Practice search for Andre

Above is a picture of Andre sleeping by the fire, under the covers, after about ten days on the run in the cold and rain.  He has regained all the weight he lost, and he seems fully recovered from his ordeal.  He and his sister Nala walked a 1.15 mile trail for us, 24 hours ago.  For a scent article, Kelsy used a jacket that Andre often wears.  Since the trail was a loop, I started Kelsy headed in the right direction, so she wouldn't go immediately back to the house around the corner.  Kelsy followed the trail almost exactly, except that she was very interested in scents along the way.  My impression is that they were not scents left by Andre and Nala, but how would I know.  Instead of being "in the groove" all the time, Kelsy often had her nose right on the ground, carefully analyzing particular patches of grass.

I thought that Kelsy overshot one turn, but when we got to the end, Linda told me that they had overshot that corner as well before doubling back and making the turn.  So, Kelsy seems to have done this trail perfectly, although not with the intensity and focus I would have liked.  When I played Little League baseball, I had a hard time paying attention to the game.  Of my few distinct memories of baseball, one is of the coach yelling something at me while he was red in the face.  I was traipsing between second and third at the time, and when I stopped to see why he was yelling, I was tagged out, of course.  No doubt he was yelling at me to hurry up, and he was doubly frustrated when I stopped to see why he was yelling.  Now, I don't yell at Kelsy, but I often feel that she is like me as a Little-Leaguer:  the game is okay, but there are so many interesting distractions.  Hopefully, as she gets more practice at the game, with successes and rewards, she will enjoy the game of searching as much as she enjoys stopping to smell the "roses" along the way.

Other than it being dark, at 6:30 PM, the conditions were perfect.  Temp: 45 degrees.  Wind: 6 MPH from SSE.  Humidity: 97%. It had rained about 0.11 inches between the time the trail was laid and the time we started searching.  I thought that searching in the dark would put me at a disadvantage, as far as reading Kelsy's behavior.  Instead, I found that I could tell pretty much everything I needed to, in the ambient light, and I could use my flashlight when necessary.  Searching in the dark was not much of a challenge.

Kelsy got chicken nuggets as her reward, and Andre and Nala liked them too.