vikingdobermans.com Blog

Saturday, Apr 11, 2009 and Easter Sunday – Apr 12, 2009

Saturday, Apr 11, 2009

It rained all day, often pouring!  I met Tori at 8:30am at Park School field (behind Villa Julie)…. oh, so nice!  Green and plush.  Almost too good.

I laid a track (in the rain), with four legs and an article on each leg.  Not much wind, but wet, wet, wet.  In retrospect, I should have taken Charlie out of the car and gotten him used to the rain, the wet grass and the cool temps.  I didn’t and although he tracked and downed on each article, he looked like a wet, hunched up, drowned rat…. not a happy camper.  His nose was not as deep as I would have liked for the first leg, but he did settle down and put his nose to work.  On the second leg, he “saw” the article about three steps before getting there and just went to it and downed.  When the food was present, he slowed, when it was not, his pace was faster and his nose higher.  The good news was he never quit and he didn’t react poorly to the reminders to ”go easy”… 

Tori did a food-laden track for Frodo and he nailed it!  I brought Zelda out and she cleaned any hotdogs up that Frodo missed and then Tori brought Dusty out to play and run with Charlie and Zelda.  No hotdogs were left after Zelda went down Frodo’s track, but Dusty checked each footstep diligently!  Very impressive.  Tori then laid a short track for Dusty and she happily checked the scent box and the three or four steps out.  Good girl.  The dogs romped in the rain, we tried to dry them off as best we could and the hour plus drive to the training field was a wet dog smelling extraveganza.

 Easter Sunday, Apr 12, 2009

 Easter dawned with the sun shining, the rain stopped and the dogs ready for a romp and with the exception of it being 6:20am!, I would have been more than glad to comply.  As it was, I put them off by offering belly rubs and head petting and we actually hit the field by my house at 7am… perfect time for bunny hunting!  Thank goodness, Charlie continues to smell the bunnies, chase the bunnies, but not catch the bunnies, so the score remains Bunnies-a zillion and Charlie-zip.

 After the morning walk and my morning coffee, we load up and drive to Villa Julie for a tracking session.  I’m still working on my ability to watch and read Charlie Brown, my track laying skills, Charlie’s corners, Charlie’s commitment to a deep nose and to reinforcing Charlie’s commitment to the track.

When laying the track, I try to take into account the wind direction, the placement of food on the track, my corners and placement of articles.  I still struggle with knowing where the track is exactly, especially if the wind is blowing and Charlie is off a step or two and I can’t read him well and the conditions keep me from seeing my footsteps.  I’m working on it.  I’m getting better.  I’m not there yet.  I know that no training is better than bad training, but truthfully, if I don’t get out there and track alone, we won’t get anywhere at all.  I’d love to make tracking happen with a tracking “coach”, but everything seems to get in the way of having an experienced tracking coach available more than here and there.  It is trial season now and the two individuals I would normally track with are busy training their own dogs, busy traveling to and from trials… busy.  It could be a bad decision (not my first, not my last), but I’ve decided that tracking and training are important and I’ll do them alone when an experienced hand is not available and suffer the consequences.