Eme trailing

Our weekend team training took place in Walton with Amigo Search Dogs this week. Due to the hunting season we are forced to find an odd variety of places to train that are not the woods! Thanks to Amigo that was the Walton fairgrounds on Saturday  It was the first real cold training day of the season, so our goal was to stay warm and keep moving. Abby and Raina both worked some unique search scenario’s which helped us all use our heads!! Jordis, Sören’s sister, worked on  her airscent training in the new environment and searched barns and stables.  Amigo laid a trail for me around 1pm in the town for Eme to run once we were complete our other training. By 4pm we were heading out to what appeared to be a very busy Walton! Unbeknownst to us Saturday evening was the Walton town Christmas parade and the town was hopping!!! I was given my starting location and quickly set Eme to work in our pre-ritual trailing start. I walked her around the bank which was our LKP (Last known point) and let her take in the sights and smells and sounds of the Christmas carols being piped throughout all the streets!!!!

She indicated on the front door of the bank which i confirmed was where he touched and i began to cast her until we had a confirmed direction of travel. The number of people who had walked the same streets over the last 4 hours was overwhelming to me but she cut out all other scents, focused in on Dick’s (her subject) and went to work. We encountered a lot of windblown scent in the parking lot behind the bank and she cut against the building (where the scent was pooling and most likely stronger) but took all her turns perfect, giving me appropriate negatives once she had ruled out other directions. Near the end you see the other place our trail deviates from the subjects and that is the parking lot of the grocery store across the street from the McDonalds our subject was waiting in. Both parking lots had a lot of activity and a good open space where the 20MPH winds had worked the scent all over. She came out of both parking lots effortlessly working her way around speeding cars, people and dogs all around, and vendors setting up for the parade.

Red is our subject. Blue is Eme and I