All about ms emeline’s training and progression towards hers certification with New York State Federation of Search and Rescue.
This past weekend was all about the adult dogs, we don’t want them to feel left out when the pups come especially the other working dogs. Below are a few pics from hanging out this weekend. Of course we did plenty of work too!!!
Raina portrait
Emeline
Abby
Eme has had a good week, a lot of really challenging good trails set up thanks to the hard work of my teammates! Today we attempted our first ever negative trail area. Essentially the scent article was collected from my subject and presented in an area he had NEVER been in. Instead a 30 minute hot track had been laid by another subject whom she had not been given a scent article for. This was a completely new concept to Miss Emeline as she has ALWAYS had her trail somewhere in the vicinity of where i have casted her.
Well she really did wow me today. I scented her on the tshirt and she gave me negatives in two directions saving the direction down toward the water where she did have the distraction trail as last. I sent her down there to check it out and she showed some interest in it, i told her no and casted her a bit further out same reaction but she steered herself back up to the scent article. She stopped and i re scented her again and she just sat down “um duh mom it’s not HERE!” You’ll see that around 1:20 of the video.
So proud of her!!
I compilation of video clips of Eme’s trail run on July 6th. Due to my surgery she hadn’t run a trail in over 3 weeks. This was run blind (meaning i had no idea where the trail went, but my flanker did who set it up) and was a bit over an hour old. Go to the link to see a map and more information about this trail.
The LKP (last known point) was the front door of the house when the angry teen fled after getting into a fight with his parents. The video is pretty shaky and not always focusing on me but you can catch her body language, her nose on the ground except in certain parts of the feild where the wind was blowing it and she had her nose up a bit more, you can also see her perfect 90 degree turn to the left following his exact path. Towards 3 minutes you will also see her throw her head left, and then a second after i do as well, she was giving me a proximity alert. In other words she was using a little of her airscent training without even really knowing it showing me the direction of the subject, you will see us go up the hill and then back down still following his exact trail, but as her handler i have a good idea of the location of the subject now. At the very end you will see that even with a huge scent pool (the subject was out there the whole hour waiting and Eme has passed several of her airscent certification tests) and a visual on the subject she still trails right up to his foot.
What a good girl Eme!
Our wordless wednesday post is all about search dogs doing disaster work, enjoy!
Max a Belgian Malinois working the bark barrel
Emeline indicating on the bark barrel
Abby a german shepherd working the rubble pile and alerting on the buried subject
Eme and i in 2010 at the NJ water weekend
She never grew into those ears!
Eye spy
An Eme-lion tribute, pictures from her first year
Our wordless Wednesday post is all about working dogs in action this week.
Raina alerting on a door, the subject was in the back of that building.
Abby playing with her subject after the find
Emeline about to take off
Eme and Raina
So the last 3 weeks Eme has had to survive life with no trailing, i just couldn’t do it with one hand, not the way that beast pulls.
So today one of the Dog Corps. interns, Luke wanted to set up her trail. I wanted something short and sweet, but i didn’t want to know anything about it. He hung out on the porch of a house and took off about a half mile. An hour later we suited up.
Our ritual is set, she understands as she sits in the truck what is going to happen. She watches as i grab her trailing vest, her long line, and the baggy that contains “her persons” scent. As i walk to my LKP (last known point) to place out her paraphernalia she whines ever so slightly so i do not forget her. Not like i can, i mean i would look pretty funny following an empty harness around in a circle! My nose certainly can’t do the things hers can but she doesn’t know that, she thinks the world of me for just being me!!!!
I got her dressed, presented her article gave her the german command to track and we were off like a whirlwind. No doubting her being correct in our direction of travel, her nose glued to the ground and her four legs moving faster then mine as i run behind her to keep consistent tension on the line.
Emes’s trail July 6th. Subject is blue eme is red
She took her turns perfect with no hesitation and never once airscented (little wind but his scent pool would still be present after an hour of sitting out there) her head finally came up once she reached his shoe!
Raina and Emeline fetching their toys
Raina mid dock dive
One of the favorite summer time activities is swimming. Dock diving, chasing water toys, or getting just plane soaked. Swimming is not only a great way to cool off but also a great way to exercise the dogs in a low stress sort of way on the body. The girls are used to running 8-15 miles a week with me as my therapeutic medicine. Of course this mileage doesn’t count their weekly search problems, hikes, walks, or ball playing. I would estimate they do between 15-25 miles a week most times.
