First Urban Track this year.

Zoe and I haven't been out tracking since last fall. On Sunday we went up to the college and had a blast. The only problem we really had was with the track layer. Silly girl couldn't even read her own map! She started on the wrong piece of grass adding 60m to the track. Bad track layer, considered replacing her but can hardly fire myself! On the map you will see the red line is the extra bit I added, the hamburger and shake icons are food drops, and the knife and fork are articles. Zoe really only lost the track once, right at the beginning but we worked our way back to where she picked it up. She started backtracking but when she hit the first food drop and there was no food she realized her mistake, turned around and headed in the right direction. Good Girl!  I'm very proud of her. Towards the end of the track the last leg is a mix of grass, sidewalk, grass, sidewalk and runs between a hedgerow and the buildings. There was enough frost on the ground to keep her in a fairly straight line. Sometimes she was right of the track sometimes left but she didn't deviate far either way.

View North Island College in a larger map

 Off to a great start

 Hmmm where did that scent go?

 Backed up to the last food drop, did some more backtracking then got turned around and headed in the right direction.

Wait a minute is that food over there?

 Yup, really loving this game!

 I think right about here, Zoe really got into the track.

 She zoomed ahead, crossed the road, found some more food and another article!

Moved along to the next corner, found more food

 and totally aced the rest of the track.

 Moving so fast, I could hardly hold the camera steady!

 And ended with the final article under the bench. We had a huge party, played with that chunk of leather. She was so focused on tracking she paid absolutely no attention to the people hanging around at the end of the track until we finished our game of tug and looked around, woofed at them then settled right into heel to walk back to the van. A very successful track, even with the extra bit added on at the start.

Six Puppies, Four Wranglers and a Bottle of Bubbles

As some of you may know my other passion, (besides my dogs), is photography. In December I was hired by a fellow dog club member to photograph her litter of Nova Scotia Duck Toller Retriever's.  What a blast we had. There were 4 people to "Wrangle" the puppies, which basically means keep them on the table!  We started out by putting the puppies in the wicker hamper.  Did you know a basket of puppies can be like a can of worms?  No sooner were all the puppies in the basket, I gave the word to release the wranglers, and those puppies were out of the basket, often giving me only 1 shot where they were all looking in my general direction.  Was a ton of fun.

After playing with the basket and group photos we moved on to individuals. Much easier and we only needed two wranglers.  As is true with any litter of purebred dogs the puppies all tend to look alike. There are some distinguishing markings but they can be hard to pick out in a photo. My solution to that was to use a different prop for each puppy.

This fellow was so comfortable in the basket we just left him there.










This one took a moment to smell the flowers.













                                             Can you say "Pretty Girl"



                          

                                






Yes I can look at the camera!












You don't smell like a Toller?



                    

                              


And finally the ring leader of the litter.
This little girl was one active puppy.

Santa Who?








Ahhhhh Puppy's who doesn't like them?
Check out all the photos at my web site.