“Who’s that?”  I said to Sampson and Delilah, while pointing with my finger to the general area where I could see Chet approaching.

Naturally, the dogs got all excited even though they had not yet seen him (I had the advantage of being at a slightly higher elevation.)  They picked up their pace; head and tails up, eyes alert looking, searching.  Sampson saw Chet first and high-tailed it directly to Daddy; Delilah was slightly slower in spotting him, but once she had  him in her sites, she was full-out running; and this dog is fast!  She beat Sampson by about 15 to 20 seconds.  I on the other hand was much slower in re-joining the pack, but once I had we had an interesting conversation.

Chet: “Do you know what I saw in her, right then when they were running to me?”

I’m clueless and not really sure where the conversation is going but willing to participate to see where this takes us; “What?” 

Oh lord, the suspense was killing me.  “A retriever.”

“Oh my GOD, really imagine that, I had no idea that my Labrador RETRIEVER looked like a retriever! ” (The inner bitch inside of me said.)

The rational me, the one who actually has control of my mouth said, “What do you mean?”

While I mentally shushed  the inner bitch, he went on to explain to me how he saw a field trial dog in the way Delilah was running.  Ah, now we’re getting somewhere. 

He’s right (I won’t say of course because it’s not like he’s right ALL the time,) when Delilah runs her nose is to the ground and she zigs and zags as she runs, it seems like she is constantly looking for something and Lord help us when she finds it.

Monday night she saw a squirrel in the woods and that was it.  She was gone, no amount of coaxing, pleading, yelling, even “yum yum” while I fed Sampson Roast Beef would bring her back.

Tuesday night, she took off in the same spot; Sampson and I walked away.  When she caught up to us, I leashed her and kept her with me for the rest of the walk.

Last night, I didn’t give her the opportunity.  As soon as we got close to the spot, I called her to me and leashed her until we were well past it; then I let her off leash.

My point is from our observations she needs a purpose when she is on the trail and we as her caregivers are required to provide that for her,  trouble is I don’t know what she needs or how to go about getting it for her.

I've thought about dock diving.

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