track time!!

Well, it was about time we took Cleo to a trial track and see what this whippet is made of. We took both dogs down as it would be good to see how Merlin reacts to being on a race track again. Merlin got his chance first. It was just amazing and I'm still left a little bit speechless. He had no hesitation at all at going into the starting box. Looking at him from the front, his head was down and you could see that all his switches were 'on'. The Lure went past and the box opened and holy cow..... Look, he has had a run around in the paddock, and a couple of times at the off leash park, but nothing could prepare me for this flat out sprint that he just pulled out of nowhere. He covered the first 100m in 6.7sec and the 200m in 12.3sec (nearly 60kph) We didn't want to have him go flat out as we were scared that he would hurt himself. But seeing him go around the track was simply awesome. Needless to say he was wrecked afterwards and hasn't stood up since we got home. As for Cleo, well, she got a chance to have a run against a deer hound. For those of you unfamiliar with the breed, a deerhound is like a greyhound except even bigger and much hairier. The lure went past and well, Cleo, bless her, didn't know what to do. She kind of chased the deerhound for a bit, then she though that she would have more of a chance of catching the lure if she turned around and got it coming the other way. Too smart for her own good if you ask me. But the guy running the track reckons that she'll come good. We'll be training her up a bit more next year.