A Special Day

by Djinn-Dorian von der Mühlestetten,  translated from the German by Ed Wight

I am running along on leash next to Jorge and a lady. The lady is called Bikit or Birgit or something like that. It doesn't matter. I can never pronounce those names anyway. Why do humans have such complicated names? If they would only be called "Bow" or "Grr" or "Woof." Earlier I was a little apprehensive about this lady, but now I know she is nice, so I let her pet me.

I don't know what we are going to do today, but in spite of the fog it doesn't look bad. I can smell sausages in one of Jorge's pockets, and in another my Kong. We are surely not going to the vet with the Kong, or are we?

Now we are stopping. In front of me are two little flags. Jorge has taken out my brown harness and is untying the knots on the long line. I know now, a track! Why is he so nervous? Last week we did something like this. What's more, Jorge had taken a day off on Wednesday in order to practice one last time. That time it was no more than 500 meters.

Finally we are ready. He takes me to the left flag, and my nose tells me right away that the start is almost at the right flag. I sniff around a little bit as I am expected to, and then run to the start, and we start out. Beautiful! It's straight ahead.

After a while, I get bored and play a trick on Jorge. I go off the track to the left, raise my head, then farther to the left ... Oops! He has noticed and stands still. I try again with a half circle but he doesn't move from the spot. OK, I'll go back to the track. Naturally I know where! There in front of us is the first article. I had already noticed it, but Jorge hadn't seen it because of the fog. Now he has seen it, I can smell his joy.

But the joy doesn't last long! What is that? Aha, a deer, 30 meters back from the article. Hmmmmm! Interesting! But Jorge is standing still and swearing softly. The deer leaps downward into the valley and observes us from a distance. I look at it and appear very interested. How Jorge suffers! I chortle. But I am no sadist and I've had my little joke. I go to the article and sniff at it. Jorge comes running and picks it up and shows it to me. Yeah, that's great, I have already seen it ... Ah, but petting and sausages, I like that.

Now we go over to a cultivated field, fortunately along the edge, because it is taboo. Imagine the farmers coming with their rifles. Now in front of me is a road, but we must go left, and then straight ahead. To the right I hear yelling and barking. What is it? A black Lab is playing with his master. Don't we also want to play now? Why don't we do that too? Jorge says they are experts and we are just beginners, so we must keep going. But I've had almost enough surely we've tracked more than 800 meters. But there ahead is the second article, and I notice that Jorge is satisfied and moves forward.

Oh oh! Now I have to cross the road. This track surely was plotted by the Devil himself. I have never before tracked over a concrete highway. Cars going back and forth and distracting me. I go across the road perpendicularly. Whee! The track is also there! I go forward for a while and then a bit to the left. I get the scent that it goes straight between the trees, but I can't do any more, I'm exhausted. I lie down. I've had it.

Jorge stays behind me. He tells me that I have done enough, that I was suuuper, I was sooo great. I am happy that he has finally caught on, perhaps we can go home now and play. But no,; he says now in a deceitfully friendly tone, "Dji-inn, traaAAaack!" So we go to the trees.

I notice that Jorge is very tense now. I go extra slowly now. And then, suddenly, something smells strange ... there straight in front of me! I know that if I scratch where the smell is, Jorge will say, "Great!" Perhaps he'll even spend a sausage for it. Therefore, I dig at the spot and out comes a clod of earth with a piece of metal in it.

But it surely can't be what we are looking for, because Jorge does not say "Great!" and I cannot hear the crackling of the sausage bag, so I look back for further instructions. But the guy is lying on the ground, he has fainted!

I lick him until he wakes. And then he begins to act crazy. He has tears in his eyes, he hugs me, he turns somersaults. Help! Will he not be able to take care of me any more, and have to give me away?

Now finally the sausages come out. Holy cow, how the man beams! Now I have the desire to go on. I follow the track over a little hill, and there below us we see a little stick with our number 6 on it.

Jorge takes my harness off me, takes the Kong out of his pocket and we play. Grandmother Kitty, the breeder, comes and I run to greet her. Everyone looks happy, I'm happy too. Then a car drives up with two men in it. One I recognize and one I don't. The one I know never smiles, he is our trainer. The other is the judge. Jorge gives the articles to the judge, and anxiously looks at his watch. They shakehands. It appears to me that the man who never smiles is now smiling. Jorge comes to me and stretches out his hand and we run back to the others. I am hanging onto his sleeve.


That day Djinn got his "excellent" for the first time, to many people's surprise, his handler's included.

by Ed Wight

The track is 2,000 meters long (about 2,200 yards), and is four hours old when it is run. Up to 10 dogs will run in a test all at the same time. The tracks are laid at 4 a.m. and run at 8 a.m. Each dog and handler has an indefinite start between two flags, which are 10 meters apart. There are no specified changes of direction, but there probably will be two, not necessarily right angles.

There are three articles, none of which is at the start. Two are small pieces of wood about eight inches long, and the last article is a piece of metal of about the same size. The wooden articles are widely spaced along the track. The last article (the metal one) is buried 10 cm. deep near the end. There is a small stake in the ground hidden about 100 meters beyond the last article. This is important because when the dog and handler reach this point and do not have all the articles, they cannot go back and search.

The time limit is one hour. The dog is not scored, but is rated according to found articles. A dog is failed if it takes more than an hour to finish, or finds only one article. It is rated "good" for finding both wooden articles, rated "very good" for one wood and the buried metal, and "excellent" for finding all three. There are practically no other rules.

The dog can be on or off lead, guiding is allowed (as Jorge puts it, if you think you can help the dog by getting down on your hands and knees and sniffing, it's O.K.). Food rewards are also allowed. The judge doesn't go on any of the tracks. He only meets the handler at the last stake to check the articles and the time.