A Little More Tracking

Well, now that the weather has gotten nicer, Mom has finally started taking me out tracking again. When I saw her putting flags and gloves and CHEESE in the car, I was so excited! We went out to a campground park in the desert where we have tracked before to spend some time with Aunt Debbi, my tracking instructor, who is putting on a 3 week beginning tracking class. Of course, I am no beginner, but we thought it would be fun anyway. Mom keeps forgetting which card she is on in her tracking records so we did a couple of shorter tracks with one corner. It was super windy, but I did great! Mom is working on teaching me an automatic down when I find an article, but really I get so excited when I find the CHEESE that I sometimes forget. I will try harder though, for Mom.

Here I am modeling my tracking harness:

I really love to track! Sniffing things is my forte. I do it all the time. Even when I was done tracking and Mom let me run for a bit, all I wanted to do was track!

I am a master cheese finder.

We are going again next week and the week after, and then maybe Mom will start taking me to other parks and laying tracks for me more often. I really hope so!

Back to Tracking

Yesterday morning Mom took me out tracking for the first time since spring! I was so excited when she started cutting up string cheese and steak bits (usually I track with hot dogs but with short notice, she had to share her steak with me!). We drove to a big local park to meet a couple of friends and their dogs, and then I got to watch the other dogs track first. I could hardly wait my turn! Mom is using Sil Sanders' book "Enthusiastic Tracking" and the Field Cards that go along with it. We had been in section 3 last spring, but were mixing it with a bit of Search and Rescue stuff. So Mom and her trainer decided to go back to basics and start me over with straight tracks and go through all the beginner cards again as a refresher course for me. That's all good! More hot dogs for me!

Yesterday I did one long, straight track laden with food. Mom introduced the down at the beginning of the track and as an indication when finding an article. I did great and Mom is going to take me tracking on her own a few times a week as well as meeting with her trainer as we progress. We are working towards an AKC TD title but the trainer likes the Schutzhund tracking style of footstep to footstep tracking and a deep nose. I think if she wanted a "deep nose" she should have seen me jumping in the river at Dock Diving practice! My nose was really deep then!

Mom didn't take any pictures of me tracking yesterday so here is a picture of me in stealth mode. I am very good at hiding. If you look really hard you might be able to find me in this picture!

Bye for now!

Saber Tracks!

When I was a wee pup, my Mom knew I was super special. I come from a long line of good sniffers; in fact several of my littermates went to Search and Rescue homes. My sister Jenga is a cadaver dog! Not my cup of tea, unless it is a bacon cadaver, but somebody's got to do it. I have a great nose myself, and my Mom started me tracking with the local dog training club when I was 14 weeks old (in February 2011). My first time out I did two puppy tracks lined with hot dogs (yum!) and kept my nose right to the ground like a good tracking dog. Two weeks later I was at it again and did three longer tracks. Here are some pictures of my Mom and me tracking that day:

Yep, I am a natural.

My third time out, at 4 months old, it was raining and cold and Mom took me out in the middle of nowhere to a hay field. I did a couple of short tracks, then a 60 yard track, then another pretty long one with a 45-degree turn and almost no food or markers. Mom didn't even know where the track was, but I did! I followed them all perfectly right to the end.

I went tracking every weekend for awhile. In May when I was almost 6 months old, I did three 100-yard tracks (one with a turn). Then we did some off-leash SAR work finding people hiding in the desert, and afterwards we went back and ran those three (now aged) tracks again without adding any new bait. I did great! I am so good at finding people and articles. I am pretty proud of myself!

One time in the fall, right after I turned a year old, Mom took me tracking at a local park on the river, which was supremely awesome because the whole field was covered in GOOSE POOP!! YUM!! Of course Mom was rather disgusted and kept telling me to "leave it" but hey how do you expect me to discern between a hot dog and a goose poop snack when I am following a track?? Both are so flavorful. It was rather difficult and frustrating for Mom but I secretly hoped we would keep going back there for tracking practice. Alas, so far we have not. So tragic. What a waste of good goose poop.

So we haven't gone tracking since last fall. There have been tons of rattlesnakes here this spring and Mom was a little nervous about that, so I had to get a rattlesnake vaccine just in case. Mom says we are going to start seriously tracking every week and working towards an AKC TD (Tracking Dog) title as soon as school starts again for the human kids. I can't wait! I will share all of my tracking adventures here on the blog. Maybe if I am lucky we will go back to that park by the river! Mmmmm. ::drool:: Well, a dog can dream!