Hi everyone - how are you then?
I'm fine - a bit damp at the moment and Kaz is not too pleased at the moment coz i've shaken myself all over her - I keep telling her it's coz I love her so much....aparently she doesn't think that's an excuse!
Kaz did some training with me and the Angus dog - she worked him on the area behind the Kirkstone Pass Inn - honestly that's reserved for us proper dogs - still he they are at the start of an 800m trail looking for handler John Leadbetter - Angus did really well and only got a bit confused in the middle bit but he got there in the end!
Then on the Tuesday night I did a quick search for Mary and Terry whilst kaz was waiting for a trail to 'soak in' - I was dead quick and shot round the area and found both of the bodies and shook all over them! Then it was Angus's turn to find Deb - here he is trailing along the path and here's Deb (in her very fetching mosquito net!!). He was really good - I'm getting pretty proud of him.
We held the last training weekend at Haweswater which is near where we live (and which is mine and Kaz's favourite walk) -it was great fun meeting up with everyone - Kaz and Angus did some training - they did two trails and did very well - (you can see what they did here - the body's track is in Red and kaz and Angus's track is in Blue).
The graded dogs all did some fun training as well and I even got to play. Andy and Corrie, Roger and Ted, Elly and Meg, Bill and Ani and Christyne and Bute were there for the fun and looked for rucksacks and other stuff as well as people.
On the Sunday Kaz arranged an exercise for the graded search dogs. This was to take them over the Old Corpse Road and to look for some missing people - Kaz also allowed trainee handler Dave howarth with his dog Fern to have a go as he is nearly ready for assessments. Everyone seemed to have a great time for about 4 hours and they found all the bodies. Handler Ollie Benson bought along a sheep to do some stock test training work with!! Some of the real sheep seemed to be a bit surprised to see him there.
In between running up and down the hill checking on the exercise, Kaz and Angus Dog and Daryl and Dram dog did some training too and were very good. The trainees all did really well up at Riggindale with Ian looking after them and keeping them in check.
A couple of weeks ago Kaz had a problem with her van and she decided she'd have to need to buy a new one so we all got dragged around to chose a car for her. Me and Angus wanted her to get a supersize van with extra comfy seats for us, but Dram dog was advising (along with Daryl) and she got another white van which is a bit bigger than the old one. For the next couple of days Kaz had to borrow grandma and gradpa's car - which was fun for us coz we were all going down to Smelt Mill in Lancashire to attend the Trailing Course so Angus and Dram dogs could show us all how good they are now.....Kaz just managed to fit the cage in so we were all comfortable.
On the Friday we met up with all the others - Kathy and Tally from South Wales, Helen and Tor (Angus's half brother) from Dartmoor, Jamie and Diesel and Maria and Scarlett from East Anglia, Harold and Fletcher from South Wales, Callum and Dochus from Scotland and Dave and Brock from Scotland - Dave used to be a handler with us with his dog Moudy but he is training his german wire haired pointer to be a trailing doggie.
Iain and tom the instructors took us over to the Lancashire Police Dog Section for the day where they showed us how they get their dogs (mainly Belgian Malinois) to track and stop burglars.
Then we watched the trailing dogs do some boxes for telling different scents apart - Dram dog did good and so did Angus's half brother Tor! Brock was trying to cheat a bit but was getting the hang of it by the end of the day. Then it was Angus's turn to have a go - he did really well and didnt pull Kaz too quickly through the ditch!
On Saturday we all worked near Smelt Mill at Beacon Fell and both Dram and Angus dogs did brilliantly.
On Sunday they all worked in the grounds near Smelt Mill and here is Maria getting her briefing on where her and Scarlett are to work.
On Sunday night when we got home we were all tired and Kaz joked that we'd end up having a callout - sure enough at 2.30am on Monday morning the pager went off. So me and Kaz jumped into grandpa and grandmas car and drove over to Mungrisdale to search with Elly and Meg up from the quarries towards the area round Skiddaw House looking for a missing mountain biker. We searched for about 3.5 hours and just as it was getting light we heard on the radio that the man had been found - sadly he had died. We walked back to the car and drove home feeling sad. When we got home, kaz went straight to work and i went straight to bed.
Today we've been working with the trainees at Morland where we were testing them working through sheep - they all did very well - so Dave and Fern, John and Cuillin passed, and Rob and Rona nearly passed but just have to do a little more work.
This weekend we'll all be going over to Coniston for a 3 day course which I am looking forward to. I'll let you know how it goes.
