With a nose fit to out-sniff a perfumer and a work ethic that could leave a beaver wheezing, mixed-breed dog Griffin could find his way just about anywhere – except into the Canadian Kennel Club.
Since its inception in the late 19th century, the club has catered to purebreds, keeping entrance off the table for all manner of Heinz 57s.
But that changed after North Shore dog trainer Maureen Fielding loaded Griffin in her car and trekked 3,000 kilometres east.
The CKC was holding tracking tests over the first weekend of June and Fielding was eager to see what her German shorthaired pointer-German shepherd cross could do.
The combination of bloodlines is a bit like having “a police dog in high gear,” she explains.
Fielding has worked with dogs since the 1990s, apprenticing under trainer and columnist Joan Klucha and eventually teaching tracking classes on the North Shore.
“I feel that dogs are more balanced and happy when they are doing something that they are naturally inclined to do,” she says.
Dogs spend their lives in the human world. But with tracking, humans have a chance to step into the dog world, Fielding explains.
Griffin was a track star. “But I could never do anything with my mixed-breed dog because they weren’t allowed to track,” she says, referring to CKC events.
But in 2014, following the footsteps of the American Kennel Club, the CKC finally opened their doggy doors to mixed breed and unrecognized-breed dogs for a number of trials.
Griffin had done well in the U.S., but Fielding says she recalls thinking: “Well, we are Canadian, so he should be the first in Canada.”
Griffin aced an entry level test in Courtenay, but with a high density of dogs in Metro Vancouver, Fielding circled Thunder Bay, Ont. for the excellence level test.
It was high noon on a hot day when Griffin set out on a one-kilometre winding course through a “huge farmer’s field.”
The path can go over a tree line, back into the field, across a road, and through it all the dog has to stay on track, recover two articles, and find a glove at the finish line.
As a handler, Fielding was aware she couldn’t be much help. All she could really do was follow Griffin and wait for him to tell her: “This is it,” Fielding says.
With Griffin’s black fur soaking up the noonday heat, Fielding elected to have her pup trot the course to preserve his stamina.
Griffin snagged both items and the glove.
“He executed it perfectly,” she reports.
The next day, just to make the trip worthwhile, Griffin did some urban tracking, following his nose across grass, pavement, concrete, brick, gravel and mulch.
The urban test is also complicated by having multiple humans in the area, Fielding says, explaining the dog must differentiate between the track-layer who washed with Dove and the pedestrian who used Ivory.
It was an introductory test for urban tracking, and Griffin aced it, she reports.
“He was just a powerhouse tracker.”
Following Griffin’s performance, Fielding says she’s hopeful more mixed breeds can enter the formerly rarefied air of the kennel club.
“My ideal is for him to be able to pave the way,” she says.
“For me, it’s not about breed, it’s about how much does a dog love to track.”
