Tracking

This morning I went tracking with a friend. I am handling one of her dogs, a harrier named Lola. This is me and Lola. She is a tracking fiend!














My friend brought along her beagle that she is tracking with. This is Nika's second time in harness. She's a natural!















And this is Shine. We did two left turns on her 30 minute old track. Shine really had to check them out. She indicated the turn right away but then broke off to circle and make sure. Each time she circled, she indicated the correct track. She just wanted to make very sure that it was correct! She did much better on the second turn. I don't mind having a dog that breaks off and circles at the corner. But I think she will do it less and less and she gains confidence.

Tracking test

This is the weekend of my club's tracking test. We had three dogs earn their TD this weekend! It was a beautiful day for it! The fog that made it difficult for us track layers to see our flags and landmarks also held the scent close to the track. Here are pictures of the passing teams with the track layers and judges.

I think my cub does an excellent job at our tracking tests! Great judges, great conditions, great camaraderie and excellent food! I took an apple cake and an apple crisp and it all disappeared!

Introducing Ember

This is my cat Ember.

I adopted her from the local humane society about 5 years ago. When I was visiting the shelter to pick out a cat, I specifically looked for a cat that had a lot of confidence. In the end, I narrowed it down to two: Ember, who was called Duchess at the time, and a younger male named Bearclaw. I decided to take Ember because she was already 5 years old and I figured less adoptable than the younger cat.

When I brought her home, I had to integrate her into a household with three sight hounds. Fortunately, the canine crew had all lived among cats at one time in their lives. However, it had been 4 years since they had any sort of civil interactions with cats and they had, in fact, been chasing cats for the last 4 years.


I kept Ember in a cat cage behind an X-pen for the first couple weeks. I gave her the run of the place when I wasn't home and left the dogs locked up. When I was home, I had one dog at a time out with her while she was behind her safety barriers. Any barking, lunging, staring or pacing earned the dog a prize (a free trip outside alone for a few minutes, a horrible fate for any hound). I moved to letting Ember choose to come out of her cage while one dog was in the room. The same rules for the dogs applied. Eventually, I realized that I had gotten very lucky with Ember. She was very good at interpreting the situation and responded accordingly. I was quickly able to move up to having two dogs out with her and then all three.

To be honest, Tigger was never a problem. Once he was reminded that this was "our" kitty he treated it as such. He has always had impeccable manners around smaller critters in the house.

The other two took a tad longer but eventually complied. It helped that Ember was willing to punish investigating noses with a well placed paw and occasionally, a claw.


Ember has shown herself to be a good judge of the character of visiting dogs too. She also discovered the dog door and how to use it. I used to really worry about it but noticed that she rarely left my back yard and then only to prowl in the neighbors back yard.

She is a very friendly cat with a lot of character. I clicker train her along side the dogs and often put her in the sit stay line up for kicks. Recently I discovered that she thinks Salami is the primo cat treat!

She is also very photogenic and is always dressed in fall colors!