Our first sledding season is off to a great start with our custom made harnesses by Windchill Dog Gear arriving just in time for us to make it to the AMCV's 2nd race meet. Jaska went up first in Novice coming in 3rd and winning his faithful human a bag of candy. He was pretty responsive along the trail but tired himself out after some frantic barking at the start. Dukino made her début in Touring coming in 3rd as well. She has made a massive improvement since the training day and spent most of the time in front with the line out straight. The only issue she had was was missing the first turn on the command "left". She had no issues with the second turn when "turn" was used instead. Both dogs will be getting out for a bit more exercise over the next couple of weeks to prepare them for Race # 3 and #4.
Dukino and I headed out on a rainy Sunday morning to participate in a beginners tracking workshop with Scent Dogs Australia. It was a fantastic day with some fantastic people.
We started off with a bit of a getting to know you session where each person played a game with their dog and taught someone else how to do the same. Dukino's choice of toy for the day was bits of ham and chicken loaf. Lunch is fun when the silly humans throw it to you! The next step was introducing the dogs to the food bucket and having them chase the track layer that they played with earlier in order to get a free meal. After the dogs that this section worked out a couple of socks with food were added along the way to encourage the dogs to stop and sniff (and eat) at these locations. After lunch we moved off to the field and started laying tracks for each others dogs. Dukino thought this part was great as food was dropped at intervals along the train with a sock marker along the way. After she made it to the second sock she began to realise what the game was about and started heading more directly between each sock in the direction of the track layer. Her second track was extremely successful with her even ignoring some bits of food along the way to get to her prize at the end. She finished up by tracking her way back to the start line. Saturday marked our last day of showing for the season and it was a fantastic finish with Dukino taking the last 12 points towards her championship title! at the Colac shows in Warrion today! She shall now be known as CH Taigakoira Aitosas Davvir (pending) with the addition of her first title. We'll be taking some time off showing after this to focus on some other sports. Photo: Elsa Hoggard
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