CT INT’L-CH LONE HILL IT’S ALL IN THE JOURNEY CDX JH WC CGC TDIA

Before I say anything, I have to say thanks to Barbara Adcock who was our trainer for the first 4 years of Journey's life. When we first began, she used to meet us up at Mission Peak with my puppy in a baby carrier pouch and she'd lay puppy tracks for him. He learned to track in that cow pasture. Barbara encouraged us and gave me guidelines that I still use. I got away from some of these guidelines for reasons I can't explain, but I recently went back to them. Journey was doing well at tracking, but there was something missing in the past couple years. I began to realize that I was taking away from Journey a style that he had (and had been encouraged by Barbara during our first 4 yrs. of training) and I gave it back to him and he was back to his old self again. That's the main thing that I contribute our VST pass. Thank You Barbara, for always having been so positive and encouraging.

----------

CT INT’L-CH LONE HILL IT’S ALL IN THE JOURNEY CDX JH WC CGC TDIA

Journey passed his VST test on November 2, 2003 at West Valley College in Saratoga, CA. He completed the 728 yd. track with 8 turns in 44 minutes. Having passed all three tests, TD, TDX, VST earned him his Champion Tracker (CT) title. Both judges, Barbara Adcock & Sally Diess, plotted some very nice & mostly linear tracks. They were great tracks, and definitely had moments of truth in them.

I finally succeeded in actually totally trusting my dog the entire track!! (Easier said than done). I generally will think too much during a test and help my dog to fail. This time I did not!! It's not easy to do this! You go into a track trusting your dog, and then there are moments when you just KNOW that the scent just couldn't possibly do what your dog is telling you and this goes down the line and the dog reads it. There is SO MUCH to VST tracking. There are variables that you never know will happen and you have to adjust to them. If the dog is a good tracker, you can hopefully make it to the end of the track successfully - finding the two intermediate and end articles along the way.

Journey had a very nice start. He cut his first corner a bit short and paralleled the second leg. Close to leg 3, we had a distraction with a dog who was off lead and ahead of us. I waited for the owner to put her dog on lead and then she proceeded to walk towards us with both of her little dogs. I waited for them to pass, then Journey continued to track. On the 3rd leg he made a turn on grass and found his first intermediate article on leg 4. It was hard plastic. He continued very strong and ended up making the next turn to leg 5 and found his 2nd intermediate article (metal) on pavement next to a building. This outdoor corridor led towards a parking lot. Legs 6 and 7 were in that parking lot which was on the other side of a campus road. These legs were diagonal to the design of the parking lot and difficult, but Journey tracked close enough to these legs and made it back across the campus road to the grass which led towards the buildings again. Leg 8 brought us closer to the buildings. Leg 9 was a left turn near a building where the track could have gone on 3 different paths. Journey didn't hesitate choosing the far left path, which went over a wooden bridge. Immediately after the bridge there is a dirt trail that goes off to the left where there is an enormous amount of foliage. Journey took this immediately, and about 40 feet into this, he stopped and turned around to go back to the paved path. He continued on this 9th leg, which went straight ahead onto grass (leaving the path) where he ran to the end article (fabric) and ran back with it in his mouth and was a very happy boy!! So was I a very happy Mom!! There were many people in the gallery and there was a sudden explosion of noise and a lot of very happy people!!

I have not gone over the actual track since the test. My description is what I remember, or was told afterwards, and what I see on the test sheets.

According to Barbara, Journey appeared to be following the scent trail the entire way even though he was not close to where the tracklayer actually walked all the time.

I still can't believe we did it. I kept thinking it was a dream and I would wake up. I have a beautiful PAFTA VST Mug to prove it really did happen!!

This was Journey's 8th VST test. Four here in California & four in

Colorado. He is 6 years old. His first VST test was at age 2 in November 1999. He is a wonderful tracking dog and a pleasure to watch.

Journey's tracklayer was Linda Knowles. The Chief Tracklayer was Terry Southard. The Test Chairperson was Miriam Hillier.

THANKS TO EVERYONE who made this a very nice and successful test for us.

I have to add a P.S. to this. The morning of the test, my car broke down in front of my house. I had 50 minutes to get to the draw about 10 miles away. I called Mary Ann Graziano - who lives very close to the test sight - and caught her at home just getting ready to leave for the test. She was first alternate. Yes, she picked us up. Definitely a GOOD friend :o) We got to the test site with 10 minutes to spare! I was a bit stressed <@@>. Journey adjusted just fine with the confusion. He's such a good boy :o)) Mary Ann said that he was just waiting for that Chauffeured ride in a Mercedes to a test before he’d pass!

Some background on Journey:

Journey is an intact male and can easily get distracted, so I decided to take his fringing away from him a couple of years ago and stopped letting him investigate areas away from the track. I would give him much less line (6-10 feet) and holding him by the harness when he was off the track too much. Well, holding by the harness is good for Journey only when it's really a bad thing, like nose in a gopher hole. However, if a squirrel hole is on the track, the scent could very well be there, so do you really want to correct? It’s a call you have to make depending on each incident. I have given him all the line he needs in the past couple of months of training, deciding to trust my dog more. He does know how to track, and I had to let him do it his way.

On one track that we failed in Colorado, I specifically remember he had been taunted by some squirrels and I didn't allow him to go towards them. Well, the track was there and we were failed because he went in an opposite direction. He will do this if I correct him off of the track. He says, "Ok, Mom, if you don't want me to go there, I'll make you happy and to over here!" But again, that's my dog trying to please me. I just can't help him track, unless I DO KNOW EXACTLY where the footprints are during training.

Earlier this year we had an incident where dogs were running toward him on the track and were very distracting and going back and forth when they were about 50 yds. from us. I really didn’t take a break and had asked him to continue even before the dogs were gone and I believe that break in his concentration is what caused him to fail. I should have been more patient, like I was at this test when, again, dogs were in front of us and (I believe) on his track.

Journey is a dog that does not need to be rescented unless there is a very distracting situation. A couple of years ago, I started scenting him too much and he really didn't want to be bothered. It was very distracting for him. I changed that a few months ago.

Journey has a wonderful body swing he uses when he is tracking. Sometimes it's difficult to tell if he is lying, but I generally can. He'll investigate something within the fringe of the scent and I'll let him do this and then he swings right back to the track and continues. I generally don't have to say anything to him. He is focused and works this way. It's his style.

Bea Moore and

CT Int'l-CH Lone Hill It's All In The Journey CDX JH WC CGC TDIA

http://www.mindspring.com/~beamoore