Hershey was abused by her first owners. She came to me when she was 13 months old. She was very shy, cowered around men, and seriously lacked self-confidence, the cornerstone of the German Shepherd Dog. I worked with her to increase her self confidence. While she did gain confidence in herself, she was still a little too reticent for my liking. That's when I discovered scent tracking. She took to it like she'd been doing it for 100 years! Now, we're registered to take a CKC-sanctioned tracking test in May. In preparation, I've been laying down a few tracks myself. She's become quite bored with these, so I enlisted my mother's help. Here's what happened:

Yesterday, I decided to follow the route my mother takes when she walks her dog. She didn't tell me which direction or route she was taking, but we agreed upon a starting point. She put one of her 'dirty' socks into a zip lock bag. I used this to provide the scent to Hershey .

As we were doing the track, Hershey kept stopping and sniffing around: at a tree, some boxes that had been put outside for garbage day, a mail box, a stop sign, etc. I kept telling her to get going! Turns out, each time she stopped to sniff at something, that is where my mother had stopped and touched the item (I hadn't told my mother to do this)!! Got to learn to trust my dog!!!!

The track was about 15-20 minutes old and there were MAJOR distractions along the way. The median where we started is a dog walking highway.
Hershey weaved in and out of the trees and stuff, following precisely the path my mother had taken with her dog, Muggsey. Then we encountered a man with his dog; not to mention all the garbage out at the curb; a squirrel, which she only briefly looked at and then kept on going; a person walking right across our path; another couple with their dog; more dogs behind a cedar hedge; dog toys by the side of the road....Whew!!! Then, instead of stopping at the sock my mother had left, she continued right up the front stairs, into the house, and immediately found my mother in the kitchen!!!
I was on the other end of the lead huffing and puffing, trying to keep up with her!!! Total length of the track was probably around 600 to 700 metres . The surface changes were from dirt/grass, across a street (asphalt), side of the road (gravelly sand and grass), across another street, across the lawn (grass), up the stairs into the house (cement), in the house (hardwood floors and area rugs). I can't get over how amazing she is!!

Jo-Ann