The Monster of Coyote Creek

When we got Muggs, another Cocker, with the intention of showing in conformation and performance, I thought it would be smart to do tracking first while all I had to worry about was puppy coat. With a birthday the end of September and our tracking season ending in mid April, that meant trying to get a TD on a six-month-old puppy within a three-week window. My tracking buddies looked at me and said, “you want to do what?” but they humored me and laid tracks once or twice a week from the time he was three months old. And, being a puppy who didn’t know that progress normally comes in small increments, Muggs just nailed the tracks which kept getting longer and older by leaps and bounds with each passing practice.

We found a judge willing to certify a five-month-old puppy then sent in entries for the three remaining tests of the season within a day’s drive. By some miracle we got into the first one, just five days after he turned six months (which is the minimum age to enter). It was held along Coyote Creek in the hills just south of San Jose, California. No, we didn’t see any coyotes, but the judges’ briefing included warnings about all sorts of flora and fauna, including coyotes, cougars, bobcats, foxes, feral hogs, rattlesnakes, tall grasses, star thistle and poison oak. (It was still too early in the season to be worried about foxtails.)

The start of the track was about a mile from headquarters along paths well used by bikers, joggers and dog walkers, and Muggs had plenty of opportunities to tell anyone who would listen that he was heading toward HIS track. As we neared the starting flags, I had to pick him up and hold him as a group of three leashed dogs passed.

The start was to the left of the pathway and was in mid-calf damp grass. Basically he penciled the track for the first three legs, then we wound up in a large patch of churned up dirt, which I learned later was caused by feral hogs rooting. Muggs investigated this area for a while and ventured into adjacent poison oak, and when I realized he wasn’t finding a way out, I backed up and he picked up the final leg going back toward the pathway.

He reached the pathway without finding a glove, so he just kept going, unconcerned that the three dogs (and owners) I’d picked him up for earlier had walked along the pathway in both directions while he was running the start of the track. Then near disaster. Right after the pathway there was a tree stump in the field, all blackened and doing its best to imitate an upright seal. Muggs went out of tracking mode and into “I’ll protect you, Mom, from this horrible creature that’s sitting in the field. I may still be a puppy, but I’m a brave boy with a big loud bark.” When he was thoroughly convinced that he had called this foul monster every name he could think of with a few duplicates thrown in for good measure and was pretty sure that it was pleading for mercy, he switched back into tracking mode for about four feet and found the glove just past his nemesis.

It’s pretty obvious that a puppy who can be coaxed away from hog scent, who can negotiate a busy pathway, who can ignore fresh crosstracks, and most importantly who will defend me from track demons isn’t a puppy who should have his tracking harness put away. So I guess I’ll be dealing with the ravages tracking does to a show coat for many years to come.

World, watch out for Cocktails Rum-Runnin’ to Deerhill, TD.

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