A bit of a week for the humans

Kaz ended up in hospital on Monday with her funny skin lumps and ended up bring quite ill. At the same time grandpa ended up in hospital with heart problems so everyone was running around looking after them both. Well today is Sunday and I can report that they are both out of hospital and on the mend now - hooray!! Don't tell Kaz but we were all a bit worried. She had some lovely flowers from work and some too from Daryl.

So this weekend it's been quiet here - we all went for a swim in the river today.

We heard from our searchdog friends who went up to train in Scotland last week that they'd been busy - not only did they do training but also got involved in a couple of real life callouts, both of which had sad endings.

Yesterday Kaz and Daryl were called out twice to help a person with a fractured wrist and another with a leg injury.

Hopefully Kaz will be feeling well enough to look forward to our week in Aviemore on Sunday with John and Clair and Islay and searchdog Skye !

A great weekend

This weekend me and Kaz and Daryl and the Dram and Angus dogs have been in the Trough of Bowland at an assessment weekend for Trailing dogs. We watched Neill from Ireland with his dog Paddy on Saturday and later on Kaz and Angus dog showed the assessors that Angus could search a small area for a specific person's scent and indicate when he found it. Kaz was super pleased and I was a bit proud of the puppy too! Then the really brilliant thing is that Daryl and the Dram dog were given the hat of a person that had gone missing from a carpark 2 hours previously and he showed Daryl where the scent was then he trailed the missing person Pete and found him! Well done Dram dog. Daryl was really proud of him and so are the rest of us! Today Kaz bodied for Neill and Paddy. She'd laid her trail yesterday which meant Paddy had to find it 24 hours after she'd gone missing. In that time it had rained and snowed! The photo is of Kaz waiting for Paddy to get to her. The 2 nd is paddy finding her then the last one is Paddy celebrating!

Birthday wishes

It's my little bruvver's birthday today - a whole year old! Happy birthday Angus dog (don't tell him, but I really do like him!)

Happy anniversary to me!

It's 6 years today that I passed my final exam as a searchdog. I've been to over 200 callouts !!! It's been great and I'm hoping to do loads more!

Pics from training

Oh it was really nice today - me and Kaz went to Whinlatter and did some training. Kaz was instructing for Elly and Brackeb, but we got to play too which was fab. I found body Penny in record time (Kaz wasn't doing anything in record time) but she got there eventually! It was good to see Mara and Kath, Martin and Cuillin, my big sis Ginny, Glen and Molly and Laura and Jake.

When my and Kaz got back she let Angus have a go and put out 3 boxes with different scents on and he found all of them which Kaz told me she was very pleased about. Blimey it was cold so a big thank you to all the bodies!

Here's me and Penny

Sad news from Glencoe

Me and Kaz and the Dram and Angus dogs had a lovely time yesterday on our walk - we did some obedience stuff (not for me, for Angus dog) and had a fab run round.

It was really cold but not enough snow for playing :-(

Oh my very good friend Rosemary wrote to me telling me how sorry she was that I'd been left outside by Kaz after the Callout the other night - at least someone cares Kaz !!!!!

There was some very bad news yesterday and that was about an avalanche in Glencoe which has killed 4 people. Snow is can be very dangerous on the mountains sometimes and we all feel very sad for their families. I am trained as an avalanche dog too and I know how hard the local Mountain Rescue Teams must have been working to help find them.

Today me and Kaz are going to do some training at Whinlatter - she is taking the Angus dog and Daryl is bringing Dram dog to see if they can do a little bit of training for their trailing thingy. I'm looking forward to that and seeing all my friends.

Callouts and watching other searchdogs

Well this year has got off to a bit of a quick start.

Kaz and me had been out helping Kath and her trainee dog Mara do some searchdog stuff on Sunday over at Nine Standards.

They did really well and me and the Dram dog kept a sharp eye on the proceedings as you can see!



We got home from training and me and Kaz settled down to have a good read (well she was reading - me and the Angus and Dram dogs were chewing on a rather nice bone I seem to recall).  Suddently at about 4.30 the team pager went off for a search for 2 missing people lost somewhere near High Street. 

This is what it looks like in the day time at the moment....



Me and Kaz jumped in the van and drove to Mardale Head where we met up with our team member Vic who was going to be our navigator.  Our job was to go up to Blea Water, up to Caspel Gate, Long Stile, High Street Summit and then work out what to do from there.  Blimey it was a bit difficult - the conditions were pretty awful (even I'll admit that!).  As we got up to Caspel Gate and then onto the scramble up to the top, the wind starting really blowing and both Kaz and Vic got knocked over a few times.  Even I was blown over and I've got four paws on the ground at all times!

We also met up with Kaz's team mates Glenn and Matt who decided to go from High Street North towards Kidsty Pike to meet up with team members coming the other way.  That meant we had to go from the High Street Summit over to Thornthwaite Beacon which was very windy and very wet and foggy. 

Kaz and Vic were losing radio signal at one point so we were very pleased to hear that they had been found on Rest Dodd over towards Hayeswater by Patterdale team members.  Kaz and Vic had a sit down and a cup of tea then we started making our way back round Mardale Ill Bell towards Nan Bield - I was being very helpful and running in front - apparently that wasn't too helpful cos the visibility was only about 10 feet!

We eventually arrived back at the Mardale Head carpark at about 11pm and we were all a bit tired!!

We drove back home and Kaz did something terrible - she left me outside all night on the doorstep!! That's terrible isn't.  She reckons that she'd let the Dram and Angus dogs out for a quick comfort break and thought I'd already gone to bed in the kitchen but I hadnt - I was still in the garden.  The other two ran back in and she locked up for the night.  When I got back to the front door it was all locked up so I ended up curling up on the doorstep all night until she remembered in the morning and opened the door!  The other two dogs laughed at me - dont worry I'll get my own back on them one day.

Then this weekend me and Kaz have been assessing the SARDA England Searchdogs which was great fun.  They were really good.  1st off the assessors gave the handlers the area to search - it was really interesting cos the area we were assessing was the one that me and Kaz did when we finally passed our assessments.

Then they ask the handlers to work out how they are going to do their search (some of the handlers draw pictures of their area to help themselves) and then they set them off -

Some of the handlers get very artistic with coloured pens and stuff!

Here's trainee Wisp - who was a very pretty girl but also naughty as she ate the water container in the van cos she was bored.

and here are some of the other searchdogs.................

It was great fun but very cold.

Today it's snowing so I'm looking forward to Kaz coming home and taking us out for a long snowy walk - hooray!