Ah Tuesday....

As many of my other dog handling friends on the team will tell you, it never fails that when we want to train on a Tuesday night the weather is ALWAYS crappy, this past Tuesday was no exception.  The day started off with rain and freezing rain, and a lot of the roads had ice on them.  As the day wore on though it switched to mostly rain, and was supposed to stop by the evening.

Brenda and I had previously arranged on Sunday that we were going to meet Tuesday night for training, and I had pulled Mike Eck in on it as well.  Brenda got out of work late, but Mike and I still went out to train and met up at about 6pm. 

While it had stopped raining the fog had moved in with a vengeance.  After parking my car I moved up into the field to do some recall work with Storm only to turn around and not be able to see my car.  Visibility was about 10 feet, but the temperature was warm enough that I was only wearing a sweatshirt. 

We started off with Storm, Mike hid in the woods and I moved further out into the field.  When I told Storm to "Go Find Him", Storm immediately took off for the woods.  I was only barely able to see him moving from the little light that hangs from his collar.  When I reached the field, Storm was moving back and forth across the edge as if waiting for me to catch up.  I started on the North side moving about 5 feet from the northern edge.  Storm was ranging well into the woods and back out to me.  At some point he got Mikes scent and found him, I honestly couldn't tell through the fog.  Mike called me and told me that Storm had found him, I called Storm back to me, and he came, after he sat looking at me I told him to "Show Me", at which time he returned back to Mike.  I honestly still could not see Mike through the fog, so I recalled Storm again.  After his return and my command I was able to follow him into Mike and told Mike to give Storm his reward. 

We ran molly next with a similar problem, and Molly found me just fine.  Since the fog was so bad the next problem that we did for Storm was just to hide out in the field.  Mike went out and hid somewhere in the fog, while I waited with Storm til he was ready.  Upon release, Storm ranged very well to the left and right of me as we worked our way across the field.  Again, at some point Storm caught Mikes scent and was able to find him.  It took 3 times before Storm returned to me on his recall, but I was then able to recall him again in 1 shot the second time and I was able to follow him in.

Seems like every Monday I am writing about Sunday..

Needless to say yesterday was a quite a bit hectic.  I had made arrangements with Mike and Chrissy to do some training Sunday on Saturday evening when I get a phone call from Mike.  Turns out we had been called out for an actual search on Sunday morning to look for a missing 19yo kid that had been hit by a car and then ran off.  You can read the actual article here - (read the article here) Meeting time was 7:30am up in the Poconos. 

Being currently out of work my schedule is...well kind of messed up and I don't think I got but 2 hours of sleep before being up at 5 to take care of the dogs.  Sadly Storm is not certified so he could not work.  After getting up there and getting organized the three search teams that were there located the victim at approximately 10:30 (read the article here).

When I got home I was exhausted, but I messaged Mike and he and Chrissy were still up for doing some training at 2pm.  I passed out briefly on the couch before heading up to Shnecksville station 22.

I met Mike and Chrissy up at the station and we ran all of the dogs at least twice.  Storm did amazing and we are working on starting a recall so that after he finds the subject he comes back to get me to lead me in to him. 

I came home and immediately passed out in bed, it was a very long day.

Sunday!

While normal people are looking at having to go back to work tomorrow, I am looking at another day of library research for grants for the Team.  Brenda sent us an email about training out at the Appalachian Trail last minute, although Mike Eck and I had actually already planned on meeting up there for training at the same place.  It was really good to see the whole team out and good fun was had by all. 

Storm got to show off for Brenda, (she actually hasn't seen him work a real "problem") and she made a comment about not having to do "runaways" anymore.  We entered assigned area against the wind (my mistake) and started grid searching with Storm off leash.  Per Brenda, the gully we encountered was going to be a natural boundry for my area.  I continued along the gully until we reached the edge of the woods at a paved road and started back into the woods when Storm caught a scent and took off running.  He immediately found team member Diane Nickerson who was hiding in the woods for him.

It didn't take him long at all, but Brenda was really impressed at how Storm was progressing.  I'm so proud of my little puppy!

10 days!

I cannot believe it has been 10 days since I last posted on this blog.  Happy New Year to everyone!  I have done some training in the last few days, the first being Thursday. 

Mike Eck and I met at Shnecksville station 22 and took the Storm and Molly out for a a few runs.  We made sure to use the wind to our advantage and man did it work!  I put Storm WAY down the hill from where Mike was hiding and no joke as soon as I told Storm to go "Find" he took off running.  I hadn't made it more that 75 feet before Storm had already located Mike, who I have to say was pretty far away.

Molly also did really well, but was having some issues with her recall, she wouldn't give an alert to Mike despite coming in and finding me several times. 

Mike hid for Storm again and the same thing happened, although a funny thing, Storm wet way up another hill looking for Mike and thinking he was on the wrong trail I called to him to kind of reel him back in, only to find out in another 10 seconds that Mike was actually hidden in the area that Storm was looking for him.  I don't think I will ever doubt my puppy again!