Dead chuffed

CorvusCorax

CorvusCorax

Deary me...
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At the weekend we went to a scentwork course - bear in mind B has never really travelled for longer than 90 minutes or overnighted in a vehicle and this was five and a half hours away and a two-night stop!

He was superb, not a peep out of him and travelled really well on both legs and got on grand in the van with my friend's dog (he was actually obsessed with him and wanted to be his best fwend but my friend's dog is a rufty tufty working dog and didn't want to play :p) and by day two was pulling me to get back into the crate, he LOVED his man-cave :p

On the day of the course I was bricking it because he hasn't really tracked away from home or the training club and not in front of an audience of more than me and my trainer.

When I laid my track, someone got too close to me so I had to shorten mine :mad: even though we are well over 300 paces and doing the entry-level tracking pattern at home, meh!

I also forgot to sort my 10m line out and it was full of knots and two helpful gentlemen had to untangle it for me :o we got brownie points because I started feeding him before the track so he knew what was going on. I then fixed my line under him too close to the start and he was raring to go and starting without me while I was putting the line under his legs, oops!!! Bad mammy, no control.

So off we go and I am sooo nervous and there are people watching, argh and I am going to mess him up and make him shut down on me because I am so stressed.
But from behind me I hear: "Notice this dog is very calm and very concentrated, his ears are down, his tail is down, he is very focused, good steady pace, just exactly what you want" and I thought my heart was going to burst out of my chest.

Basically any mistakes made were mine, including putting too much food in corners and leaning over him and spilling all of the food out of my bloody pockets onto his head :p plus I need to relax.

Very chuffed at his reaction to the crowd, he was gadding about a bit before we went on (People! Dogs! Massive field! Wow!) but when he was on the track he just shut it all out, even the eight people walking behind me asking the judge questions :p
I would say to my untrained eye he was the calmest dog on the field, even the high level competition dogs were 'hunting' with their tails in the air and forging/pulling ahead at the end of the line whereas he was very calm.

Soooo we are aiming to go to our first trial in the New Year as competitors rather than groupies, I wish I'd been able to do more with him this year (he got his companion dog qualification exactly a year ago) but with all his intolerances and issues since then I've been giving him an easy time of it and choosing carefully what I can feed/treat/train him with, but we're raring to go now!

Sorry for the self indulgent post but I am dead chuffed - the only problem is I left my camera in my friend's van and you'll have to wait a few days if not a week for bloody pictures!!!

A big cuppa tae if you got this far :p
 
Woop! Well done Bodo-dog :D Well done to you too...(we'll overlook the fact you dropped his food on his head!) Can't imagine how pleased you must have been to hear the nice comments whilst you were "mid-brick" as it were!

Can't have been easy with your gangrenous leg too... (has it fallen off yet? :confused:)

Here's to lots more self-indulgent tracking posts! :D
 
CaveCanem said:
leaning over him and spilling all of the food out of my bloody pockets onto his head :p plus I need to relax.
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HAHAHAHAHA!! This is me when showing! I do all sorts of weird and wonderful things like this when the nerves kick in! :o :rolleyes: :D

Sounds like you both had a brilliant time. How wonderful to get such lovely remarks, its a fab feeling to be so proud of your dog and the work you have done :D
Onwards and upwards! Next time you will only trip over his paw and give him a limp or something ; ) :p :D
 
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:o Sorry :p

This is the dog who came third at the World Championships, tracking off-leash (usually a 10m line) he got 98 points.
He is also a Belgian army dog and is about to do a second tour of Afghanistan.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yBv1Qss8yKM
(It's not that exciting to watch unless you are interested in it :p)

It's an obedience exercise more than anything but I've been finding it quite addictive, I don't look out the window and see fields anymore, I think 'oooh, that would be good to train in' :p


Leg is fine now after steroids and antihistamines and a jab up by backside :o
 
Each track (there are three levels) has to be a certain length and a certain age, IE one is laid by the handler and gets left for 20 minutes, up to three (which the dog in the video is doing) which is laid by a stranger and left for one-two hours.
They go from 300 paces at entry level up to 500 and up to 1km long. There will be a number of sterile small articles (wood, leather, carpet) on the track and a number of corners and cross-tracks/side steps at higher levels.
The dog must not lift its' nose from the ground or air-scent, when it finds the article it must lie down and not resume until the handler has caught up, shown the judge the article, put article in pocket and given a command to the dog. Points are awarded for each article and intensity/control/drive of the dog, up to 100 points.
 
Yea not divvy HPR's and terriers! :p
None of my dogs would ever track with that level of control! I think we will stick to the 101 other extra curricular activities my dogs have between them :rolleyes: :D
I'm impressed that you have come so far with B as to be able to do this kind of work (and with lovely comments) His ASBO days seem far behind him ;) :D
 
Aw, fankoo :) I did think I was going to lose him in the field at one point before we started, flat link chain on dead ring and lots of PEOPLE and DOGS and LEAVES and THINGS = me getting towed over several acres :o lucky he loves his food so much :p
 
Well done B and CC - that looks terribly hard. There is no way any of mine would have that kind of concentration or be that calm. Usually when they are on the scent of something their tails are wagging furiously, they are bobbing back and forth in a totally uncoordinated fashion, and there is a weird yelping sound coming from them :D.
 
Wow, what a clever boy - bet you were trying to be all professional when you heard that praise, all the while wanting to grin like a loon! :D

PMSL at dropping his food on his head though, pretty impressive tracking that - all 6 inches of it from pocket to floor! :eek::D
 
I missed this too, but huge well done to you and Bodo. You sound like my WT friend, her lad is working at TD level now and everywhere we go she is spotting good tracking fields.:D
 
Oh FGS you lot - basically I shuffle across a field bent double, dropping bits of food and carpet on the floor, then he has to hoover up all the food and hit the deck when he finds the carpet.

Then on trial day I do the same only without the food, mwahahahahahahahahaha!


See, it's FUN! It really is!
 
CaveCanem said:
Oh FGS you lot - basically I shuffle across a field bent double, dropping bits of food and carpet on the floor, then he has to hoover up all the food and hit the deck when he finds the carpet.

Then on trial day I do the same only without the food, mwahahahahahahahahaha!


See, it's FUN! It really is!
Click to expand...

This made me spit my coffee out! Hit the deck :D
It all sounds very clever and sounds like B was a very good boy!
 
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