Winnie’s Search Dog Diary

Well, Mom and I had a long talk the other day.  Turns out I had to tell her I wasn’t having as much fun with my toys as she would like.  I am much more interested in hanging out on the couch, playing a little fetch and going for a run/walk.  Now I do like climbing on things but it’s more to have fun than really wanting to focus on anything else.  I really don’t want to be a search dog.  I would much rather be a house pet.  After she got done crying, we talked about what I could do.   I have spent the last couple of weeks hanging out with mom and just being a dog….I sort of really like it.  Mom told me just the other day that I had a new home if I wanted it.  She found a family (with a 13 year old boy and a 15 year old girl) who just lost their other dog around Christmas.  Mom asked if I would like to meet them.

OH BOY!!!!! Are they great!   Not only do I have a new crate, but new toys (including the kids), my new mom likes to run and my new dad likes a cuddle dog.  I even got to sleep on their bed the first night.  I’m soo going to enjoy my new home!

I’m turning over my blog to Winnie, my search dog sister, to talk about her training as a trailing and cadaver dog.  She’s much more toy motivated than me and also barks more.

* Note from Robin — Chance is now in a loving home where he is getting to spend as much time holding down the couch and playing with his new family.  Rehoming a dog is always difficult and I am in contact with his new family.  They also know that Chance is welcome to come and visit anytime and they can even leave him with me when they travel.

Both Chance and I would have been miserable if I would have tried to make him a search dog.  Search dogs must enjoy their job and it is my responsibility as a handler to make sure that I have not only the best dog for the job, but the best job for the dog.   Search and rescue is a life or death job, Chance prefered a line of work that involved a couch more than anything else.

So, Grace left today for her new home, mom had to run her to the airport I guess.  Turns out Grace is going to go train with Florida Task Force 1 doing disaster search.  It sure is weird with only three of us in the house.  Although Ella, the cat, I believe now thinks she’s a dog.  I’ve caught her playing with tennis balls and my rope toy.

We went running today too and mom made me sit and wait before we could finish up.  Something about learning  how to “stay”.  I have a very hard time with that, I forget that I can’t move.  Talyn and Winnie were laughing at me until I sat for about 10 seconds them mom let us run.  We are down to about 4 inches of snow on our typical running path, it’s a little harder to run in that vs on regular grass but at least we got to get out.

Okay, so we started another puppy class tonight and for some reason mom had these shapes out on the floor and I would only get rewarded for touching the one that looked like a triangle. Of course after I was doing that on a regular basis mom through out one that looked like a circle…THEN started calling the triangle ’spoon’. She said is was something about how she could use it to explain to the college kids she sometimes teaches about how we don’t really know what a word is until people teach us a language. Humans are weird.

We actually did a lot of off leash walking which was pretty cool.  I don’t have the focus to do it outside yet but who knows, maybe by summer.

So, we’ve been going to clicker class and learning how to go to a mat (directionals), walk on a loose lead (healing), touch a stick with my nose (keeps me out of trouble), and to do moving sits and downs.   They pulled out a kiddie slide the other day and I thought it was lots of fun….I think the instructors are plotting on how to make my life more fun since they said that I would have a ‘hard’ obstacle course.  I don’t think they realize that I picture most of the furniture in my house as something to climb on.  Tonight, mom left an ice cream container lid on the kitchen table and I climbed up on the table and was licking it….you know, chocolate ice cream is yummy.

We’ve been working on tug a lot lately, mom pulls me inside while she’s getting ready for work and we play tug.  I get to play on the bed during this.  She also ordered some new toys and I really like them.  The last toy she came home with (it was from Texas, a friend made it for Talyn) I chewed in half.  I really liked that one, I might have to see if mom will have Rich make another.  I’m getting much better at grabbing the toy and holding onto it, Mom really likes that and lets me win a lot. She seems to be really good at this and I don’t fall off the bed when she lets me win.  However, you should see her try and tug with me and blow her hair dry at the same time.  It’s funny.

