4Winds K9 Trailing Canada

10/27/2026

I have finally updated this page on my website after realizing it’s out of date. I’m going to be adding a page about our trailing seminar last summer with Christoph Rosenberger and have added and updated some photos!

I’ve been so fortunate to have great mentors and friends in this discipline. Thank you to everyone including all the people I constantly learn from by giving lessons! May the learning never end.

https://donnabrinkworthcoaching.ca/donna-bio/tracking-resume/

10/26/2026

October 24 lessons in Calgary AB.

I saw a subscription video on Dogs @ Work, Georgia K9 by Christoph Rosenberger and it inspired me to try this with an advanced group of handlers yesterday. I have plotted tracks with cross tracks in fields for many years in CKC tests so have some experience with them, but we have naturally occurring cross tracks in urban areas.

However, this area is not contaminated by walkers. It’s very industrial. So I planned trails and designed distraction tracks or cross tracks on each one that I felt suited the dog running the trail.

We had a fresh snow that had melted, but the cover was very wet and held scent well. All trails were aged 30 minutes approx 470 m with multiple transitions and minimal turns. Everyone used jar scent. Distraction tracks were laid at the 20 minute mark.

As you can see, I had some success and some surprises with how I plotted the cross tracks, especially the last one where the runner parallel the track on the other side of the road to get to where she was going to cross. However in every instance, the dogs and handlers did a fantastic job! And as usual, it was humbling – but also as usual a very fun day!

Thanks everyone in the lesson! To everyone here, I hope you enjoy this video that tries to explain what we did with graphics of each cross track in red and the trail in yellow.

I learned a lot and will improve on this exercise in suburban areas and we’ll try to do it more in fields as well but with winter coming we’re mostly going to be working in urban and suburban locations so what can make it more interesting from time to time than a surprise like this and to watch our dogs figure it out.

Thanks to Christoph for the inspiration. I do not represent his methods but try hard! You’ll have to subscribe to Dogs at Work - Georgia K9 Austria to see the training videos.

October 24 lessons in Calgary AB. I saw a subscription video on D...

10/25/2026

This is the final video from one week ago in high winds! Some great intersection handling by Deb on the warm up trail.

Also on the warm up trail a huge tree blew down on the track start as we walked back from the end! Wow! Good timing and we felt very happy we weren’t there when it cracked and fell!

Later Quik ran a trail in an industrial area on mostly hard surface. What was interesting is how much the scent had moved across the hard surface as Quik showed us!

Full video (6 min) is on YouTube on my channel

Deb Johnson

10/25/2026

What lessons looked like today! Such good work. Dogs ran 450-70 m blind suburban trails aged 30 minutes. Each had 2-3 turns and multiple changes of cover. Everyone started with jar scent and every team had a distraction cross track along the way. Beautiful teamwork and so much fun.

The hours flew by and weather was good. Cool but no wind and nice for the dogs. As you can see at the end, my Border Collie Quill was not happy with me! My dogs will work tomorrow!

10/23/2026

Winter 2027 Update! I am bringing back Online Coaching! Monthly sessions begin in January for tracking and trailing enthusiasts who want to learn and apply new ideas - Separate nights for Beginners, Intermediate and Advanced Coaching sessions! Winter lessons are unpredictable - this is the answer! Open to enthusiasts across Canada!

Check my website for information on what you can expect, view the 2027 dates on the updated calendar, and watch for information on how to grab your spot. Registration opens November 18.

I am a certified Professional Coach and look forward to bringing online coaching back. Make the most of winter!

Website: donnabrinkworthcoaching dot ca

Pictured: Helen and Jaeger on the trail

10/22/2026

Here is another dog from October 17 lessons named True - a working English Cocker. Here we were using the high winds as with all the other teams to let the dogs naturally circle or encourage it by holding our ground to help them focus and find the trail. This made sure they were still using productive source and not just air scent. In True’s case it also enabled him to cross hard surfaces with confidence because of the availability of scent. The excitement the wind created made him move more quickly than usual - and it’s still self-discovery for the dog.

His second trail is shown First, followed by his warm-up trail, where it’s shorter, and he circled naturally demonstrating my point that this is a behaviour dogs use that doesn’t always look pretty, but it’s very efficient and helps them find an edge and work their way along the scent channel. Great work by Deb and True!thanks to Runner Sherri!

10/22/2026

Incoming! Deb’s view of Lupin on last night’s trail!

10/22/2026

Tonight Lupin started with no runaway on an article and a very rough dry field. 2 min video - https://youtu.be/MBGSQd-cEbo?si=1bfxVOgsvquxIpS3

She wore Micah’s harness for the first time and I think Mike was with us. I’m so proud of Lupin. It was a beautiful sunset trail at the location of Micah’s last walk. Thanks Deb for being our runner!

10/21/2026

Here is Paula again last Saturday running her other dog Tilley. The first track was in even strong stronger winds than the track I just posted with Via. I set up a similar exercise for Tilly, where the runner circled at the second fire hydrant and went across the parking lot to a building the goal being for Tilley to cross the parking lot and work on her hard surface as well as finding the direction with a tailwind.

What we didn’t know was because the winds were so painful our runner doubled back to hide behind a shelter, not realizing what the result might be. This is the problem when we think we know where the runner went and in this video, you can see that Tilley’s body language – albeit it was fast as she moves fast- shows that she probably would have explored the shelter more if we had not known and presumed the exercise went as planned!

The good news is, we had no idea where the runner was, yes, this is always humbling! Tilley had the opportunity to find her when we walked back. Unfortunately, because we were walking back I stopped recording. Good girl Tilley, and nice handling Paula who didn’t mind this as it was a sort of realistic scenario and we all learned as usual thanks to our runner Sherri who held up during those wins, which got very cold as well! What a Paula Collinslins