Beginner’s Luck?

On Tuesday a friend and I got together to do some search and rescue training with our dogs. I have decided to concentrate on tracking with Davin before we start the search part. I have found that by doing tracking first it really pays off in the long run. Besides I really enjoy tracking with my dogs. I’ve tracked extensively with Ande and she has her TD title. The hardest part for me is learning to read my dog. I don’t have too much trouble reading other people’s dogs but can have trouble reading my own. I can always tell a lot of what’s going on with Ande by her tail. But Davin has no tail so it should be interesting to see how I will learn to read his body language.

I start out with triple laid straight tracks with a person and lots of fun at the end. Well I must say that I was quite surprised on how well he did. I haven’t had a dog start out this strong before. His head was down for the most part and he was pulling quite hard. I’m kind of wondering if this wasn’t some kind of fluky thing. I guess I’ll know after I’ve done it for awhile.

The most interesting part of this was the person lying on the ground at the end of the track. Davin didn’t know what to make of that at all. It freaked him out until the person said his name. Come to think of it I don’t think he has seen too many people lying on the ground before. By the last track he seemed to be better about it.

We did four tracks throughout the evening. The third track started off well but ended up in a bust because part way through there was a freshly killed bunny just off the track. That was too much for his little brain. Fresh meat yum yum.