Part 2
Saturday
After the Friday tests were over it was my responsibility to put the blood down on the three lines for Saturday morning. Claire Mancha, an NATC member who had flown in from Oregon for the workshop, assisted me and it barely took three hours to complete. Because of all the rain the night before, the ground was soft and moist and the deer feet on the tracking shoes stayed moist and sank into the ground the whole time the lines were being walked. I was expecting the Saturday morning Test to have much better conditions than we had on Friday morning but I ended up being quite wrong.
At 1:00AM Saturday morning a torrential thunderstorm came through and it poured for an hour and continued to rain hard for another hour after that. By morning it was anybody's guess how well the lines might have held up but I was not too optimistic. Just to make matters a little more interesting, it continued to drizzle on and off the rest of the day.
The judges for Saturday's test were Mme Agnes de France, Teddy Moritz and myself. The first dog up was from Canada. Steve Durocher's male wirehair Whiskey was raring to go at the start and took great interest in the hit site but unfortunately could not do much with the line. The smell of fresh tracks shortly after the start kept luring Whiskey away from the very faint scent left on the test line after the previous night's rain. Whiskey was called back for lack of progress after 30 minutes and shown the line. After another 10 minutes of working hard but not being able to make progress on the line the judges ended the test.
Steve Durocher (Canada) and Whiskey |
John Jeanneney (NY) and Joeri |
Training note: I discussed with Steve later after the test what I thought would have been a better way to handle the situation with the hot line. Steve could read his dog very well and clearly knew when she was tracking hot and not on the blood line but he never actually stepped in and let her know firmly that taking the hot line was wrong. I would have given her a very firm "no" and perhaps a pretty good leash jerk for tracking hot. Especially when she went right back in the hot line's direction on the restart after the first call back. I asked Steve if perhaps Flair was a softer dog and could not have handled the correction and he said she was quite tough and easily could handle discipline on the line. I can only guess but I believe his dog could have passed the test if Steve had taken assertive action early on when his dog started to investigate the hot line.
After the second restart Flair seemed to settle in a little better but her concentration was clearly diminished from chasing all the hot scent. She was able to pick her way along the next 140m but as she approached the first turn she wavered off the line and ended up catching a piece of the second leg and bringing it back to the corner. She worked the check at the corner for quite some time and Steve could tell his dog was struggling and did not have the line so he would not let her go too far off from where she last had it. They circled a bunch of times and eventually the judges decided that the dog and handler needed to make progress or the test would be terminated. The handler was informed that he needed to make progress for the test to continue. At that point Steve gave Flair her head and just went with her. There really was no other choice. Unfortunately, she went off in the wrong direction and Steve and Flair received a third call back and the test was over.
It had been another tough day of conditions and the conditions had made it too difficult for any of the dogs to pass the test.
Part 3
Epilogue
And now for a funny story (depending on your perspective) and a little bragging. The NATC event was held at a Boy Scout camp in northern New Jersey. Most of the participants were staying in cabins right on the grounds. The night after the test, at 4 AM Sunday morning Eibe woke me up and kept standing on me. She wouldn't go back to sleep so I decided to let her out thinking she must have had to take a leak. Well as soon as I opened the cabin door all heck broke loose. She bolted out and around the door, and all I heard was a blood curdling scream that sounded like her guts were being ripped out. When I looked behind the door I saw something furry and two feet high fighting with my dog and the both of them disappearing off into the woods 10 yards away with my dog still screaming. I thought a coon or a coyote was dragging my dog off!
When I finally ran close and got my flashlight on all the commotion (bare foot and in my underwear no less) it turned out that it was a skunk! I don't know who had a hold of who at that point but I just reached in and grabbed Eibe by the back of the neck and when I picked her up the skunk came with. I gave the whole thing a shake and the skunk came loose and I ran for cover. Luckily I did not get a direct hit from the skunk but Eibe sure did! I tied her to a post while I surveyed all the damage. She continued to moan for another couple of minutes as I looked her over. Her chin and neck were solid yellow from the skunk spay and she had a bloody snout with a small hole in her nose but that was the only damage to her. I don't know how well the skunk faired but I did not go back to check. Luckily I had some Skunk Off in my first aid kit so we went right to the shower house and I washed her down. I thought it took pretty good care of the smell but when I got to breakfast that morning my friends thought differently!
Before the skunk incident Sunday morning I had planned to take Eibe out after breakfast to see if she could work one of the Tracking Shoe test lines at 40 hours that were not completed on Saturday at 20 hours. After her great performance on Friday under difficult conditions I thought she just might be able to do it and I knew it would be fun to try. After the skunk incident I thought at first the skunk in her face would prevent her from smelling anything but at the last minute I decided to give it a try anyway. I picked a line that had the last 600m, 2 wound beds and 2 marking points untouched and my plan was to get within 50 meters of the first wound bed using my GPS and then have Eibe do a search start to find it and begin the track from there.
Eibe's unofficial 40 hour line - click to enlarge |
She went the next 240m slowly but with little trouble. As she tracked along out in front of me I could smell the skunk scent wafting off of her but it seemed not to give her any trouble. I had laid the line two days before so I thought I remembered exactly where it had been laid. At one point I thought she was off to the side 5 or 10m but right at that moment she stopped and stood solid and when I looked down she was standing over a marking point. Boy, was I proud of her!
We eventually got to a more open area where the canopy was not very dense. Part of the line was actually laid down a grassy logging trail and I knew for sure where it was but Eibe could not smell anything. I suspect the open canopy allowed the rain to hit the line harder in this area but for whatever reason this area was very difficult for Eibe. She spent a whole lot of time searching and trying to figure it out. I had to question her two times for taking heightened interest in cross trails, but I did not help her back to the line and just left her work. Hoping to blow through the difficult area I eventually I picked her up and restarted her back on part of the line where she clearly had it before but that did not work either. Finally I decided to cast her with a directed search wide around the difficult area. You can see from the GPS map how much trouble this area gave her. During the cast she picked up the line about 50m in front of the difficult area and she back tracked the line back to the edge of the difficult area and found the wound bed. When she reacquired the line after the search and found the wound bed I could tell she was smiling. I know I was!
Eibe over wound bed |
Training note: On my ride home from New Jersey I was contemplating the weekend's tracking activity and my dog's performance (on both tracks). This was the fourth time in a year that Eibe was in a test where she was able to do quite well even under difficult conditions and all or most of the other dogs in the test either struggled or could not finish. I think the reason she does so well can be attributed to two main abilities that she has, and neither one has to do with her having a great nose. Actually, I am coming to believe that her ability to smell is really just average. I think Eibe's most valuable natural ability is her ability to concentrate and stay focused for long periods of time. That's what seems to get her through the tough times. Secondly, she is very trainable and easily absorbs the training exercises I set up for her to learn new skills or unlearn bad tendencies. I believe that the combination of these two abilities and a strong hunting drive has enabled her to accomplish as much as she has already at barely 4 years of age. I really look forward to the next 6 or 8.
2 comments:
Outstanding!
Great work Andy and Eibe!
The skunk story is priceless! I love this line: "I gave the whole thing a shake and the skunk came loose"
LOL
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