Dream Tracking Fields Turned Into Nightmare...

This was the scene last year at the Brayford sod farm, photo was taken in early fall 2008. It is 300 acres and only a 10 minute drive from us. I was able to get in a lot of practice time here, it is so huge I could go several times per week. The quality of the sod was excellent. It was pristine tracking conditions.


The excellent tracking conditions continued into the spring of this year.
Arlo tracking in April of this year. The grass is brown, but is short, well maintained, and uniform.

Later on in the early summer, we found the sod farm had been neglected, was full of weeds, overgrown, and had bare patches of ground spread throughout. It was a nightmare! I was so disappointed... sure enough I find myself an excellent field for tracking, one that is not used by any other trackers, is close by my home, and then shortly afterward it turned into a weed infested mess. To make matters worse, because of the neglect, it seemed that local ATV riders took advantage of this and would make it a habit of ripping around out there creating dozens upon dozens of unavoidable cross tracks. Ugh!
Virtually the same view of the sod farm as in the top photo, this one taken in the summer of 2009. Over grown madness with far from uniform vegetation.


I was initially quite disappointed at the time when I first discovered that the sod was not being maintained. I would drive by often, hoping each time that I would see that it had finally been cut. It was never cut the entire season. So, I decided to track there anyway. It turned out to be an excellent practice field for running tracks in "less than ideal" conditions. You could not lay a track that did not include some changes in terrain, be it from short to long grass, several different types of vegetation, bare patches of dirt, and cross tracks. The usual wild animal cross tracks were always there, but the ATV cross tracks were a sharp thorn in my side. Sometimes I would not come across the particularly bad ones until I was well into my track. Very frustrating! Well, as the saying goes... when you get lemons, you make lemonade. So, I used these fields to increase the dogs' confidence on terrain changes and navigating through cross tracks. It increased Arlo's confidence in particular in a short time.

Close up view of a typical patch of ground on the once pristine sod. You can see bare patches and several different lengths and types of vegetation.


Another typical patch of ground we would track through.


ATV cross tracks. They were unavoidable.


How many cross tracks can you see in this photo?


And this one?

Sometimes I would see this while half way through laying my track.


How many cross tracks do you see here? Arlo seemed to be able to navigate well through cross tracks like this. Eros had quite some difficulty.


We have since found other sod farms to track on that are well maintained, yet they are considerably farther away from us. Nonetheless, we are extremely grateful that the land owners are allowing us to use their fields.