I had to sit in the truck FOREVER this past Saturday then didn’t even get to train because the weather was bad.  Talyn got to go out and play in the snow and do a mock search with some other people.  Sigh….hopefully mom is planning something…..

So, the past couple of days have been sort of busy. The weather was really nice over the weekend so we got to go out and play…I mean train. So, on Saturday, Grace and I got to spend a couple of minutes running around on the rubble pile, which was fun even through there was a bunch of snow. Mainly I think mom wanted to see Grace run up and down the pile since she was throwing a toy up there. Grace is a little faster than me and beat me a few times to the toy.

Mom also has me going to puppy class again. Which is sort of fun since right now I’m learning how to move to a rug and stand on it. I think it might have something to do with learning directions but don’t know for sure. All I know is that I get lots of treats and mom uses her ‘clicker’ to tell me I’m doing things right.

Mom came home from work today and started pulling out gear from our usual search stuff pile and polishing her boots.  I’ve never seen her polish her boots before…..Turns out that one of our Iowa Task Force 1 friends has passed away.  Brett Henderson, our K9 leader, died of cancer of the weekend and the funeral is tomorrow.  The rest of our K9 team and the team from Missouri Task Force 1 will all be in attendance.  Brett was one of those people who you really admire….He did something amazing as well and this is really close to my heart….The dog that Brett had, Star, he found at the animal shelter in Cedar Rapids….adopted her and they just certified this past year to one of the FEMA levels.  Star is now with Mo TF1.  Some day, I hope to be able to do that too.  We’ll miss you Brett.

So, the past few days have been pretty boring. Mom took Talyn and went someplace and left me here at home. I think she was someplace warm and since Talyn went along, I’m assuming she went somewhere to train. (Note from Robin — I was in Texas teaching a SAR dog seminar for Paws of Life….Chance is still pouting).

New things in the house, I have a foster sister. Grace is staying with us until she finds a new home. I like her a lot and she’s fun to play with. Mom did pick up all the toys since Grace tends to eat everything though. I did get to start staying outside of my crate at night though. This is super cool since I like sleeping on the bed.

The weather has been really cold and we got a lot of snow. Mom and I have been playing tug in the house and aren’t running anymore. Something about the -13 wind chill makes mom think she can be a wimp.

I had mom take this picture of all the meat we have cut up for our dinner. Yummy!

Well, mom started running again, she’s been taking Talyn out but wouldn’t you know, today she took Winnie and I as well.  It was GREAT!  We didn’t work on any of that brain stuff, but I did have fun watching her fix the fence so I can’t jump out.  That’s what she thinks anyway….. Currently we have a 5 foot fence (well most of it anyway) around the yard but there are some areas where it’s a little ‘lower’ due to the fact that the ground is higher there.  I can clear the fence by balancing on the top and pushing off.  However, now Mom put a PVC pipe through some 2×4 braces…..makes things a little harder.  BUT, I think I can still get through the gap.  We’ll have to see.

I think we are going to search team practice tomorrow.  Mom was putting treats and toys in a bag tonight.  That should be fun!

Today was my first puppy class…EVER. We went to a clicker class I got to eat a bunch of treats while mom asked me to touch a stick with my nose, sit, lie down…and of all goofy things, look at her. She didn’t really like it when I bit her fingers going after the treats though. We then played with a box, I got treats for even looking at the stupid thing. It was great though, I can’t wait to go back next week!

Okay, so today was sort of exciting. Mom and her friends spent the last couple of nights out in the garage and I had to sit in my crate. But tonight I found out what she was doing. They spent the night cutting up deer for my dinner!!!!! I love to eat and some friends gave us deer so I could have something different to eat besides chicken, turkey and ground beef.

Mom said there were 4 deer to cut up, hopefully that means I’ll get deer through mid summer or so. Yummy! At some point I will write about my diet so you can find out what I eat.