Ted the toy tracker
I confess that I have been planning this post for a few days now. When I work on the computer Ted tries desperately to get my attention by bringing me "stuff." Sometimes he brings me toys. He will push the toy into my leg - and other times he'll actually balance it like a seal, between my leg and his big, black, button nose.Often what he will do is put a toy down, then lie back and stare at it. I know I taught him this behaviour because it is his article indication in tracking. Ted is not the best tracking dog I've had which is OK because he is a stockdog first. But he would probably be a fantastic dog to look for specific scents in a squared off search area. He LIVES for finding the toy. Therefore, in tracking, he loses his head a little in his worry to find the article - and will bring his head up to find a scent cone.
In a tracking test last spring, Ted turned left instead of right to fail our attempt for a TD. The left turn went sharply down a gradual hill. The right turn of course, went UP the hill. I found out that the article was downhill, but to get there, he had to go up, across and down. As it was a warm and rainy morning, I am sure he smelled that darn glove - and it was the first track of the day, too, so only 30 minutes old with lots of residual scent wafting around. This is NOT an excuse for Ted - but it may be a reason. I also remember not having a clue what he was doing because he never did pick a definite "line" on that track. So when he turned sharply left with great purpose - I thought it looked pretty darn good! This photo was taking of us starting out, by the judge Marie Babin. 
And there he goes, left...(sigh)... Don't worry about me though - later that weekend River got her UTD - which I will tell you about next!
10-month old Caden is a real toy hog and Ted gives Caden "puppy license" to have all of the REAL toys. But Ted is very resourceful. He has taken to bringing me things no one else would recognize as a toy. In the past few days, I have been taking his prizes and putting them beside the computer monitor. Every time I work on the computer, I start to laugh looking at this little pile. What is in the pile? A piece of dogfood bag, the top of a thumb from a tracking glove, a piece of paper, a twist tie, a piece of plastic...and there is more, read on...
The funny thing is that he takes these items very seriously. The weirdest one was the piece of FLUFF that he put on my knee. I didn't feel it. I had no idea it was there. He laid back and started to "wuff" at me, tail wagging. I looked around, under my chair, on the floor, and finally said "well where is your toy?" Ted surged forward to proudly poke the piece of fluff. He is one quirky boy. You might not have noticed the fluff in the above photo, or you probably thought it was normal for my floor to have doghair everywhere, so here is a close up of the piece of fluff "toy" Ted gave to me:
It is actually funny - slash - sad that Ted has to resort to this.
Today I placed the prize offerings on the floor. Ted seemed delighted to see them again. He actually posed for this picture the way a dog would pose if they had won a big trial, or saved someone from a disaster. In this photo you can see more offerings - two pieces of cardboard and a piece of the wrist from a tracking glove.
After the test last spring, I told the judge that on one of our last tracks Ted did something very similar - scattering around on his last leg and frantic about finding the glove, so I was not really surprised by this. I have to work on showing him the best way to get to those articles is actually to track! As a Border Collie, he has developed a real intensity for articles and toys after being rewarded by me. He is article crazy and pretty toy crazy too...
Or is he just a NEAT FREAK?
In which case he can play a great role around this house...(another big sigh)...
Postscipt: Marie, our tracking judge took this shot of Ted waiting to run his track last spring. Ted is thinking "WHERE IS THE TOY? MUST FIND THE TOY..."
Category Article Beginners tracking, Border collie, Ted
