Feb 16 2025 TD Tracking Test

At Mather Regional Park, Sacramento CA.
Judges Pat Beauchamp and Jenny Cuccinello
Secretary Karey Krauter
Click HERE for premium.
Closes Feb 6.

Congrats to TRACS on another great season of field tracking, with the conclusion of our Feb 16 TD test last weekend at Mather regional park.  Congrats to all participants and volunteers, I love working with all of you!  Weather report: perfect perfect chill partly cloudy calm, a tad of sprinkles on Sunday (omigosh the view of the freshly snowed-on sierras, from the fields, was spectacular!).  Report on field conditions: pretty much perfect, mostly solid cover of ankle high grasses with patches of knee-high dead brown weed stalks from last year.  A few interesting ponds leftover from the big rain the week prior.  We offered 5 tracks (plus a possible alternate track), and we had 11 entries.  The weekend prior to this test was SacramentoDTC’s TD test, which filled and had a great pass rate!  Most of the people in the TRACS test were also in the SacDTC test, so we ended up having 5 withdrawals due to having passed the weekend before, leaving us with 6 entries meaning we expected everyone to have a track to run.  Bottom line for our test’s remaining 6 entries: two passes and 3 non-passes, and one scratch.

HUGE thank you to our judges Pat Beachamp and Jenny Cuccinello, and to my tracklayers Meg Azevedo (who looks recovered from last month’s harrier incident, you are made of NAILS, girl!), Renee St Denis (thank you again for housing me and Now, a lovely afternoon and evening of dog and everything talk!), Alice Webber, Cathy Beam (you four saved my butt volunteering at ALL the TRACS tracking tests this season), Jim Aitken, and Colton Meyer.  Also deep appreciation for Sandy Zajkowski being there holding down HQ and prep’ing lunch, and Dianna Brink doing all the tracklayer driving so I could stick to pretending to be chief tracklayer.  I was also pretty excited about us having Paul Brink there as a shadow judge in training, and also Terry Southard there getting her judge evaluation from AKC field rep Carol Ruthenberg who was also there.  Carol also got to do a final eval of judge Jenny, hopefully advancing Jenny from her provisional status!  We had ALL the stages of AKC tracking judge training there, making Carol’s trip very worthwhile, especially since this means soon more local judges to hire!  Also a little comical to have all those people on the track behind the dog being tested.  Bless Carol’s heart for letting us know our test was well-done and professionally run.  Yay TRACS!

Saturday plotting day went swimmingly (figuratively, really, although track 1 give them pause as they were deciding whether to trapse through the ponds or meander around the edge), ended by noon, we all scattered to the winds before lunch time.  All the aspects of TD tests are SO FAST!  Sunday started with a lovely sunrise but then the clouds closed in and gave us some unexpected sprinkles for an hour.  Our tracklayers were models of efficiency and timing, all went off without a hitch. This was my first time trying out our more experienced chief tracklayers preferred scheduling method, with each track’s lay time rolling with when the track two tracks before them was run – it makes for less waiting between tracks, and no worries about a track aging out if the competitors before take longer to run.  (My usual is to set a fixed start time for every track allowing about 15 minutes for each track to run.)

Track 1 went to a 6yo rough collie from Auburn, with all her classmates and teachers watching!  She motored through with confidence until they hit that aforementioned pond.  The track meandered around the pond, they figured it out.  Corners all pretty much penciled in, reached the finish glove in 10min flat: PASS!  Congrats to Diana Hiiesalu and GCHS CH Entais Grand Jete’, TD!

Track 2 went to a 2yo Dalmatian from Vacaville, there was a lot of energy there!  Once going in the right direction, they barrelled down the line, unfortunately right past the first corner and they couldn’t work their way back.  We will be seeing them again next season!

Track 3 went to a 5yo English Cocker Spaniel from Redwood City.  Fast start, fast on the track, fast corners, most of her time spent midway when untangling the line, finished in 9min flat, WOW PASS!  Congrats to Denise Gormish and Parkwood Star Over Texas TD SWME SHDM SWD RN THD TKP.  Made the day especially sweet since Denise sacrificed her entry into a hard-to-get-into elite nosework test in Modesto today to do this.

Track 4 went to a 2.5yo English Springer Spaniel from Elk Grove.  Excellent start, excellent management of the first two corners, but sadly followed a rut that bisected the track, couldn’t find their way back.

Track 5 went to a 1.5yo ACD from Fairfield.  Sadly had a similar outing – good start, figured out the first two corners, took a left where there wasn’t a left off the third leg.

Done by lunchtime, yummy warm tomato bisque soup and much good chatting about plans.  We are looking forward to everyone coming back next season, if not to enter, then to volunteer!  Thank you again to everyone!

Oh I almost forgot – thank you to Colton for his most excellent camera, taking lots of shots on the tracks, and also the ribbons shots at the end!  We’ll be sending out the link when he has them uploaded to his website.

Paul, ribbon[/caption]