Welcome to my blog.

I've recently begun training my 2 year old Dobe, Zodi, in tracking and decided to keep a record of our training progress in this blog. I only have a little experience with tracking training and that's from about 20 years ago when I got a TD on my first Dobe, Jemma, so I consider myself a complete beginner.

So much has changed since I've done any tracking. I was looking at the AKC tracking website and noticed they have a Tracking Invitational now (www.akc.org/events/tracking/national_invitational) which I think is really cool. It's new, only a few years old and it really gives people who already have their Tracking Championship something else to shoot for. They didn't even have a Tacking Championship 20 years ago and hadn't even started awarding titles for VST back then.

I'm excited about all these new opportunities in tracking. Tracking is something I've always enjoyed for several reasons. It's done outdoors in the fields and woods where I love to spend my time and it has very different training challenges from agility and obedience. In tracking--it seems to me--the trainer offers puzzles for the dog to solve and then allows the dog to use her brain/nose to solve them. The trainer shouldn't be interfering or leading the dog, just shaping the dog to stay relatively close to the track (in AKC tracking anyway, I can't answer for other types).

And there's just no feeling like the one I get when I see my dog settle into her harness and pull smoothly down the track and through a turn. It gives me goosebumps. I've heard people say they can't think of anything more boring to do with their dog than tracking so I guess you either get it or you don't. I defintely do.

I love that this resurgence in tracking interest on my part has corresponded to several things that seem to be coincidence but may be something else. I've been experiencing some--not exactly boredom--with agility lately. It's more a feeling that I've gone as far as I'm going to go and a feeling of spinning my wheels or running in place. I'm a little tired of spending so much time on one thing when there are so many other things out there to do. Tracking is a new adventure that I really need right now and I have a great dog to do it with, too. Zodi is a little immature for agility still but tracking is such a natural thing for a dog to do. It sort of works better with a Dobe's instincts, I believe.

Well, that's just a little intro to what this blog is (hopefully) going to be about. I hope you come back soon and see that we've made some progress and that we're having lots of fun.