I knew when he hit that leg again on the pavement, he had it nailed. Apparently, I was running behind him, although I don't remember...What a thrill. He did it! I have to say, he put a good scare in me, he worked so hard and usually is very quick on his training tracks. I knew he was getting concerned a couple of times out there, but he never gave up. When he reached his glove, he was determined to rip it apart (he does this when it's a glove) so I had to rescue it quickly, he had only taken a small piece off it, as it was our 'keepsake'.
Thank you to our judge, Marie Babin, our tracklayer, Pamela Burns, and everyone at the club and other spectators cheering us on. It was really great to see old friends and meet new ones yesterday. Our track had seven legs, six turns, and
three of those corners were on the hard surface!
Getting up at 2:45 a.m. and the 4 hr. drive each way was worth it! Tascha who is our biggest supporter and supplier of all the bad food we eat on these trips was much appreciated by Blast as well as me.
