This was our third time in Hunt Cover. Steve has started preparing the wood for his intake of pheasant poults in the next few days, and has now cut out some of the rides. So I decided to make the most of it by giving Heidi an overnight track to follow. I set the line around 7.00pm, finding my way around the new pathways now cut out, I seemed to be walking for ages, so much so it was starting to get dark, and rain was forecast.
The next morning, Heidi and I drove to the wood arriving around 7.30am. We'd had a shower or two overnight, and the wind was now pretty blustery. I lifted her out of the back of the truck, put her sling lead on, grabbed my kit bag, and set off to the start, which was a few meters inside the wood. As usual, quite a few meters before I changed her normal lead for her tracking leash, and she instantly new what was on, ironically whilst doing this I noticed a large Muntjac buck crossing the track line about 30m from us-this was going to be interesting I thought. Before we got to the starting point, her head was down looking for evidence. As soon as we reached my marker it was 'track on', and off she went. Her start was extremely fast and strong, but within a few meters she seemed a little confused, almost as though she was a bit cocky, not unlike a student that is still in training, but thinks they know everything. After a bit of confusion and looking around we settled down again, and she only hesitated briefly where the Munty had crossed. This took us up to the edge of Steve's pheasant pen, a Heidi was on form, taking us right around the outside. As we went along there was a path turn right off from ours, and Heidi decided to turn off here and investigate. I could tell by the change in her body language that she realised this was not what she should be following, and decided to let her go with it whilst standing at the turn. She went about 8m then decided to turn around, and get back to the line. I was glad at this point that she did not continue on what was probably a 'live' track.
Once we had finished going round the pretty much rectangular pheasant pen, we turned right, and with in a few meters turned right again, both with no problems.
After a short distance there was a right handed fork, which again she tackled with no problems. This led on to fairly straight section which then started to curl to the left, along here was another path running right, off to the edge of the wood, with which Heidi repeated her short investigation exercise as she had done earlier. Once back on track we came to a 'T' junction, where we were to turn left, no problem. With her head down we continued a left handed curl, heading back uphill, which bought us to our last right handed fork/turn. Heidi didn't even stop or slow down here, and carried on to the find with no problems, eager for her liver treat reward.
Age of track: 12.5hrs
Length of Track: Approx 550m.
Type of track: Shoe and diluted blood.
Amount of blood: 250ml (1/5diluted with water).
Wind direction: From the left, and slightly behind.
Wind strength: 25-31 mph
Temp: 16ºC
Weather: Bright and cool.
Time: 07.30pm
Age of Dog: 6 1/2 months
Conclusions:
Our start was a bit over exuberant to say the least. I keep Heidi calm when walking from the vehicle to the 'place of impact', and make a point not to be negative. For example if she doesn't walk to heel at this point, I ignore it. She knows what going on and can't wait to get started, but I think that once we pull off from the impact point I will try to steady her on the leash, just to keep her a little more focused and concentrated.
I'm glad she didn't get carried away on live tracks this time. On our last two missions this really caused a problem for her. I can't decided yet if the next track will be a similar location or go back to New Wood to try our luck again.
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