Here in Southern Oregon, the field tracking season normally runs from Christmas to Easter, between when the foxtails dry out in the spring and the rains in the fall make them too soft to do any damage. But with the tracking season behind us, I was having serious withdrawal symptoms.
Then Mom saw that a club in Eugene – about 2 hours away – was holding a June TDU on a college campus, which probably wouldn’t be full of foxtails. We had never specifically trained for TDU, but I had been working VST elements early this spring and had already handled people and dog cross tracks on both my TD and TDX test tracks, so Mom figured we could support the club, see where we stood with our VST training, and I could track at a time of year when we don’t track.
I am a Cocker Spaniel in show coat (and in fact had competed in breed and obedience two days earlier) so we use a jacket to snag vegetation and burrs before they become one with me. Since it was at a test, Mom had to take the coat to near the start flag and then get all my four feet in – and I wanted to GO. Finally I was dressed, ran up to the flag, and we were off. Mom has learned that when I know where the track is – which is most of the time - she’s wisest to just hold on and let me show the way – and she’d better not fall, because that interrupts my momentum.
We were going great guns. Then the second leg ran downhill toward a parking lot. I went onto the pavement but the scent sort of disappeared, and Mom knew there couldn’t be a turn on pavement, so she held her ground to suggest that I back up. I was happy to do so – but Mom was so clumsy that she got all tangled up around a light pole. I let her unclip me and get unwound – but I was so excited to get going that we had to repeat the exercise. Finally after getting her untangled again, I could proceed along the leg, which I found immediately.
This was a long leg in un-mowed dead grass – and all of a sudden, just a bit after it crossed a roadway, there was a sock. A sock! One of the most bestest things in the whole world - because usually they start a track (or else if I steal them, they get people to chase me and give me a cookie in trade). But since I was leashed, Mom took it, waved it for the judges to see, and stashed it in her pouch. Just to get back at her for taking MY sock, I started rolling. And rolling. And rolling. (Guess Mom was smart to put the coat on me, because otherwise I would have spent the afternoon being bathed…)
Mom then reminded me that we could still track some more. So I put my nose down and resumed my journey. Another turn, and we ran into a patch of bare dirt and gravel. No problem – I’d done dirt before – so on I went. Then we heard such a melodious tweeting from the tree. My nose knew I was right, so I figured it was just a bird and kept on tracking (and nobody shouted at us to stop). At the end of the dirt was more dead grass, and Mom saw something golden in it. I knew the glove was there, but just to make life interesting, I walked a few feet past it. Mom made a verbal suggestion that I find the glove, so to make her happy, I went back and sniffed it so she could pick it up and wave it – and tell me that I was THE MAN! And then we heard the happy three tweets from the real whistle. And I get another 3 letters after my name: Cocktails Rum-Runnin’ to Deerhill, TDX, TDU, CGC, TKN. (But I still answer to Muggs.)
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