Coyote?! Blasts' Urban Track

 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.

Tanks' Interesting Urban Track

 I laid a "nice" track in local town around a community centre, large gravel parking area, roofed-over skating enclosure, past tennis court and skateboard place.  It all looked pretty good.  This was great, as finally had rain/storms the day before, so for once it would still be damp and cool.  Before laying Tanks' I had also put one down for Blast in another area.  Because heating up quickly though, plan was to age only an hour each. So, in the picture above, first leg, is that a giant hydrant or a tiny Tank?

 When we arrived to start the track, suddenly I hear an air horn from the front of the community centre!  Then...a "herd" of little kids run screaming from the front door (other side of above building) heading over to where Tanks' 4th,5th,6th legs are, around the rink area, plus one article was left there.  Oh, great!  Tank and I stood and watched them tramp all over this area, meanwhile the air horn kept going...he didn't seem to care, I probably had my mouth open.  After that, they all ran and scattered all over the gravel parking area (another article there) and the grass next to that.  Could you possibly plan...or ask...for more recent contamination?!  I didn't know what to expect when we reached the corner above, heading into the parking area!

 No problem, says Tank and headed nicely out on the gravel with just a glance towards the screaming kids.  Above, he went about 5-6' past the corner and just came back to it.

 Another air horn as he heads towards the running herd of kids.  I was expecting at least some to come over to see Tank, but they were signalled back into the building.  Probably the "young kid herders" thought this looked like a killer dog!  Worked for me.

 Much to my surprise, the first article (metal) was still where I left it.  Tank made a small circle around it before zeroing in, but I was impressed he even found it after it had been so well trampled over.

 We completed another stretch on the gravel, then moved onto grass, with another turn towards the roofed over rink area.  Tank worked really nicely over hear, part of the main running route of the kids.  He's about 2' right of the track and then jumped over the stone drainage path, checked the other side, and jumped back again before making the left turn.

 Big jump!  I'm sure the kids had travelled on both side of the rocked area.  He found no 'tracklayer scent' on the other side, though, and found the corner right away.

 The next turn is on a narrow hard packed gravel driveway with an article to the side on the next leg.  Surprised it was still there also, a small cloth glove.

 That's it!  He was very pleased, he loves cloth gloves and picked it up to bring back to me.  That's when I noticed someone was playing tennis, the court to the left on top of the hill.  And Tank heard the tennis ball bounce!

 So the rest of this leg was Tank stopping, alert to the bouncing tennis ball, me saying get back to work, Tank stopping, me telling him to leave it, and on it went to the next turn.  He sooooo wanted that bouncing tennis ball (note to self...have someone bouncing or throwing a ball nearby on another track, or leave some scattered over one leg).

 Once he made the turn, he was fine, concentrating on the track again.  So we had gone over all the stinky kid areas by the time we moved further down this leg.  I was so pleased with his work on all these areas.  The final article is across a narrow paved driveway and beside a dumpster.

Oh, goody, he says, another glove.  We seem to often run into unusual things, all unplanned and unexpected, on many of our tracks.  This is great for training opportunities as you never have any idea what might happen on an urban test track.
What I always wonder with urban tracking, is what the heck happens when you age a track for 3 hr. or more, and are gone?  You have absolutely no idea what or who might have been on your track while you have left it to age.
We've done so little training with the extremely hot and humid weather for many weeks and I was blown away by both Tank and Blast today with how well they handled everything.  Aging just an hour was to assist them because of this, already getting hot and humid by 10 a.m. and of course, never expecting extra difficulty with major contamination.  It was a good feeling, and Tank was super happy after each article and completion.  Nice.

TDX "Test" Training Track for Blast

 We finally had rain (2 hrs. worth!) two nights ago after weeks of dry, hot weather. I decided to get Blast out on a "test" track to see how he did and where we were at.  Our neighbours at the end of our dead end road have a beautiful field recently cut...about 200 acres.  It was so beautiful, dead quiet and peaceful.  This field is surrounded by hundreds of acres on the east of nothing but forest and wild creatures.  I LOVE TDX tracking!  So off I went to plot.  The first group of pics. are while I plotted.  Above is where I parked, the west side entrance to the field. 

