October 5, 2008

On Sunday, I was on my way to Junction City Park with Scout to lay a trail for Dino. On the road I found a dog running down the middle of the highway. I pulled over and called the dog, and he came running toward me. I put him into the truck and noticed the id tag in Junction City on Redhill Road. I got to Redhill, but I could not find the house. I called the number on the tag, but nobody answered. I called Jean to ask her about the house numbers. She recognized the dog and the house. I went to the house, but nobody was home. I left a note on the front gate that I had their dog with my number.

I didn’t know what to do with the dog. I thought about using him to lay a trail for Dino to track, but I didn’t know how this other dog was with other dogs. I decided to go home and introduce Dino to this other dog.

I tied Elwood up to a phone post in the driveway, and I brought Dino out. I kept them quite a distance away to see the reaction. Elwood seemed interested in Dino and was not displaying any aggression. Dino was curious and wanted to play. I brought them closer, and still they were curious and checking each other out. I let them sniff each other and great each other, but that was it. I couldn’t take the chance that something more could happen, and I was by myself.

I put Dino into his crate and took out Scout. I put Elwood into the truck. Dino was a little growly. I drove back to the JC park, and took Elwood out of the truck. I walked him around the park, around the horse arena, down the driveway, through the playground and through an old baseball diamond. I walked with Elwood up a dirt driveway which led past a horse farm with several horses running in the big pasture. It was a long driveway back up to the park and to the parking lot to the truck. That only took about 15 minutes.

I sat in the car listening to Car Talk for another 30 minutes. That would make the trail 45 minutes old. I got Elwood out, and tied him to a tree while I took Dino out and put him on a stay on the other side of the truck. I got his treat bag, clicker and rawhide toy. I put Elwood back into the truck.

I walked Dino up the trail to where I walked Elwood, and along the way, I said “take scent” and showed him Elwood’s scent pad. I then said search. Dino immediately put his head down and found the trail.

We went around the horse arena and down a dirt driveway. I clicked and treated a couple of times as he got a couple of turns. There was one turn through the playground that he didn’t get. I stopped at the change point without saying anything. He stopped and looked at me. He came back to where I was and found the trail again. He went through the baseball field. He started to go up a small hill, but then stopped on his own and came back down. He got the turn from the baseball field to the driveway past the horsefarm. I clicked and treated when he got that on his own.

He was very distracted past the horse farm. Dino loves horses and wants to go see them when we have walked past them in the past. Plus the horses were coming over to the fence to investigate the new dog and person. He tried several times to visit with them. I said gently “get to work” and “search” along the way. He did do that. It was a long driveway, but eventually we got through it. I thought later on that I could tell Dino that after the search, we could go visit with the horses to say hi. That might make him feel better about not saying Hi to the horses.

Dino got the turn from the driveway back to the car. I thought he might follow the trail again up to the beginning, but he didn’t. I was happy about that. When we got to the car where Elwood was waiting, I said “show me” and Dino jumped on the back of the truck. I gave him the bag of treats and played with the rawhide.