Back to the PawMark Article Menu© 2001-1998 by Ed Presnall
All Rights Reserved
Published In The German Shepherd Quarterly
When I first saw her, my first thought was that if this was in black and white and not real life, I’d be watching a slapstick Charlie Chaplin movie. Across the field was a young lady with a very nice looking puppy. While the puppy danced and pranced in circles around her, she was comically trying to both untangle the lead and buckle on the harness, in preparation for their first lesson.
The harness was only halfway on, the lead wrapped around both the handler and dog, and as I watched I simply had to smile. I’d seen it before. Soon the handler would give up and start yelling either at the dog or hopefully for assistance.
I watched carefully. Something about this young lady and this dog was different. She quickly removed the harness, untangled the lead and calmly started over. After two or three attempts, she completed the task.
Like most people who get involved in tracking learn, repetition is the key to being successful. Even something as simple as putting on a harness will take a time or two to get the proper procedure down pat. I walked across the field to introduce myself.
The handler’s name was Christy and her GSD was named Ariel. I soon learned that Ariel was from a well known breeder with great success in the show ring as well as in the field. I also learned that Christy, having been involved with Schipperkes for years, had selected this breed and this dog to fulfill her desires for a working dog. She talked of having an “all round” dog which could compete in herding, conformation, agility obedience and tracking. I’d heard that story before to, from too many first day students.
As we spent the next few weeks working with on basic training. Out of the corner of my eye, I always watched Christy and Ariel work their lesson plan. My admiration for them grew. They were, as I had first thought, different. They worked together as a team from the first day, gaining confidence from each other.
As the classes progressed, I found myself working more and more with Christy and Ariel. We laid a few extra tracks and worked on some of the tougher scenting problems which she might face in her TD test. The dog required challenges to excel while Christy asked an endless stream of questions which often made me rethink my training methods.
As test day neared, I knew that this team was ready. She certified easily and made the draw for the fall test. We worked harder and longer on the difficult scenting problems, changes in the length of grasses, small ditches and a multitude of things which they might encounter in the test. During the weeks before the test, we haunted the test site, a county park only a few minutes away. Laying tracks, which had been used in previous tests by other judges, to prepare them for their test day. In mid November, the big day came. They drew track number one and passed in style.
Shortly thereafter, we started working towards our TDX titles together. On New Years day, we laid track in a county park routinely used for TDX tests. One for Ariel, a short motivational track for my Springer which was working on VST and a regulation track for my Clumber, Merlin. After successfully completing the tracks, we left the field to return to our homes and families.
Merlin, as usual, crashed on the floor of my office and slept for six hours, far longer than his normal nap. When he awoke, he was lethargic, could not seem to support his weight to stand and refused to eat.
A Spaniel refusing to eat, to me, is a sure sign something is wrong. We checked his color and temperature and all readings were normal. This was very atypical behavior for this dog who would help a thief load the TV for a pat on the head or a cookie and who had, only hours before run an 1,100 yard track.
Contacting our vet, we started him on an IV solution and force fed him NutraCal while we kept the vet on the phone almost all night. After a few more hours, his eyes started to take on a yellow tinge. Gum color and body temperature were still normal. The yellow tinge and no urination for over 12 hours was a “red flag” of possible kidney failure, however pressure to his abdomen did not seem get any reaction from him.
We rushed him to the clinic for x-rays and ultrasound. All test were negative, however small silver stains in the kidney area were obvious on the ultrasound. The vet ran a complete CBC and blood work-up which, although some reading were high, did not give anyone a clue as to what might be wrong. Shortly thereafter he was critical. Prognosis was unknown however recover was very unlikely. As the process of total shutdown of his kidneys progressed, we watched him fade, but always with the strength to wag his tail or give us one more sloppy lick.
