On Sunday Nov.11, 2008 Maggie got her VST (Variable Surface Tracker) title and became Champion Tracker ! 🙂
The test took the place at the DuPage Government Center in Wheaton, Illinois. Maggie had tracked on four different surfaces which included short grass, cement, mulch and blacktop. The track was aged 3 hours and had 4 articles (including the starting one) of leather, metal, plastic and cloth. The length was 650 yards and had 5 turns, where one of them was turn on the hard surface called “moment of truth” turn. The weather was very cold and windy and the surface was moist. At first, I thought that the strong wind will “kill” her on that track but surprisingly I think dogs recognize the problem and are more accurate then any other time. I tried to take that wind out of my head and not to think about it and just watch my dog work the track. We kind of got stuck at the first turn but when Maggie finally worked that turn out, she hit the track and finished all the way to the end. She indicated all articles too. 🙂
It was so so much pleasure to watch her work on a such hard track. It always amazed me how they are able to discriminate one and the only one scent on changing surfaces and indicate articles belonging to the scent. VST tracks are always laid in the high traffic areas (almost like urban tracking), there are many people, cars some garbage and they can still follow that only scent. It is incredible !!!
I am so happy 🙂 want to share with you my happiness on this accomplishment that took me a quite a lot of work. Here are a few pictures from that day.
Joanna and… CT Maggie
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