Doug's New Favorite

This morning, Ransom was inside as Doug was getting ready for school. She has always had a weakness for socks (particularly DIRTY ones)! I suspect that Mr. Doug had recycled the socks he was about to put on his feet out of his dirty clothes hamper because they were not neatly folded into each other (as I would have left them in his drawer), but, instead, were suspiciously inside out, bunched up, and separate from each other...as though recently pulled off his feet! So, one could hardly blame Ransom when she sidled up to Doug and, the moment he was off guard, snatched one of those dirty socks from him. She hopped over to the other side of the room to happily chew on it, but Doug, tore after her and snatched it out of her mouth. Then, totally disgusted that the cuff of his sock was now slightly damp, he dangled it, barely holding on to it with a thumb and forefinger and went on and on about how disgusting it was. I suggested he might want to deposit both of the socks in his clothes hamper (where they should have been anyway!) and fetch fresh ones from his dresser. Doug was quite put out and remained aggravated with Ransom the rest of the morning. I didn't realize HOW aggravated, though, until, thinking to remind him that he really DOES like Ransom, I asked, "Who is your favorite dog?" Instantly he shot back, "GABBY!" (our friend, Lisa's dog...Ransom's littermate)

Recently, Lisa and I took Ransom and Gabby tracking. I was amazed at what a skillful tracker Gabby already is at just seven months of age! We had a blast laying trails for our dogs to follow. Gabby puts her nose right to the ground, immediately all business, and follows the zig-zagging, circuitous trail flawlessly (and with dizzying speed). She amazes me! Ransom, however, still hasn't shown much of an interest to track the trail by ground scent...she prefers simply to throw her head high to the wind and race as the crow flies towards her target. I handled Gabby while Gabby would track Lisa and Lisa handled Ransom when she would track me. The very last trail I laid, I backtracked quite a ways and wound up hiding up under the roots of an upturned tree, totally out of sight from any direction of approach. The upturned tree was laying against a thick wall of fallen trees that extended for hundreds of feet in either direction. When Lisa released Ransom from the parked car, she ran STRAIGHT for the place in the fallen tree wall where I was hidden on the other side, but, the wall being about five feet high, she was unable to scale it. Frustrated she was whining and carrying on excitedly directly on the wrong side of the wall where I was huddled down. Meanwhile, Lisa did not realize I had backtracked all the way back there and thought I was way off in the opposite direction. She, herself had headed for the break in the wall (a long ways further down) where she had seen me disappear into the woods. She was quite put out that Ransom (off leash) was not "looking for Monica", but, instead was throwing a fit at the wall. I didn't make a sound, hoping that Ransom would give up and follow my scent trail on the GROUND to find HOW to get to the place I was at (on the other side of that wall). Lisa, meanwhile, began calling, "Ransom! COME!!!! Ransom, COME!!!" Ransom complied, but then immediately broke away again to resume her frustrated vigil far from the wall's opening, just opposite my resting place. Lisa was aggravated. Obviously, Ransom was not taking this tracking thing seriously at all! Again she commanded Ransom to come back and admonished her, "Find Monica! Where is she? Go find her!" and again got downright MAD at Ransom for racing back over to that same place at the wall, instead of joining her in the woods! The FOURTH time my friend yelled at Ransom to "COME!!!", I finally had to break my silence and yell to Lisa, "Ransom knows exactly where I am, she just can't figure out how to get TO me! YOU are the one who is clueless here! Quit making my dog go the WRONG way!" Lisa and I laughed all the way home over that one. First rule of handling a tracking dog is FOLLOW your dog...don't make her follow you! We learned that even though Ransom still refuses to track by ground scent, her nose is still a lot better than Lisa's! She can wind scent like nobody's business.