In desperation I asked for assistance with my friends on the Internet. Soon I had a recommendation from a vet and fellow Clumber owner over 1,400 miles away. My vet discarded the recommendation as a waste of time and money to run such specialized tests. My determination to see this dog survive took over. I refused to accept his opinion or heed his warnings and carried Merlin to the van. In a last minute effort to save him, I raced through the night, fighting a rare ice storm, to the vet school over a hundred miles away.
Merlin never gave up. My friend on the Internet was correct, the specialists at the university quickly diagnosed Merlin as having contracted two very rare strains of Canine Leptospirosis. Serovars were pomona and tarassovi. Pomona had only been diagnosed in one case in the US in the previous 15 years and tarassovi, in canines it was thought, had rarely been seen outside of Russia.
Lepto, commonly referred to as canine malaria due to its symptoms, is a deadly viral which causes almost immediate renal failure. Prognosis for dogs contracting the serovars without prompt diagnosis and medical treatment within the first 12 to 24 hours is unfortunately terminal.
But with treatment and the ever present Clumber stamina he recovered and in early March we returned to training our dogs again.
We spent the spring enforcing our determination to work in this new sport and to learn as much as possible with our willing dogs. I worked two dogs, JJ and Merlin while Christy worked with Ariel. As we progressed, we implemented more and more unusual and unorthodox training procedures into our practice and Christy and I became a team working together to reach our goals. Together we devised methods to motivate the dogs and keep their interest as we tracked over miles of asphalt, concrete, mulch and dirt.
In June, a short three months, later we entered a test. I passed with my Springer JJ becoming the first Spaniel in any breed to earn the VST title and watched with pride as Ariel worked the first half of the track magnificently before being distracted in a large parking lot. The long drive home was a frustrating time for me. I had passed and was very happy, but Christy had failed. We promised each other that we would work even harder and try again.
We cussed and discussed the months of practice tracks in the sauna we call Houston. Heat indexes during much of the summer exceeded 100 degrees as we laid the tracks, and sometimes dipped down into the 90’s as we ran them. Smiling, I recalled the tracks late at night, carefully planned to time our running with the automatic sprinkler systems. A reward for our hard work and an opportunity to let both the handlers and the dogs cool off.
The thousands of yards of track we laid each week had paid off in a very short time frame. The dogs were steady and sure of the track and had become confident and somewhat exhilarated by the numerous challenges and scent obstacles we’d put them through. During this period, we had learned that the dogs could track on asphalt, concrete and rocks almost as easily as they crossed the manicured lawns surrounding the buildings of our training sites.
We tracked at night using flashlights in areas where there were no street lights. Learning to blindly follow our dogs in and around the scent cone which moved and swirled around buildings. Heaping praise on our dogs when they were right and motivating them when they faced seemingly insurmountable problems. Each night we learned a little more and each night we came up with new questions and problems to challenge both us and the dogs.
We planned tracking around our real jobs during the week and around our home life on weekends. At times, I’m sure, our families thought we had run off to be tracking gypsies, but we trained on -- through the heat, rain and dark of night. When we felt we were ready, we entered another test.
It was late September when Christy was notified that she had made the draw and would run. I was told I would be an alternate and therefore most likely not participate. We decided to make the long drive together as a team so that I could be there to offer support. A few days before we left, I received a message that one of the entrants had withdrawn to attend another test and I would be allowed to run. The team was again heading north, to prove that variable surface tracking was an attainable goal.
Christy had drawn track one. As we waited on the judges we looked at the cloudy sky, felt the cool breeze and saw the lingering dew on the ground. We stood and talked of all the preparations we had made. We instilled confidence in each other and promised that we would do our best and let our young dogs do the work of proving they were ready.
As she walked across the street with her harness in her hand and Ariel by her side, I was proud. She had come a long way from that first day at class to being my partner in a training program. In seven short months, we had taken three young TD dogs and turned them into confident trackers on variable surfaces. One had already passed and these two were ready for their trial by fire.
