Saturday in Chugiak dawned with brilliant blue skies and not a cloud in sight. It was also a whopping 21°F when I took the dachshunds out for their morning potty break at 7:00 am.
The forecast on my phone app is threatening a 40% chance of snow today, so we’ll see. I’ll take the sunshine while it’s in the offing.
Baxter started off his search day in fine style, zipping through a large, complicated-looking Interior room search with complete confidence. Three hides found in 1 minute, 24 seconds.
11:30 am: Oh my goodness; Baxter and I have only walked (hiked?!) to our first two searches and back and I’ve already logged over 4,000 steps.
Throughout the day Baxter and I had our ups and downs, passing one Container search, but flubbing a second one. We passed both Interior rooms, took 1st place in Vehicles, but sadly left a hide behind (didn’t find it) in the Exterior search, which put us out of the running for our long hoped for NW3 Elite title. By one point. Again. Sigh.
I think the Vehicle search was my favorite, but only because I think Baxter and Ronni hashed it out between themselves the night before.
I could just hear Ronni bragging, “I won a 1st place ribbon in the Vehicle search! I’ll bet you can’t beat that, old man!” Such sass!
And Baxter giving her a little side-eye action, replying, “We’ll just have to see about that, you little squirt.”
Competition accepted. Let the faster dachshund be the victor!
I have to say, in reality, each vehicle search is different, with unique challenges and different vehicles used, so I can’t really compare Ronni’s search yesterday with Baxter’s search today other than to say both searches consisted of three vehicles.
Personally, I tend to think single-hide searches (like Baxter had today) can be more challenging, with the ever-present specter of “zero to three hides possible” and wondering if you left one or more behind.
But … I hate to say it, Buddy. Rhonda aced her 2-hide Vehicle search yesterday in a blistering time of 1:11.50. First place out of 19 dogs.
Baxter had an equally awesome, but ever so slightly slower time of 1:34.82 for his 1-hide Vehicle search. First place out of 25 dogs.
Of course, we want to keep in mind, these times also include checking and clearing ALL the vehicles, since no one tells the handler how many hides are out there, and she’s the one who has to call “Finish”.
All joking aside; Baxter and I had a fun Mom & Me day together today. As he gets older, I treasure more than ever days like this where we can work and play together at this team sport he has loved for so many years.
The forecast of snow never materialized, although with a whopping high of 34F, we did spend the entire day dressed in weather-appropriate coats.
I think Baxter had some tired little paw pads by the end of the day, and he didn’t so much as look back longingly when his Dad came by to pick our tired boy up around 6:00 pm. It’ll be just me and Ronni for the next two days.
10,588 steps today. I can’t say that Baxter walked every one of those steps by my side, as I’ll admit to giving in any carrying him several times throughout the day. Mud puddles, don’t you know. Besides, our little frosty-face senior dude was getting pretty tired by the end of the day. I didn’t mind giving my sweet boy a lift. 😉
De & the Dachsies - Our Rambles 