Now please do not just go start running your dog excessive amounts after reading this post, my girls have been conditioned over time to keep up this stamina. When they are puppies you must be VERY careful not to over exercise them or you can permanently damage their joints and bones. No dog is run on pavement until 14-18 months old, once growth plates are fully formed. Then each dog is worked according to his or her training plan which not only encompasses the mental growth and training of the pup or dog but also its physique and what its body is capable of. When we go out on a search i expect my dogs to work 6-8 hour shifts and cover between 2-10 miles depending on the terrain, weather, and search strategy. Everything is carefully planned out from the time we bring the dog or puppy home up through his or her eventual certification process and maturation.
BUT I DIGRESS 🙂
Anywho so back to the fun stuff, swimming is GREAT!!!!! Eme is not the most confident dog in new situations and water was one of them. From the time she was a pup i had her in and out of marshes, ponds and puddles but she never had a great role model canine to follow into the water. Social learning is an amazing thing!!!!!!! Once Raina hit the water as a puppy she turned into a floppy eared shepherd 😉 This summer between the other dogs and the kids Eme decided what her sister did looked like fun……..
Eme dock diving
Abby brushed up on her swimming skills as well, having never willingly swam into deep enough water she couldn’t touch she is now much more happy and confident jumping in after her toy.
Abby swimming like a pro
Moral of the post, get your dog swimming this summer for both his body and his mind!!!
Well the end of May brought us our first water training for the search dogs. A nice calm quite private lake, a boat, multiple handlers and K9’s and a few of my students. The kids loved swimming and driving the boat, the dogs loved swimming and riding on the boat……..i swear there are not many differences between them!
Water trainings are great BUT BOY does it take a lot of pre-planning, set up, and specific execution plans to make happen. The dogs obviously get no water work during winter and colder months, lending to just a short time we can get them on a boat ever year. We have 2 water seminars later this year, one in August in Mawah NJ, and one in September in Binghamton NY with Amigo Search Dogs. Both will be excellent opportunities to get some good training in.
Anywho back to our water training.
First off was Abby- Shes a certified HR water dog meaning that per NYS Federation of Search and Rescue she is certified to search for lost people and human remains on or near water. She is excellent at “driving” the boat with her nose pointed in the correct direction. My focus for water training was to work a blank area with no scent and see how it differed from when she worked scent. BOY WAS IT OBVIOUS!!! She was just out for a cute boat ride!!! She knew her sensitive little nose had nothing and she was calm and quite just hunting around a bit checking to see if she got any scent as we went around the lake. Zach was our boat driver and he was impressed by how different her body language was.
Abby on the boat
Our next order of bussiness was to get Abby comfortable in the water. Last summer i was able to enlighten her to the benefit of “wading” in the water and how much fun it was to splash around but she didnt have the confidence necessary to dive out swim across the pond and get her toy. This summer the boys know its fun time in the pond for Abby!!!! The goal is to desensitize her to swimming in all environments and build her confidence around the water. In the lake she was already swimming out into deep water to get her ball!!!
Abby swimming in deep water on her own
Moving on, Ms. Raina is working on her water skills, i’m in turmoil over how much to push water work on her. She loves it and seems to excel at it so i have no reason not to pursue it with her but I’ve held back mostly due to her “crazy drive” She seems calm when in the boat and we practiced that with running her on a nice blank boat ride, then following up with some short HR boat work. I was impressed with her behavior change during the work and will defiantly be continuing it to see what the outcome is.
Raina and I with Jimmy the driver.
Lastly we have little miss Eme to report on. This training was a huge step for us as a trailing team as i was able to run her on one of her blind training problems. It was a hot trail, about a mile long and the last .3 miles was double blind with no idea where the trail layer went. The joy and exhilaration that came with the successful completion of the trail and then comparison of how well she had run it (no more then 20 feet off) was insane!
Eme’s hot trail approximately .8o miles long.
Eme is red the subject light blue. She gave me a good negative immediately but after resting her and re casting she went on a bit more before giving me another negative.
Us running the road portion of the trail.
All in all it was a great training, and with a few airscent problems in the mix as well a tiring day for all. So thankful for my team mates and my girls who share this great experience with me.
Elite Instinct K9 Training 