Back to the PawMark Article Menu© 2001-2000 by Ed Presnall
All Rights Reserved
As Published in the Field Spaniel News
A brisk, cold wind blew in from Lake Michigan as "Race", Am/Can CH Calico's Hot Pursuit Del Prado TD and I stand next to the car, waiting our turn. Walking slowly, I wonder to myself whether the spectators know the butterflies in my stomach are the size of Volkswagens or that my knees are knocking from anticipation and not from the cold. The excitement of test day was, as is usual for most people, still there. Mentally willing myself to be patient, I took several deep breaths to calm myself and began our normal start routine.
I glance around to acquaint myself with the surroundings. This is the inaugural VST test for the Moraine Tracking Club. As a "long distance" member from Texas, I was honored to have made the draw for this test and Race and I both enjoyed the flight up from Houston. I look around and see many of my peers and friends including the judges, Pam German and Wally O'Brien waiting for us to say we are ready. We have parked in the "chapel" area of Ft. Sheridan, an Army post situated on the edge of Lake Michigan, just a few miles north of Chicago. The track area is filled with empty army barracks currently populated with a menagerie of mice, moles, birds and other critters, which will be tantalizing to my sporting dog. Near one edge of the area sits a small church from which the area takes it's name. As we continue our walk to the start flag, a musical tune from the 1960's pops into my head. It is the melody from the song Chapel of Love by the Dixie Cups. I smile and think that this might be a good omen! At the very least, it relieves some of the stress of the moment.As planned, Race sits at the start flag and holds the start article in his mouth as I snap on his harness, adjust the lead and spend few moments telling him, and myself, that we have trained for this moment and that we, as a team, are ready. When he is ready, he drops the article, stands and waits for me to tell him to track! I glance back at the judges and spectators to acknowledge that we are ready to begin the journey and can almost feel the emotion, anticipation and good will emanating from the friends, associates and fellow trackers who have braved the wind and cold to judge, participate, or watch a group of teams compete in variable surface tracking.
Taking another deep breath, I issue the "track!" command and Race starts off down the track. After 32 yards he indicates a turn to the right and spies a field mouse moving to his left. Knowing how his devious little Field Spaniel mind works, I can see him think about playing with the mouse and then, perhaps, going back to tracking. I stand my ground and conjure up a magic word from my mental toolbox. In a fairly gruff voice I tell him to "leave it!" and after a moment of circling, he returns to the track, crosses 10 yards of grass and steps into an asphalt parking area. Working across the parking lot we enter a roadway bordered on both sides by buildings. Race casts and works both sides of the narrow 4 yard wide roadway, traverses a road, and after 100 yards indicates a turn to the left near another an intersecting road.
Turning on the grass, he works parallel to the road and between the first two buildings indicates a blue plastic lid. Pocketing the article, we go through our restart routine and continue down the edge of the road. After 60 yards, his head snaps to the right, indicating an immanent turn between two buildings. Like many dogs working in a swirling wind, he overshoots the turn and tries to turn on the other side of the building. Not committing to this turn, he backs up near the original indication point and commits to the proper turn. Unknown to me, at this time we are approximately five or so yards off track, paralleling the tracklayer between two buildings. We cross another street and continue between more barracks. In the wind, Race works more to the right of the track, somewhat paralleling a sidewalk and finds a small metal article. As I picked it up I thought it was much too small to be an official article, yet, I have learned never to leave anything on the track that could be an article. Pocketing the metal disk, we continue on. Race indicates a right turn at the next crossroad, yet crosses the road and works twenty or so yards along another building. Correcting himself, Race backs up and turns on the roadway. Twenty five yards later he indicates a metal Altoids canister and my hopes rise. We now have three of the four articles and I estimate that we have covered about 400 yards of the track. Glancing at my watch, I notice we've been on the track for a little over 20 minutes.Continuing down the blacktop road, I look up and observe that we are now facing the chapel. The Dixie Cups pop back into my head and as we work down the road I'm humming the tune and willing him to continue on our journey. Race crosses a road in front of the chapel and indicates a turn to the left. As I wait for him to commit, I see the spectators moving down the road from the start area towards us. It is one of the first times I recall seeing or even noticing the spectators or judges since we left the start flag. Next to the chapel is an asphalt parking lot, measuring about 20 by 30 yards, and is bordered by a grass and broken asphalt filled field that measures about 50 by 30 yards. The other edge of the grass field is bordered by another building. Race works the entire area and several times tries to make a left turn. In the swirling winds he breaks off over and over again to restart his search for the track. Unknown to me at the time, we have overshot the turn by a few yards and should be on the opposite side of the roadway we crossed. One last time he works down the parking area along the chapel building. At the end of the parking area is a large street. He attempts to cross it, yet raises his head when he is in the street. This is his indication to me that he is mistaken and I stand my ground and wait for him to back up to me. At this point we have overshot the original turn by 34 yards in a wind swept parking lot.
Returning to me, we backtrack across the parking area, enter the grass and asphalt filled field and finally re-cross the original roadway picking up the actual track and paralleling a building. Near the end of the building, we turn right and re-cross the street, a strip of grass, and a sidewalk and enter another parking lot. Without breaking stride, he traverses the parking lot and starts to cross the large street. Oncoming traffic forces me to recall him and sit him at the edge of the street. When the traffic and a series of joggers have passed, I restart him and he confidently crosses the street, enters a blacktop parking area that parallels a building. Exiting the parking area he continues down an asphalt street and indicates a left turn into a softball field. We work through the outfield and are headed for a small blacktop walkway, which divides the area. When he gets close to the walkway, I can feel the onshore winds increase from Lake Michigan, now only a hundred or so yards away. The increased winds swirl around the buildings, trees and chain link fences surrounding the 70 by 85 yard area we have entered.
On several occasions he works up to the walkway, only 25 or so yards from the final article, and is turned away by the swirling winds. Never hesitating, he works a ten or fifteen yard area and then continues on to the next. He is driven and he knows that the article is close. He continues to search the area as I give him line, and as the wind forces him to work new area I retake the line and start the process over again. In the softball area alone I feel like I have given and taken in thousands of feet of line, yet he worked on, determined to finish our journey. Finally, working upwind of the article, we cross the walkway that has stood like a barrier to us for so long. Starting a final search he worked out near the tree line a few yards away, turned back toward the judges and then returned to within a few yards of me to lay down.
As I looked down at him I notice a maroon shoulder pad with the magical #4 on it among the leaves at his feet. What seemed like a lifetime of hope, frustration and pent up energy was released in that single moment. I threw my arms into the air, and both mentally and physically exhausted, collapsed on the ground next to him. Hugging him close to me I held up the article for all to see. The chorus of whoops and cheers from the judges and gallery was music to my ears. It had been one hour and thirteen minutes since we started on a track, which was plotted at 637 yards with 287 yards being vegetated and 350 non-vegetated.
Race became the 41st dog, the first Field Spaniel, the forth Spaniel of any breed and my third Spaniel to earn the Variable Surface Tracker title.In the photo to the right -
(L to R)
Betty Winthers (AKC Rep)
Pam German (Judge)
Ed Presnall and Race
Wally O'Brien (Judge)
Barbara Larson (Track Layer)
© 2003-1996 - Ed Presnall - All Rights Reserved