Tracking Trial/Test

The "food court/gathering place".

Last Sunday I attended my first Tracking Trial/Test, at McKowen's farm in Jackson, LA., about an hour from home.  I didn't have a dog entered, but our club sponsored the test and several members were entered or at least there to help out, and I went to observe and get a feel for the sport, see if maybe it is something I might like to do with Lucky.  I enjoyed the country air and scenery, the merry band of participants, being in charge of the food, and ferrying track-layers and other folk up and down the country roads.  But I found that tracking is not a spectator sport.

Here's my description of tracking:  One harnessed dog at a time, at the end of a 40' lead, nose to the ground, walking too and fro in tall grass in an expansive open field, looking for/following an invisible track for 20 minutes or so, far in the distance and sometimes disappearing over a rise or into a gully, and nobody but the judge knows if D is tracking the track or is following other scents, since nobody can see where the track is.  We're watching the sport from the back of a pick-up truck on the side of the road, or tromping across the field a great distance behind.  And since that track can only be used once, the entire crew in several cars is then transported to another field, sometimes miles down the road, where someone has gone and laid a track, and sometimes a cross track, hours before.


Cheryl and Grace try for their TDX.

I was asked to photograph what I could, even tried to video Tracey with Spirit from the Start flag to finish, but used up a whole lot of video and didn't get much worth keeping.  Comparing that with agility runs, where you can always see both dog and handler, runs only last a minute, and screwups as well as victories are obvious, trying to video tracking is tedious. As to photos, my little Sony Cybershot just didn't cut it.  One needs a powerful telephoto lens for distance shots.  So I borrowed this one from Cheryl's web gallery.

I had envisioned more excitement, like on TV where a dog bounds through the marsh grasses to find a duck his owner has just shot out of the sky, finds bodies in the rubble after a building collapse, or tracks a criminal with unwavering certainty. But then, I only watched 2 dogs track (Spirit and Grace) because the tracks were so spread out, and I didn't see the titling performances -- the two teams that got their TD or TDX.  Plus, the weeds were tall, the briars aplenty, there were logs to trip over, soggy mud, my boots were not as comfortable as my tennies, it was growing hot, and I was on the lookout for snakes the whole time.

No doubt the performing teams found it exhilirating, but as a spectator, I found it painfully slow-moving. Maybe if they ran all-out, and pointed or howled at the articles, the action would seem more intriguing.  So as for me, for now, I'm thinking that I have plenty enough other opportunities to be outdoors and work with my dogs, and Agility is right where I am supposed to be putting my efforts right now.

Still, I'm glad the sport exists, glad our club puts on a trial each year, and glad to help, but I wish there was some other way to test my dogs' tracking abilities.  How are their noses compared to other dogs?  And I still intend, someday, to give lure-coursing a crack.  I would do so next weekend except that we have the Mobile Agility trial on the same weekend.  Bummer!

Upwards and onward,

Intro to Tracking, Turkey Soup

Yesterday I had a surprise visit from Tracey, a fellow club member that trains about 10 dogs, and is involved in agility, obedience, tracking, lure coursing, as well as herding.  She keeps a blog about dog training, too, which is what originally inspired me to start my own.

She came by with two of her Beagles, Spirit and Xanadu, to practice weaves in a different location.  It's important, see, to get your D used to performing all the obstacles in strange places, with different smells, people, dogs, etc., so they don't get psyched out at trials.  Tracey did that awhile, then it turns out she was going to take another beagle, Lego, out tracking.  She had "laid a track" about 3 hours before in a big field behind a McDonalds in Denham Springs.  I asked if I could come along and watch, brought Lucky, and she gave me an introductory lesson. It was neat.

I have already ordered the book, "Tracking From The Ground Up", and am waiting for it to come in so I can teach Lucky the basics, then I'm supposed to get in Kay's class in January.  Not that I can ever compete with Lucky in AKC tracking, because they only allow pure-bred scent hounds to compete (a stupid rule, in my opinion, since any dog of any breed can accidently have extraordinary skills the same way people do).  But we can have some fun, and I study more closely, learn what she's is made of, and what the tracking thing is all about.

On the way home from the track I got a call from Thom and Judy.  They have some turkey carcasses for me to make turkey soup with, and a bunch of giblets.  They also gave me a whole fried turkey.  So I knew what I'd be doing last night, boiling turkey bones.

Next, we went to Nedra's house to see the progress on her workshop.  WOW!  Impressive.  Now that she is retired (at age 70) she is going to have time for lots of projects.  I got a chance to show John all her framed jig saw puzzles, and we got a chance to talk about LCCOC a bit, possibilities for publicity and fundraising, a stronger mentorship program, and other things that have been on my mind.  Nedra is a fellow club member, our Treasurer and Trial Secretary, who's been in the club for over 35 years.  She's been on the board forever and knows a lot about how the club works, not to mention she is also my advanced agility instructor.

Then I went to Thom's and picked up my turkey.  Turns out there was only one carcass and it was so burned I couldn't use it.  But the whole one was so delicious, I have never tasted such a delicious turkey.  It wasn't burned on the outside like most fried turkeys I've seen, and injected with something scruptious.  I called and told them to remember the exact steps but they said they are always experimenting and couldn't remember what batch that was. So, I'll probably never have such a good turkey again.  Oh, I also picked up about 3 lbs of giblets.  When Thom buys his turkeys, he doesn't use the giblet packages, so he saves them for me.  If I don't cook them for myself (John hates giblets), I will use them to make dog treats.

I sliced up all the meat and put it in the freezer in 1 lb. containers, half white and half dark.  We ate about a pound of it for supper.  I boiled the bones and set them out to cool in my freezer room overnight (in fall and winter, with temperatures in the 30's to low 50's, I open the window and use the room as a refrigerator). Today, I picked 3 lbs of meat off the bones (what most people throw away), saved all the necks and skin for the dogs and cats, and am making a huge pot of turkey soup right now. We have weekend company coming in around 8.  Maybe they'll be hungry.

Gotta go clear some clutter, dust some furniture.

Upwards and onward,