 I'm standing at the start and the red line shows our first leg which goes over the distant slope and then makes a right turn into the main field.

 Out in the middle, there's a hill way back and more field behind.  Can you see the teeny hay bales waaaay back there?

 I'm standing on the top of a hill looking back to where the track began (see first picture) and where I will end it.  I make a turn to the left and another to the right after leaving this area.  There's a little red arrow pointing out the start, and a red X pointing out where the last article will be.

 Standing at the end here, looking back up towards the top of the hill.  Most of the track was beyond the crest of the hill.

 The track was well over 1000 metres and I planned to age it 2 to 2 1/2 hr.  However it ended up aged 3 1/2 hr. so was truly a "test" track for Blast.  Our phone line was not working well, and I ran into the repair guy coming out.  He found live hydro voltage going through the Bell line...very weird.  So now the hydro has to come out and fix that problem.  At least our phone line, for now, is working better.  I was concerned about the track age, but prepared to 'help' if necessary.  It wasn't.

 So this is Blast heading out on the first leg as shown in the plotting pictures.

 Here he is on the second of eight legs and just reached his first article.  His first leg was very, very long and I like to reward after that important first corner.  I had back back in my pocket for him.  He also needs work on 'better' indications, so this also works.

 Blast is on the third leg, just having turned the corner.  His corners were very good all along the track.  He checked a very short distance each way before committing.

 Heading waaaaay up and over this hill into the back area of the field and track.  On the fourth leg here.

 We didn't even use 1/3 of the field length to do this long track.  So nice to have lots of space for any configuration you want to do.  Blast just turned right and is now on the second longest leg of the track.  He will find an article about 2/3 of the way through.

 Arrow is pointing out an upright hay bale which was my sighting.  The second article is still a long way off.  I remembered putting it in a little dip, then thinking...I hope he finds it, not sure I could!  He did, he was right on!

 So we've completed that long leg, made a right turn heading down the hill, and another left turn to take us over to the bush, and another right turn.  There we go through some scrubby areas and very close to the bush.  Once past that, his speed picked up as it usually does on a 'last' leg, heading to the final article.  He was doing great, I have to say he impressed me.

 And there it is.  A bit of coaxing to stop and down, he still wanted to continue on.  The back bacon is worthwhile though!!!

 Every time we had passed closely to any hay bale, I saw him take a quick glance towards them.  He loves to jump up on these, so we went over to one with his glove and up he went...trying to destroy the glove...that's "his thing".  I have to rescue them pretty quickly!

What a gorgeous boy he is...happy and proud.  He did a really great job.  Unfortunately, we then had to go through the field again and pick up the flags I had left in advance of some corners (which was for my benefit, except now had to walk another track distance)

Agility Fun! Dogs Don't Forget!

 I set up the various pieces of equipment down at the bend in the driveway.  There are some others, but they are set aside from these four as I plan to sell them.

 This tunnel above is 15' and the one below is 10'.  It was a lot of fun when we were dong this, but I know I won't get involved with it again.

 Trust remembered right away how to do this.  I think she was showing off to Tank.

 So, with Trust as a tutor, I set Tank up at the other end.

 I guess he forgot running "through" the tunnel is the game.

 Second try, I had a ball at the other end, however......

 Trust decides to run along with him this time, and through he goes!  After that it was tunnel fever for both of them!

 I only had to say "Tire" to Trust, and she was through it.  Such a smart cookie. 

The slant is me, I was taking the tire pics. through something else and obviously couldn't crouch down level! 
I've decided to sell some of my agility equipment as we've not been involved with it for some time. Too many other things to do, mainly tracking, of course! Trust was the main one involved some years ago. I remember (not sure why) I was always surprised that she loved it; perhaps it was because she always just seemed so "serious" and not as playful as she turned out to be. Tank did a little, for fun, but then Blast came along, and a little later, Kira.  I had originally started agility for fun with little Storm, our last sheltie.  I am keeping a few things, so will just play a little with it when we go on our walks.