Tracking Certification

Sunday morning August 5, 2012, a little before 9:00 AM, I follow AKC tracking judge, Steve Ripley to an industrial park in Westfield, Indiana for the tracking dog certification.  It has been raining, but stopped.  The certification is in calf high grass and weeds.  I think, “Oh shit, we’ve been training mostly on mown grass.”  I get Magnum out of the car, offer him water and we walk up to Steve.  He tells me the track starts right off the pavement where there is a driveway reflector. I put the harness on Magnum, walk up to the reflector and tell him to down.  I put the lead on the harness and say track.  Magnum takes off after a quick smell of the start article.  I let the lead out to a little over 20 feet and grab the start article.  He locks onto the track and stays with it.  He goes out about 85 yards, begins circling and pulls us strongly to a right hand turn.  We go out 50 yards and he acts like he’s found something.  It’s a part of a plastic bag – trash.  He circles completely around at the bag and goes left.  Again, he pulls so strongly that I have to follow him.  He is moving at a very fast speed.  He would be delighted if I ran, but I continue to walk quickly.  80 yards and he begins to circle again.  He circles another time, so I pull out the start item and have him smell it.  His expression is like – oh yeah that’s the smell.  He turns left and pulls very strongly.  This time it’s longer.  We go about 135 yards, then he circles and turns left.  In my head I’m thinking that I don’t know if I am on the track.  Maybe the judge is waiting till it’s over and he’ll tell me we blew it.  Magnum is looking back at me with a look that says “Can’t you go any faster?”  He is pulling so strongly and is so excited, then he’s lying down – he found the glove, the end article.  We did it!!

Steve said we were great.  He complimented me on my handling, taking time, and waiting for Magnum to figure out where the track goes.  Magnum clearly knows how to track, he just needs me to be smart enough to read his signals.

I am so happy.  It follows a week in which I began to doubt my preparedness for the certification.  Steve had good advice for me about distractions and to begin to work toward our tracking dog excellent and variable surface tracking tests.  Here is a picture of Magnum, Steve Ripley and me after the successful completion of the track.

Now I can send off my certification to the English Springer Spaniel Field Trial Association to see if I can get into the Tracking Dog test at the Springer Nationals in St. Louis at the end of September!!  Magnum and I owe much to my tracking partner M and to Alan.  They lay the tracks for us and give me good advice.