I met with Dale and Mark & we went up to the Sand Dunes. We sent Nitro, Ruby and the red pup in by a pothole. It was warm & had that stale air feel just before a storm moves in. Ruby struck after a while & ran a little track up the ridge. When she made a loop I was pretty certain she was running a fox. I walked in and found Nitro before he had a chance to join the race. Without any help, Ruby just quit it after a few minutes. We made another drop on a new pothole. The humidity had gone up noticeably in just the past 1/2 hour. Ruby struck and Nitro joined in. It sounded like a tough track. I was expecting a long run but Nitro located and treed after about 5 minutes. Ruby checked the area & couldn't take a track away so she joined Nitro on the tree. I didn't see a coon. It was leafy & had a little hole but I think it was really just a screw-up by the dogs. I would have liked to send them on but the Sand Dunes is a big bad place. I figured I'd just take my licks tonight and move on.
I guess it's time to get more discriminating with Nitro around trees. This is certainly nothing serious yet but... if let go it doesn't take long to ruin a dog.
Fixing things like this is what will separate a dog from the rest of the pack. Roy would be a top dog except for slick trees. I think lack of intelligence is why I haven't been able to break him off of slick trees. I can see in his eyes that he doesn't understand what I want. On the other hand Mabel was very easy to break off of slick treeing. She knew after only one lesson what I meant. Nitro isn't as smart as Mabel but he's smarter than Roy. I suspect he'll get the message.