Father's Day in New Jersey and Mary Thompson and I and the Lenape Tracking Club turned out in force to support the Club's first VST test. The site was Ramapo College, a small college in Mahwah, NJ. With the temperature expected to reach the mid 90's today the tracklayers started arriving at 4:30am to try to help beat the heat.

First up was a Weimaraner who had a nice start, took his handler down 142 yards to the first corner, indicated the corner and after searching every direction, headed off across a parking lot to hear the whistle. Next was a GSD who cast near the track for much of the 281 yard start leg before following a deer off track, recovering, missing the 2nd article, recovering and finally cutting a ton of yardage off a corner and missing the MOT. Third was another GSD that tracked and cast down the 183 yard first leg, stopped at the corner and then tracked on to a building. Turning at the building the dog crossed a street and came back to within a few yards of the track, made the next corner about 20 yards too soon and missed an article in the parking lot.

The last dog of the day was the dog we had been waiting for. Maura Hogan drove in from Syracuse, NY for the event with her Belgian Tervuren "Malibu" or "Boo" to her friends. It was 84 degrees and quickly climbing when Boo headed to the start flag. She had a nice start along a parking garage and after 90 yards she took a detour into the shaded garage, backed out and continued past the end of the garage and worked a downhill turn and continued along the next side of the garage. Passing the end of the garage, the team worked an area between the garage and a dorm and located their next corner, an open downhill turn. After the turn the team was approaching another dorm when Boo indicated a plastic article. Continung to the next dorm, Boo indicated a left turn but Maura was not convinced. They spent an agonizing 20 minutes working a courtyard between three dorms before Boo finally said enough and politely pulled Maura through the turn and along the front of a dorm.

About half was along the dorm Boo found that if she stood near a doorway, the electric door would open and cool air conditioned air would flow out to her. We all wanted to be in her place :-) but Maura convinced Boo to continue on. Down the building they went, stopping to check out a groundhog hole near the track and turning behind a building. Now in the shade we expected Boo to pick up her pace but a half dozen air conditioners and their related fans and noisemakers hept her at a steady pace for the first 150 yards of the leg where she found a metal article. Staying in the shade she worked another 75 yards down the building to the edge of a parking lot. Stepping into the bright sunlight and the heated parking lot Boo, a black Terv, seemed to start to melt. She slowly worked the parking lot to the MOT turn, indicated the turn but slipped over to the edge of the parking lot to stand in the shade of a tree for a few moments before lowering her head and marching back to the MOT and then down the final 45 yards of hot asphalt to her final article.

Boo showed the nice folks at Lenape just the kind of fun you can have on Father's Day. Boo is now CT Montage Surfs Up VCD1, CDX, PT.

Ed Presnell