Cracker’s Story

by Bonnie Logen
© 2018 Bonnie Logen

Cracker and friend Duffy

I was always very happy with Cracker. He was 17 1/2 inches tall, so much bigger than normal, but he was a very nicely balanced, easy moving dog, with great structure and a wonderfully calm temperament. He had plenty of energy when he needed to have it, and liked to bark, but never enough to need debarking. He had no health problems to speak of, and was a very easy dog to live with and own. He was a joy to own.

Cracker was my nice, dependable dog. He really first belonged to my brother, Graham, who ran him in agility from 2000 to 2008. Then while in college, he got his new dog, Skittles. I kind of took over Cracker’s care at that time and he came to live with me full time around then. Through the years, I took Cracker to training classes for herding and obedience, as my own official dog had severe arthritis and couldn’t do any dog sports after the age of 5. Graham was kind enough to share Cracker. Cracker excelled in agility; he was moderately but not crazy fast and loved the game. He never had any bad habits, and he happily ran for either Graham or me. Graham was about 14 or 15 years old when he put the first MACH on Cracker, and we shared in the next two MACHs. Cracker also did well at herding; I got further with him than my other two dogs. He was always a little too noisy for herding and obedience, but we qualified in both with qualifying if not great scores.

I was always interested in tracking in general and took a local weekend seminar when Cracker was around 8 years old. That was enough to get me interested in continuing with his training, as Cracker loved hunting for hot dogs. I signed up for a tracking class in late 2008 and since the days were better for me in the advanced class rather than the beginner class, we quickly crammed in some training and joined up with the advanced class. He did so well with it, and was an easy dog to learn the concepts of tracking. He was certified at a local test on one of the alternate tracks, and I was sure that he would pass at the next test available in a few weeks time. Alas, he didn’t qualify that time—he was distracted by the audience watching him and missed a turn. I remember thinking at the time that it was odd the track was going straight towards the road with spectators! I didn’t learn until afterwards that it was ok to back up if the dogs seemed lost—it never even occurred to me that I could do that! Lesson learned!

The next test wasn’t available until the fall of 2009, and I signed him up for the test knowing that I would be gone on vacation in Hawaii during the test. My mom, who had taken the same tracking class with her dog earlier in the year, nicely volunteered to run Cracker at the test. I remember driving up the mountain side in Maui and getting the phone call that he had passed the test with flying colors—what a good boy he was to track with a new person handling him for the first time. I was so pleased with his skills. It was my mother’s first time participating in any dog sport competition, and Cracker pulled through for her!