CT INT'L-CH LONE HILL IT'S ALL IN THE JOURNEY CDX JH WC CGC TDIA

Article by Bea Moore (Journey's breeder, "Mom", and handler!)

Journey passed his VST test on November 2, 2003 at West Valley College in Saratoga, CA. Having passed all three tests, TD, TDX, VST earned him his Champion Tracker (CT) title.

Journey is the 10th Golden Retriever to earn this title since the first AKC Variable Surface Tracker dog passed in September 1995 - and we are the 74th team to pass.

He completed the 728 yd. track with 8 turns in 44 minutes. Both judges, Barbara Adcock & Sally Diess, plotted some very nice & mostly linear tracks. They were great tracks, and definitely had moments of truth in them. I finally succeeded in actually totally trusting my dog the entire track!! (Easier said than done). There are variables that you never know will happen and you have to adjust to them. If the dog is a good tracker, you can hopefully make it to the end of the track successfully - finding the two intermediate and end articles along the way.

Journey had a very nice start. He cut his first corner a bit short and paralleled the second leg. Close to leg 3, we had a distraction with a dog who was off lead and ahead of us. I waited for the owner to put her dog on lead and then she proceeded to walk towards us with both of her little dogs. I waited for them to pass, then Journey continued to track.

On the 3rd leg he made a turn on grass and found his first intermediate article on leg 4. It was hard plastic. He continued very strong and ended up cutting off the next turn to leg 5 and found his 2nd intermediate article (metal) on the cement next to a building. This outdoor corridor led towards a parking lot.

Legs 6 and 7 were in that parking lot which was on the other side of a campus road. These legs were diagonal to the design of the parking lot and difficult, but Journey tracked close enough to these legs and made it back across the campus road to the grass which led towards the buildings again. Leg 8 brought us closer to the buildings.

Leg 9 was a left turn near a building where the track could have gone on 3 different paths. Journey didn't hesitate choosing the far left path, which went over a wooden bridge. Immediately after the bridge there is a dirt trail that goes off to the left where there is an enormous amount of foliage. Journey took this immediately, and about 40 feet into this, he stopped and turned around to go back to the paved path.

Barbara Adcock (judge), Sally Diess (judge), Bea Moore, "Journey", Linda Knowles (tracklayer)

He continued on this 9th leg, which went straight ahead onto grass (leaving the path) where he ran to the end article (leather) and ran back with it in his mouth and was a very happy boy!! So was I a very happy Mom!!

There were many people in the gallery and there was a sudden explosion of noise and a lot of very happy people!! I have not gone over the actual track since the test. My description is what I remember, or was told afterwards, and what I see on the test sheets. According to Barbara, Journey appeared to be following the scent trail the entire way even though he was not close to where the tracklayer actually walked all the time. I still can't believe we did it. I kept thinking it was a dream and I would wake up. I have a beautiful PAFTA VST Mug to prove it really did happen!!

This was Journey's 8th VST test. Four here in California & four in Colorado. He is 6 years old. His first VST test was at age 2 in November 1999. He is a wonderful tracking dog and a pleasure to watch. Journey's tracklayer was Linda Knowles. The Chief Tracklayer was Terry Southard. The Test Chairperson was Miriam Hillier.

THANKS TO EVERYONE who made this a very nice and successful test for us. I have to add a P.S. to this. The morning of the test, my car broke down in front of my house. I had 50 minutes to get to the draw about 10 miles away. I called Mary Ann Graziano - who lives very close to the test site - and caught her at home just getting ready to leave for the test. She was first alternate. Yes, she picked us up. Definitely a GOOD friend :o) We got to the test site with 10 minutes to spare! I was a bit stressed; Journey adjusted just fine with the confusion. He's such a good boy :o))

Special thanks to Barbara Adcock who was our trainer for the first 4 years of Journey's life. When we first began, she used to meet us up at Mission Peak with my puppy in a baby carrier pouch and she'd lay puppy tracks for him. He learned to track in that cow pasture. Barbara encouraged us and gave me guidelines that I still use.

I got away from some of these guidelines for reasons I can't explain, but I recently went back to them. Journey was doing well at tracking, but there was something missing in the past couple years. I began to realize that I was taking away from Journey a style that he had (and had been encouraged by Barbara during our first 4 yrs. of training) and I gave it back to him and he was back to his old self again. That's the main thing that I contribute our VST pass.

Thank You Barbara, for always having been so positive and encouraging.

-- Bea Moore

See Journey's website