Tag Archives: german shepherd

The summers first water training

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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.

All in a days work

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Part of my job with my K9 partners is to search for runaway students from the school i work at teaching dog training, The Family Foundation School. Monday morning comes and I’m minding my business getting my lesson plan for the week together when i see a girl take off running. K9 Abby and I deploy with two flankers and get a direction of travel. She has a good head start on us and as the only K9 team out we make a search plan up as we go.  Checking frequent travel routes by runaways we pop out 4 miles later and get back to the school for a break and some food. Next we harness up K9 Raina and redeploy covering another 5 miles of potential land.

Raina with PA and the Delaware river behind her

Tuesday morning brings us back out again, this time covering another 4 miles with some beautiful views of NY and PA, some great quarries, and some hot weather. The girls did fantastic working tirelessly for hours and each got closure wednesday morning when they got to meet there subject after she was returned to the school. Unfortunately she has no idea where she went, but Abby gave us a pretty good picture.

Raina working the quarry

 

We gave the girls their “paychecks”  by giving them a short easy find with a lot of play time!!!

I’m always amazed at the level of dedication in the dogs and the people, especially my students who go out on the searches with me. It was a lot of miles and a lot of gator aid.

The view

 

Abigail nails it!

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Last month Abby completed her certification for live airscent and Human Remains Detection for New York State Federation of Search and Rescue. Earlier this month at our annual Combined Federation Training she completed her water HRD certification as well. Congrats to abby for such a wonderful job!

Certified Airscent Live, HRD, and Water K9 Abby!!!!

 

 

Playing catch up!

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Well it would be impossible to catch up this blog as i have lagged behind to much! My free flow of words just seems to get stopped up, whats that called writers block???

A quick recap finds everyone well. The sar girls are amazing, really working their butts off!! Emeline is doing great, her indication is solid and fast. I will never have to question whether or not she finds a subject. Her multiple refinds provides long hard bark and  bounces at me loud enough to wake a deaf person! She actually makes the ground tremble!!!! Her searching was natural, just pure genetics but her brain was assembled differently then her sisters, something her mother threw in to the mix. She is a thinker and will not allow me to pass by the scent cone. I’m amazed at the progress she has made and am thrilled that i gave her the chance to nail everything perfectly like i knew she could do before moving her on. Bravo Emeline Bravo!

Eme-lion the beast!

Raina will be a year old in less then a month! It’s crazy to imagine that she has already been with us for that long. Such a quick learning pup she amazes me every day with her balance, work ethic, and drive to be a prominent friend to her owner. I have held back on her testing because of her age, not lack of ability. She could have certified months ago with flawless searching and indication, and has yet to reach that “hiccup” period in her youth. While everyday i wait for it, every time we train she re confirms to me that she really is just that good. There are good things to come in the future with miss Rainy and i will keep you posted!

Rainy taking a quick break from her search area.

Abby has been doing great and is proving to be a solid worker. Her skill level is above and beyond what i had dreamed and she is fitting into the pack well now that she has learned all the dog play rules. The remainder of this month will be a huge test for Abby and i know she can do it. I’m so proud of her and what she has already achieved!

My amazing "knock you to your butt" indication dog!

Problems, problems

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That is of course search problems 🙂 below is a picture of our GPS log. We use the Garmin Astro, this way i can track my path and with a collar on Raina i can track her exact path as well. Then we load them into MapTech software and bingo i know exactly where we have been!! This track i believe is in Harpursville New York and the BLUE track is mine and the RED track is Raina. You can see the huge swing out she took away from me, this was when she had a blast of his scent from his location which is right after the curve. If  the wind had been stronger, she would have gotten him before we finished the area around.

Me blue Raina Red

Mom’s home!!!

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Everyday i come home, you would swear i’d have been gone for years 🙂 Makes you feel a little better about yourself doesn’t it???  Below is a short video shot of the pack, you’ll see most of them weave in and out of the kitchen happy to have me back home safe and sound. Take note of Otto the 9 week old GSD pup, hes new to the pack only with us a few days when this was shot. His body language in the beginning playing with the other dogs is great, he learned how to position his ears and what to do with his body to solicit play without coming on to aggressive or scary. This boy is amazing and my pack is incredible at giving dogs what they need.

 

Raina and Titan

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The pack structure at its greatest! You will see my 10 month old German Shepherd Raina submitting to her 6 year old 7 pound Chihuahua brother. Raina is a crazy high drive working german bred girl with an amazing bite on her. When it counts, she is gentle as a baby. Size doesn’t matter, dogs are dogs and my pack is a very valid demonstration of that!