Sunday, May 3, 2015

Tracking

Over the last year Aspen and I have gotten into tracking.  We started last spring then I got lymes disease and that put me out of commission, but this year I'm back at it with deet in hand to battle those pesky ticks!!! 

I'm still new in tracking, but let me give those of you that don't have any idea a description of what it is. Here is a link from the AKC with more specific information- www.akc.org/events/tracking/ 

Basically dogs have great sense of smell and they were all born with it.  Big to little and old to young dogs can all use their nose to track.   

What do you need: a dog ;-), harness, a 20-40ft long line, and a few flags to mark your track, some sent articles and a place to track.  I use the various state parks in MN . 

Extras you should have is vest or some sort of thing to carry articles, bug spray, sun screen, water for the dog.  You will also want to have gear for all types of weather and terrain.  

Here is the dog(Aspen) and the harness. 




 The AKC offers a test to demonstrate your team's abilities. 

1. Tracking Dog (TD) - This test can be entered after getting certified by an instructor.   There are limited spaces open in a test and they want to make sure the dog is able to complete a track.  It also only takes one successful track passed to get the title. TD track is from 440-to-500 yards long with 3-to-5 turns (or change in direc- tion) and aged from a half-hour to two hours.A dog must indicate a glove or wal- let placed at the end of the track.Tracks are plotted in an open field with uniform cover.There are no obstacles such as roads, ditches or woods.The start of the track will be marked with a flag.A second flag is placed 30 yards from the start flag to indicate the direction of the first leg of the track.There are no other flags in the field. This info and be found on the site I gave above. 
2. Tracking Dog Excellent (TDX)-  Requires a pass in the TD test. The TDX track is 800-to-1000 yards long, with 5-to-7 turns and aged from 3-to-5 hours.The track also has two sets of cross (diversionary) tracks and has some of the aforementioned obstacles.The start is marked with a single flag and the dog must determine the direction of the first leg.There are four dissimilar articles for each track, one at the start and three more on the track. This info and be found on the site I gave above. 

3. Variable Surface Tracker (VST)-A VST track is from 600-to-800 yards long, with 4-to-8 turns, and aged from 3-to-5 hours.The articles must be one each of leather, cloth, plastic and metal. The VST track must also contain three different sur- faces with one turn on a non-vegetated surface such as concrete.This test demon- strates the utility of the tracking dog to work in an urban environment. This info and be found on the site I gave above. 


If you earn all of these titles you get the title of Champion Tracker (difficult task!!). 

There is also a TDU(optional title)-which is a track more based in urban tracking.  It's comparable to the TD I believe.  More info can be found here www.akc.org/events/tracking/tracking-dog-urban-tdu/

Aspen and I are working on preparing for a TD test.  We took a class last fall and then we are currently taking a class now in hopes to be more prepared for our test hopefully this fall. There are only limited number of tracks and when there are more entries then tracks they draw so fingers crossed we get to run one and we pass :-)  

Here is Aspen and I out tracking 






I love it because I get to participate in an activity that my dog loves, I like exploring new area in nature, and I'm building a level of trust and team work with my dog that I couldn't any other way. It's truly amazing and pretty fun despite getting sun burned from time to time, finding some ticks, and we won't talk about snakes haha!! I just pretend they aren't there ;-)  

I just volunteered to be a track layer for a TDX test this weekend.  I will post about that experience this week, but until then take care readers!!! 


4 comments:

  1. HI Aspen
    Looks like you and your human are having great fun tracking together :) Milo & Jet

    ReplyDelete
  2. Your dogs are beautiful! I was wondering if you are still feeding raw? Is so where do you buy it? I live in South Central MN. Im looking for a place to buy raw dog food. Thanks!!

    ReplyDelete
  3. I am sad to see that your blog has come to an end.

    Having said that, Max, my BMD, has his own daily blog. So far, I haven't missed a day.

    http://mitchcormier.blogspot.com/

    ReplyDelete
  4. Irrespective of receiving daily oral or future injectable depot therapies, these require health care visits for medication and monitoring of safety and response. If patients are treated early enough, before a lot of immune system damage has occurred, life expectancy is close to normal, as long as they remain on successful treatment. However, when patients stop therapy, virus rebounds to high levels in most patients, sometimes associated with severe illness because i have gone through this and even an increased risk of death. The aim of “cure”is ongoing but i still do believe my government made millions of ARV drugs instead of finding a cure. for ongoing therapy and monitoring. ARV alone cannot cure HIV as among the cells that are infected are very long-living CD4 memory cells and possibly other cells that act as long-term reservoirs. HIV can hide in these cells without being detected by the body’s immune system. Therefore even when ART completely blocks subsequent rounds of infection of cells, reservoirs that have been infected before therapy initiation persist and from these reservoirs HIV rebounds if therapy is stopped. “Cure” could either mean an eradication cure, which means to completely rid the body of reservoir virus or a functional HIV cure, where HIV may remain in reservoir cells but rebound to high levels is prevented after therapy interruption.Dr Itua Herbal Medicine makes me believes there is a hope for people suffering from,Parkinson's disease,Schizophrenia,Lung Cancer,Breast Cancer,psoriasis,Colo-Rectal Cancer,Blood Cancer,Prostate Cancer,siva.Fatal Familial Insomnia Factor V Leiden Mutation ,Epilepsy Dupuytren's disease,Desmoplastic small-round-cell tumor Diabetes ,Coeliac disease,Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease,Cerebral Amyloid Angiopathy, Ataxia,Arthritis,Amyotrophic Lateral Scoliosis,Fibromyalgia,Fluoroquinolone Toxicity
    Syndrome Fibrodysplasia Ossificans ProgresSclerosis,Alzheimer's disease,Adrenocortical carcinoma.Asthma,Allergic diseases.Hiv_ Aids,Herpe ,Copd,Glaucoma., Cataracts,Macular degeneration,Cardiovascular disease,Lung disease.Enlarged prostate,Osteoporosis.Alzheimer's disease,
    Dementia.(measles, tetanus, whooping cough, tuberculosis, polio and diphtheria),Chronic Diarrhea,
    Hpv,All Cancer Types,Diabetes,Hepatitis,I read about him online how he cure Tasha and Tara so i contacted him on drituaherbalcenter@gmail.com / info@drituaherbalcenter.com. even talked on whatsapps +2348149277967 believe me it was easy i drank his herbal medicine for two weeks and i was cured just like that isn't Dr Itua a wonder man? Yes he is! I thank him so much so i will advise if you are suffering from one of those diseases Pls do contact him he's a nice man.

    ReplyDelete