Birthday!

Technically it is now 5 minutes past midnight, but in counting the weeks, Storm is officially 5 months old now.  Happy Birthday Storm Shadow Powers!

Looking at the calendar a bit further, seems Lola and Storm have a similar Birthday, that makes Lola 8 years, 5 months.

Rained out, then sick, then more training!

Call it fate, call it something but no matter what week it is if we try to schedule something on a regular Tuesday training night we always seem to get rained out.  This week was no exception.  In addition to the rain, I seem to have gotten sick.  Some kind of horrible cold that will not go away, looks like a visit to the doctor may be in my near future.  In the meantime I am just trying to breathe without coughing up a lung.

I paid my parents a visit in Harrisburg and ended up driving back and forth twice, once semi unnecessarily due to the cancelled training.  I had scheduled a Civil Service Exam on Tuesday, so I had to be in Harrisburg anyway.  

On my way back home tonight, I get a call from my brother.  Seem there is/was a water main break around the corner from me (literally 1 block away), which created a giant sink hole and houses had to be evacuated etc.  I expected to come home to no water or gas, but everything seems to be fine.

Mike and I had decided to do some training tonight since we were both not doing anything and we met up near the station in the field closest to the Kids Peace area.  We started off with Storm and even Mike said how impressed he was with his ability at his young age.  Storm had 2 more successful finds as well in training tonight, once the wind was in his favor.  I am so proud of this puppy, he is going to make an awesome search dog!  Molly and Gwynn did great as well and I can't wait to train with them again.

Hooray for training!

Mike and I got together this morning with Storm and Molly.  We did a quick hide for Storm and then 2 problems for Molly, including one where I climbed up a tree.  The interesting thing happened when I decided to go out on a limb (pun intended) and literally put Storm to the test.

I had Mike hide on one side of a small wooded area while I walked Storm to the other side of the wooded area.  Without giving Storm any notification on where he was I started walking Storm through the woods, into the wind, to give him the best chance of success. 

At first Storm kind of looked at me and I was afraid I was pushing to hard to fast.  It was impressive either way though as he ranged off of me right and left, but always coming back and checking with me.  Then something amazing happened, He caught Mikes scent and took off like a rocket, bounding through the brush, jumping over logs, finding Mike without any hesitation. 

If I had any doubts about this puppy being a future search dog, they were laid to rest today.  At under 5 months, being able to find someone like that, with no teasing, or riling up and no watching where he had hidden, I was just giddy with excitement!

I now have a Facebook page!

My Dad created a facebook page for me.  You can look me up as Storm Powers.

Training! Finally...

Being off of work is enough to drive one stir crazy!  When you are at work you can't wait to be at home, and when you have no work, you can't wait to be AT work.  Thankfully Mike Eck and Molly and Storm and I got to go out and run some quick problems tonight.  The weather was warm and there was a slight breeze that was all over the place.  Both Molly and Storm did well as usual, it was just nice to get out of the house. 

Cancelled...

I was so looking forward to having training today, however due to the weather it was cancelled.  Looks like I am stuck at home listening to the dogs wrestle all day, and I don't feel so good either.  Damn it is going to be a long day.

Public Begging..

This past weekend at Walmart in Trexlertown the K9 team and a few support members came out with our dogs to brave the cold weather for some long hours to raise money. 

Saturday was REALLY cold, but storm did pretty well.  I had to go into Walmart to buy him a jacket about half way through the day but it was too small so I just ended up returning it.  The sky turned really dark there for a while and the wind kicked up and we had flurries!

Sunday was nicer, no flurries, some wind but not as bad, and Storms big sister Lola came out to join him.

In total the team managed to raise over $1300 in the two days, which I am told is pretty good.

Here is a couple of pics of Storm, in his begging vest, trying to stay warm.

Been a long time...

As you can see, it has been almost 10 days since my last post, and I have officially changed the name of the blog since I have not been posting daily.  There really hasn't been much going on lately due to people being busy for the holidays.  As of Friday I will be out of work for approximately 5 weeks and with the holidays and new years, I don't know how much more active things will get before the new year.

We do have a training scheduled for the 21st, so there is definitely something coming up in the near future but after that I have no idea. 

Storm and I will be spending our weekend outside of Walmart in Trexlertown, trying to raise much needed funds for the team.  If you read this and are in the area on either Saturday or Sunday come on out and meet us, and the dogs of course!

More training!

Sunday was BEAUTIFUL!  Especially for December.  The temp had to be somewhere between 50 and 60 and the k9 team headed out to Jacobsburg park.  The nice weather also brought out a slew of horses to the equestrian area of the park.  All of the dogs including Storm did excellent and despite me trying to get a picture of him doing anything he just would not cooperate.  I did manage to snap one majorly blurry photo of him on the ramp to someones truck, but that's all I got.

Ahh Friday!

I really need to take the "Daily" out of the name of this blog, it's just not happening.  Tuesdays training did not happen, due to weather among other factors.  Mike called me last night and he and I agreed to meet up to do some training and I thought it went really well. 

I hid for Molly without telling Mike where I was actually going so that he could not give any indication to Molly if she was going the right way or not, basically like a real search!  Molly found me in a very short time without much difficulty at all.

Then Mike hid for Storm, he went out of sight and hid, and we actually got to see Storm use his nose, he had some slight difficulty, but when he worked it out, he put his nose to the ground and found him.

Big training on Sunday, and I am looking forward to it.