We've also been doing some tracking

Tracking has been a little hit and miss lately. Last week I laid a TD track for Page on the way to do some field training. I figured it would be aged a couple of hours by the time I ran it. Well, it was 3.5 hours old when I got back to it. It was 520 yards long with 5 turns. Page ran it like it was 30 minutes old. She really is a great pup, and I was over the top about this track.

Last weekend we had some beautiful cool weather in the mid-70s. It felt like fall in August, and I was thrilled. On Sunday, we met the Ripleys and Archie for some tracking. Archie hasn't been feeling well for several weeks, battling a flare up of Lyme Disease. We started to see it in his tracking, where he would miss metal articles and stand at times like he wasn't sure what to do. This is NOT Archie!

Well he is well on the road to recovery! On Sunday he did a beautiful 384 VST track and found all of his articles (even when I didn't see his metal article)! There were lots of hoops and hollers for Archie, and it was great to see!

Devon and Page got some nice tracks, too. Devon's was aged 2 hours and had chalk at transitions. I had posted a few weeks ago that Devon hadn't been tracking with a lot of confidence, but she was back to her old self on Sunday! Time off can be a very valuable training tool.

Devon motored through her track and was really having fun. Next to the building and parking lot where her track was, there was a large retention pond and geese. She saw them when we started the track, but as we moved away from them, she forgot about them.

But when the track went along a sidewalk headed right for the pond, Devon picked up her pace! Devon was pulling and wagging with her nose down off the sidewalk and onto the grass along the side of the pond when I heard Janet behind me say, "I actually made a left turn on the sidewalk back here...." She so much nicer than judges who blow whistles! ;-) I laughed as I watched Devon in all her glorious tracking posture a good 40 ft away from the turn she blew by and I said, "Not according to Devon!" We all laughed.

About that time Devon figured the jig was up, and she put her head up and circled left. She was headed directly around the pond to where the geese were standing. Too much field work! This girl was changing sports on me! She quickly back tracked on her own looking for her track, and as soon as she got to the turn on the sidewalk she took it and tracked to her glove. It was sitting on the seat of a metal picnic table, and she wasn't fooled! She reached right up, snagged it and carried it right back to Janet! This excitement and great attitude were awesome for me to see.

Page's track ended up being 3 hours and 15 minutes old when we ran it. This was the oldest VST track she's ever run. She had chalk and transitions and a MOT turn -- her first! Page went off the start like it was a 30 minute track. This girl doesn't mind age. She tracked strong across veg and non-veg to the front of the building.

The fronts of buildings with entrance doors give Page lots to investigate. She searched every seam in the pavement and sniffed every flower and every planter pot. Janet had been teasing me earlier when I didn't know the names of plants and flowers (hey, she's the gardener and I'm the one with an animal science degree!). I told them Page was going to get her undergraduate degree in horticulture with the way she was examining the flowers!

Any other dog would have looked up and seen the bright yellow dog toy on the sidewalk 15 yards ahead. Nope, not Page. She was WORKING! I couldn't push this dog through a track if I tried. Her investigations finally took her past the entrance doors and into the flower bed on the other side. After a tour where she again sniffed every flower, she used her nose to go back to the track and found the yellow dog toy the hard way -- from the side using her nose!

From there Page tracked right on to her MOT turn. This really threw her and it was late in the track. She found the chalk and twice put her nose down on the new leg and once tracked it 10 ft. However, she just couldn't commit. Once I rescented her and stepped onto the new leg, she picked it up and tracked to the glove.

This was a really nice track for a 6 month old puppy. She found her articles and indicated them (she even shook the toy and loved the plastic article with cookies in it). I'm really proud of her work up to this point. I'll try and sneak in some more tracking in the next week or so.