Category Archives: Emeline Down Easter Alexa Vom Schutzburg

All about ms emeline’s training and progression towards hers certification with New York State Federation of Search and Rescue.

Urban Trail- Walton NY

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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

Emeline a November trail

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The last few months have been crazy and the dogs have kept us busy!! Eme is progressing nicely with her trailing and this evening we ran one of her on team blind night trails. It was almost a mile in length and we had aged it 6 hours. I had no idea anything about the trail except that my subject was last seen at the chapel on campus. Eme hit on the door to the chapel and indicated to me he had touched it then proceeded to find his direction of travel. Her pace was fast and she banged each of her turns without overshooting anything. Her work in the dark was stellar and I could read her harness and line pressure perfectly despite her all black body being at the end of a 30 foot trailing line.

Red is subject blue is me and Emeline

 

Eme made that trail effortless. All i had to do was scent her, command her, and hang on!!! She rocked it, and I know her K9 mom Maya was smiling down on her trailing puppy tonight!

2012 NYS SAR Comfed K9 Disaster Seminar

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Eagle Valley funded and hosted the K9 disaster portion of this years Comfed. Below is a short video compilation of our 2 day seminar.

 

 

 

Emeline and her first river crossing trail

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I had to try to work on Eme and her trailing work around water before the weather changed. We built up to our first cross the river trail last week and she did great. The basic concept of trailing through shallow water was introduced in the weeks prior with short hot trails through up to 2 feet of rivers and streams. For her first swift water river cross our subject started on land and laid a trail to a point on the shore he entered the water, then fighting the tough current of the Delaware river swam across to Pennsylvania. Eme gave me perfect negatives down both shores and then made the decision to enter the water and “taste” her subjects scent across. Half way through she seemed a little confused especially once we hit the swifter water and began to drift out of his scent a little. The subject emerged and swam to us giving Eme the boost and connection she needed to understand how this moving water trail worked. Enjoy!

 

NJ water weekend the visual story

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A few pictures from our water weekend hosted by NJ SAR

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Sören swimming out of the water, happy to have 4 on the floor.

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Brother and sister (Sören and Jordis) take a break from socializing and play together on the dock ramp into the lake.

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Abby on the boat and on the go for her first shore search of the day

Jimmy and Raina swimming back during a break in training

Terrific Tip Tuesday

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Raina in her all to typical tongue hanging outside her mouth pose!

This weeks tip is all about how to condition and exercise your dog. This is a very careful and planned out process if you end goal is to creat a canine athlete. If you just want to exercise your dog and have fun it’s MUCH easier!

For the majority of owners the latter is true, and your biggest obstacles Is making sure you want until the dog is fully developed physically before putting to much pressure on his joints and bones. Now this is a DIFFERENT age for different breeds but your working dogs (German shepherd dogs, Belgian malinois, Labrador retrievers ect) should all be limited in any high jumping or running pavement or long distances till 18 months. This gives the growth plates more time to close and the body the necessary time to mature. So for your pet dog no running or biking with you, no high frisbee catches or long stressful hikes. Once they have reached the maturity age you can slowly introduce your passion such as biking or running.

For your working dogs, i generally set up a conditioning schedule that is tailored to what the dogs job will be. With my girls who are all search dogs we started out with short runs (1 to 1.5 miles on pavement) and worked up from there. I typically run 10-15 miles a week myself so it wasn’t hard to add them in to whichever days i needed to (no more then 5 days a week) till they had the athleticism that i desired. If you are going to take this route make sure you consult either your trainer or your veterinarian prior to make sure you have a plan that is right for your dog! My 2 area search dogs cover the most ground during training versus my trailing dog who travels only where i do (we are attached by a leash of course!) but she can outrun in speed and distance my other 2 any day!

In addition to running roads we also swim them twice a week, which is excellent for any age dog as it is the most low impact exercise you can get! On average between search problems, running, ball throwing, walks and hiking they will get 20-40 miles a week. This is A LOT of exercise for most dogs and if i had not conditioned them slowly i would have joint and bone problems. Raina and Abby will be in training the rest of the summer to jog next to a bike so we can get their Ausdauerprüfung (AD)

A wet training

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Yesterday proved to be a wet training day. With thunderstorms all around the rain was non stop but of course so were the dogs. Not much holds them back and a heavy down pore an distant thunder most certainly didn’t. Raina had a wonderful 2 acre blind HR problem which we did in about 40 minutes. One of the sources was buried 8 inches deep, the other under a bunch of leafy debris. She worked each out with little frustration despite it DOWN POURING as soon as we got to the area. Within 60 seconds the two of us, along with our flanker where soaked head to toe. The rain kept up for the first half with no avail. I was able to easily enough narrow down the sections of our area she had scent and by the time we worked out which two small sections we planned to detail the rain had slowed to a drizzle. Raina did great, and of course why would she ever let the rain bother her???

Jordis, Sören’s sister had her second batch of puppy problems and proved that she is quickly learning the game. Her drive is pretty outstanding. Keep a look out for her updates!

Eme had her second contamination trail, which was a bit different then she is used to. Typically we have different kids from the school as subjects or my team mates, yesterday we had a female handler from another team whom eme had never met nor trailed, and her 3 contamination trails (meant to distract her off the scent she SHOULD be following) were all boys she loves and trails at the school. Not once did she even deviate off her subject the whole time!! The ending was a bit of a mess due to her subject having been all down in the area the trail ended working her own personal dog, but eme went into airscent mode, worked the elevation and the scent pool and figured it out just like she would have to in a real search. Way to go Eme-lion!!!