Tracking ... Ian?

Yes, it's true. Something got into me this week, and I put out a track for Ian. I couldn't quite remember where we left off. His erratic, spastic flinging at the end of his line is all I really remembered about tracking him back in the fall of 2006.

So I set up a "puppy" track of a 10 yard, 20 yard and 40 yard track with food. I shouldn't have bothered with the food. He tracked me through the tall grass all the way to the first flag. The food on the track just slowed him down. However, I had no frantic behaviour! He was calm and seemed to know his job.

That was a couple of days ago, so this morning I laid an 80 yard straight line for him and aged it about 15 minutes. I pulled him out of the van, and he calmly turned and waited for his harness. He put his head into the harness and stood calmly for me to pull his leg through it and buckle it. Was I sure I had the right dog?

OH, I remembered what a brat he was as he pulled like crazy away from me as I tried to walk him across the parking lot. However, when I stopped and put the tracking line on the harness instead of his buckle collar, he suddenly walked calmly in front of me across the road. Then when we got to the grass on the other side, Ian actually started searching for his track! He looked like a real tracking Belgian!

Our 80 yard line went really well. He's no longer frantic at the end of the line. He doesn't drop his head as I would like, but he's doing quite well for his second time out. I think I'm going to give him another long line tomorrow morning and see what he does. We may actually think about a TD for him next year!