I held my breath as they started. Calm and collected, Ariel worked her way around the track in a professional and business-like manner. Momentarily distracted by the scent drifting along a chain link fence, Ariel left the track. I prayed quietly. She recovered after a few yards, returned to the track and continued on. Several turns and a few hundred yards later, entering a parking lot, Ariel was confronted by an elderly resident of the nursing home in a wheelchair. The chair was parked directly on the last turn and when she spotted Christy and Ariel, proceeded toward them directly on the next to last leg of the track in the parking lot. While the woman rolled down the track she said “Honey, I’m not afraid of dogs, bring your dog over here for me to pet it”. The woman continued to advance on the team.
Although the judges tried to wave the woman in the wheelchair off the track, she was oblivious to what they wanted and merely waved back. At that point, the woman in the wheelchair was pushing Christy and Ariel off the track as she kept rolling towards them. The judges told Christy to "hold up" and one of the judges approach the woman in an attempt to draw her off the track as she appeared to be confused. After a brief and humorous discussion with the lady, who wanted to be pushed around the parking lot, she and her oxygen tank were deposited near the nursing center door to the cheers and grins of the spectators.
Rescented, Ariel returned to the track and a hundred or so yards later, a tear rolled down my face as I watched my partner and her dog locate the final article on their track and triumphantly hold it up, for the world to see, thus becoming Jendhi Shepherds’ Jigger TD, VST, the youngest dog to ever attain the Variable Surface Tracker title!As we waited for my turn to run, we watched the clouds disappear, the sun come out and the ground and air temperature rise. I remembered that it was only ten months ago to the day that our vet had said that Merlin was going to die and now he quietly stood at my side, ready to conquer yet another challenge.
We approached the start of our track, attempting to do what no Clumber had done before. Our friends and supporters were in the crowd watching as the judges nodded that they were ready. As I snapped on his harness and laid out the long line, I quietly reassured Merlin and myself that we could do it!
Merlin started down the track and worked intently. After the first turn on grass, he entered a parking lot and after 50 yards made a perfect turn. Continuing across the parking lot, he exited into a field and after 60 yards made another turn. We went about 35 yards where he stopped and stood, indicating an article. As I approached him, I did not see an article. He was very excited, with his tail wagging and looked up at me as if to say, “Well, it was here”. He restarted and continued on. Merlin is a very intense tracker, and a good problem solving dog. He simply refused to admit that the article was missing. He started a precise and somewhat frustrated search in a grid pattern, looking for the “lost” article. On four separate occasions, he returned to the last corner and finally convinced himself that the article was not going to be found.
Rumbling down the track on grass he crossed to a stone walk next to a building. Along the building, across grass again and out into another parking lot. I grinned as I watched him make another precise turn on the asphalt and followed him through the parking lot to a leather article 70 yards away.
Restarting, he crossed another 15 yards of asphalt and made another open turn on asphalt and continued on for 72 yards. As he stepped out of the parking lot, he downed to indicate his final article.
As I raised the article over my head, he jumped into my lap. I held him for a moment before Merlin, Ch. Andchelle Lord Raglan, TD, VST, now the first Clumber Spaniel to earn this title, turned his attention to the gathering crowd.
Christy and I had returned to Illinois for this test, to a site very similar to our training area in Houston, with a goal in mind. Ironically, Merlin and I stood only a few yards from where his companion and housemate JJ became the first VST English Springer Spaniel three and a half months earlier. Once again we had done what many said could not be done.
As I shook the judges’ hands and Merlin received praise from the crowd, I watched as my tracking partner quietly approached. We congratulated each other and silently walked together back towards the van.
I thought back to that first day in the field and to all the goals Christy and I had reached since then. At first I had believed that Christy and Ariel were different. Now I knew, that we were cut from the same cloth. We worked as a team, breaking down problems, setting goals and reaching upward for that golden ring.
We were more than a team, we were partners, and I was proud of them and proud to be with them. With smiles of satisfaction on our faces and two good dogs at our side, we knew that it was, like they say, “Twice As Nice”!
© 2003-1996 - Ed Presnall - All Rights Reserved