Working through the record snow

It’s been awhile since I have posted on my webpage. Internet issues have made downloading videos a challenge, but recent changes have hopefully resolved many of those issues. This past year has been super busy for us with a lot of really talented dogs coming through our program. This big boy is Chief. He is a bloodhound out of Arkansas. Chief has been a bit of a late bloomer, but has come on strong over the past few weeks. In the beginning, his track drive was a bit lacking, but he has really done a nice turn around after some adjustments to his training.

We have been experiencing record cold and snowfall over the past 10 days, so tracking has been on hold. The conditions were just not conducive to training, and were unsafe for the dogs. Yesterday, the temps improved a bit, and I was able to get a track down in the icy snow. With nearly 10” of ice crusted snow on the ground, I was unsure how Chief would do. As you can see from the video, he had zero problems managing the track. This track was about 9 hours old, laid with hoof shoes and a teaspoon of blood. The track was shorter than normal, at 200 yards, as I was unsure how he would handle it. He exceeded all expectations on this one!