River's 23-hour old Mother's Day Track!

After a hard day yesterday, today was a great day tracking! Yesterday, I laid a track for River at 11:30 AM. I planned to run it around 6 PM. But my friend John Krayzel called and I ended up going to Edmonton with him - as he picked up his beautiful new Macaw named Molly...

Sidebar...here she is today, enjoying her new life in Calgary...and that's John's hand (that's all you get to see, because this is a DOG blog)...but now I am thinking of getting a parrot too! John has two GSDs that do SchH, so he might be able to handle a big bird like this, we'll see...

Back to tracking - so when he called, I worried about the track, and John said "why not leave it overnight and do a super-track in the morning?" So, thanks to John, I did exactly that! I am so happy I did because this morning I watched my 10-year old girl successfully do a 23-hour old track.  I cried at the end! It was a very wonderful Mother's Day Present to me from my girl River.

In this photo, she found her article which had blown up to the building and was 15 feet off track.

As always, I use a loose line and let her choose the pace and direction. Only one article was missing. The tracking gods gave me a light rain in the morning to freshen the scent. I am uploading video but won't post it all (it was 25 minutes). Sadly, I thought I was recording the first article and some interesting footage through an open air warehouse area - but actually stopped recording the whole time. But I got the rest on video and will treasure it for years to come.

Below is the map, and I will post the video in a new post later this week.

I am so proud of my River! Here she is at the last article, nearly 24 hours after the track was laid.

Other News

****I am also very excited to report that Kim Cooper's GSD "Chaos" earned a TDX in Ontario today, to finish her TRACKING CHAMPIONSHIP!*** I read Kim's message on Facebook while I was out with River, and this added to the happiness of the day! Congratulations to Kim! Her Belgian also earned a TDX today, so it was a double-header. I had this honour with my dogs Hawk (GSD) and Kate (Rough Collie) in 1994. I will never forget that day - earning two TDXs in one day is not a common feat!