Date of Birth: 5/20/96
Ch. Vennwoods Special Edition x Terenelf's Jazzabell
Owned, trained and handled by Becki Harte
Calvin loved the herding clinic.
"Tuesday and Wednesday we were in Cross Junction, VA, for a Tracking Clinic. Your puppy, Calvin, was an absolute STAR!*!*!*
"On Tuesday, we had a lot of lecture which, of course, bored the dogs to sleep (and some of the people too. :-) Wednesday morning started with a little more lecture, then we were divided into groups to go into the field. Calvin and I were in a group with two English Springer Spaniels. The clinic teachers all bred Springers, so I wasn't overly optimistic -- I thought we'd been put in with two ringers. We each laid a straight 100-yard track for ourselves. I was less optimistic as Calvin searched the field for his sheep -- he was just SURE they were over the hill! When it was our turn, Bernie (the group leader) held Calvin while I walkd about a third of the way out and dropped the glove. I then walked back to Calvin and told him "find it" -- he walked straight out to the glove! We did it several more times, each time lengthening the track.
"On the last track, Bernie said 'I want you all to watch what I'm going to do with this dog [Calvin] -- I'm going to test him. I want to know if he's using his nose or his eyes to track me.' While I held Calvin, Bernie walked out about 70 yards (where the glove was last placed), then turned to the right and walked to a tree before dropping the glove. I told Calvin to 'find it'. Off we went, me worring that calvin would make a bee line for the tree. He stopped a couple of times tosearch an area and I'd wait for him, then tell him 'find it'. We finally got to the 70 yard mark and he sniffed around for it before turning right and heading right for the tree!!! When we came back, Bernie said, 'You've got a great one there.' We went back to the lecture hall and Bernie said, 'Where's my Corgi? Everyone take a look at them -- you'll be seeing them around!!'
"We had one more track of the day with a left hand turn in it. The first part of the track was lingle laid (only walked on one time by Bernie). Calvin took right out and stopped only long enough to eat a hot dog Bernie had dropped along the way!
"Of course, these were very basic tracks, but Bernie (whose sife is a tracking judge) said Calvin is really terrific. So, it looks like we're going to start training for tracking, too! We're off to a herding clinic in Chesapeake this weekend. We're coming along slowly in herding, but it sure is fun."
Scent hounds might as well just move over when Calvin arrives!
