Tonight, we ran a trail that was set up at 7:30 am by Rita and Sarah. Rita was my spotter and Sarah was the subject. We had a typical Eagle Valley Search Dogs training day ….. all day long. During the time that the trail was aging more than 2 inches of rain had fallen and we were having wind gusts up to 19mph in the afternoon and evening. We had worked many dog teams on area search problems all around the first 300 yards of the trail for contamination.
It was 8:00 pm, Rita and I are looking outside into the darkening sky, where the rain continues to fall with force. She asked me,”well, what do you think?” I replied,”I have no idea if there is still scent out there but lets find out.” So we were all game for the challenge!
Maya’s scent article was a pepsi bottle. She took it with great focus and as far as Maya was concerned it could have been a beautiful spring morning. She was on the move and on the trail! She trailed her heart out… it felt like the never-ending trail as the rain beat down on us all. But it didn’t beat our spirit… we could believe that the dog was on the trail and rearing to go?!
The trail had started in Karen’s back yard, went down into the woods towards the Coxing Kill Creek, crossing the creek, up the opposite hillside a few hundred feet, back across the creek, transversing up the mountainside, popping out onto Clove Valley Rd. and continuing down that for a good 1/3 mile then back into the woods to end the trail at Sarah about 100 feet off the road. 58 minutes later, Maya and I had traveled 1.88 miles in the dark, the wind and the rain to locate our subject and never drifted more than 100 yards off trail. My mind was filled with a few words: amazed, proud, and thrilled!
11 hour old wilderness trail in High Falls, NY Blue track = subject Red track = Maya
