My fiancé overslept this morning so instead of him taking baby Magnus to daycare we split up and I biked him to destination. Bella was pulling the trailer like a husky, she's amazing.
I took her with me again when I returned to pick Magnus up and my fiancé was with me this time around. We're giving alternate routes a go, in the morning run I found out just how much traffic there is in the area. I did consider leaving Bella at home but she had planted herself in front of the front door so how could I? She ran like a champ although we did go a lot slower on the way back, she was running low on gas!
We were both feeling pretty cozy after that and thinking nice thoughts of the sofa when I remembered I had made an appointment after noon. Yes all the biking had happened before noon, 8 km in one day. I scheduled meeting my cousin because she was going to teach me how to track with Bella. She has two dogs and has trained them both for tracking, she has done considerable search and rescue training with them.
I really enjoyed this, even if there was a storm approaching and pouring down rain. We laid in total three short sausage laden tracks for Bella and I really enjoyed seeing her improve with each one. I have spent a long time wondering how to teach a dog to track and now I am starting to understand.
Seeing the trained dogs work was interesting as well, for the younger bitch she laid a track for her to follow and with the older one she asked me to head to the trees nearby and lie down. What amazed me was that she explained pretty much how the dog would go before finding me. She looked like such a pro, she ran downwind and when she caught a whiff of me she ran almost straight towards me and when she saw me, ran off to let my cousin know and together they came back.
Seeing people work their dogs is not a common thing but it is actually one of my favorite type of dog-watching. I like beautiful dogs but more than that I enjoy seeing a dog in the 'workzone'. A dog who is happy as a clam having a job to do.
I wanted to take my camera with me but because of the awful weather I didn't want to risk it. Thus, I only have camera phones of Bella! Maybe next time.
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