No sooner than she and Angus got back from their holiday in the caravan, Kaz was getting ready for another one! On Tuesday night though, we went over to Hollows Farm campsite in Keswick so that Kaz and Angus could do some trailing practices in more busy areas. Here's Angus......
Ohh I'm getting used to this now - anyways me and Kaz were told that we were looking for a missing person who'd left their car in the carpark at the campsite. About 2 hours earlier all of the other dog bodies and a load of handlers had parked there and walked all over the place as well as the people staying at the campsite. Here's a pic of the car park.
There were about 6 exits from the carpark all going in different directions and we didn't know which one the missing person had taken.
Kaz took the missing person's hat which had been given to her and put it in to a fresh plastic bag. Then she put some gauzes in which had a fine spray of salty water (this is so that the smell/bacteria can grow on them and then these 'clones' can be used instead of the hat in case the Police need to keep the hat). Once she'd left them for a while she then split them in to some more bags and got my collar and lead out. She put my harness on, and clipped the lead on to the collar - I was going a bit mad at this point as I was getting pretty excited - and eventually she told me to 'sniff sniff' which means take a smell of the thing in the bag - I got a bit over excited and nearly ate it!!
Anyway, once I took a big whiff of the scent I was then told to 'check' and went up to Mick and had a sniff of him (this is because he took the hat from the missing person and was possible that his scent could be on it and that would mean I might end up following Mick instead of the missing person.
Once I'd sniffed Mick, Kaz told me to 'find' - this means I have to search around and when I find the scent that matches I must lie down to tell her. Kaz lead me to just outside the carpark and we went to each exit in turn and I had a sniff around. Suddenly I realised that the scent was just by a wooden footbridge over some boggy ground so I lay down.
Kaz said 'Good boy' and then clipped the lead on to my harness and said 'Show me'. This means I now have to follow the trail to the person. So I set off. There was a family eating outside one of the tents and I wagged at them as I went past. I was pulling Kaz pretty hard, but she kept me steady. We went across the campsite and there were lots of people and some dogs who were off their leads running about but I was good and carried on. We went left by a big knoll and then the scent went back towards the way we came down the track we had driven in on - we got all the way back to the carpark entrance and Kaz got worried that I'd gone wrong so made me start all over again. I did exactly the same again and she was really concerned that I'd done it wrong that she radioed the missing person Rosemary who said I was right as she'd walked across the campsite then cut round the knoll and walked back down the main track and past the entrance to the carpark and then had carried on for another 100m or so and hidden by the river!!! Kaz started again and this time she just let me get on with it and I found Rosemary!! I got loads of cuddles and Kaz kept being told 'trust your dog'. Then me and Dot went for a swim with the other searchdogs which was great!
So thanks Angus for such as short explanation! Kaz then left us with grandma and grandpa to go to the Pembroke National Park in Wales for a seakayaking course. She got back really late last night just as her pager went off for a dog callout at Newby Bridge (typical) - despite 7 searchdogs the man still hasn't been found yet and we may still be called out again.
Anyway here are some of her pics from the weekend...she says she really enjoyed it and even enjoyed practicing the capsizing thing:
Even though Kaz was a bit tired this morning she had arranged to go with my favourite dogsbody Glenn to Stainton Primary school to talk to the children about the searchdogs. It was brilliant - Angus behaved himself while me and Glenn showed them what we all do. The children seemed to really enjoy their assembly and me and Angus got loads of hugs.
Anyway better go - at the moment me and Angus are supervising the conservatory people and Kaz should be back soon so I'd better get on with that!
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