SAR Conference

Tucker met his first blood hound at the SAR conference this past weekend. His name was Forest and he was a riot. Forest weighed in at 100 pounds and is a trailing dog from Virginia Beach.

Tucker went to the dog park and decided to have a drink of water, but since he was getting beat up by the bigger pooches, he decided to deprive them of the water. Watch the video above.

Will he ever grow into these ears?

Union Springs Road

On Sunday we went to a new area (at least for Gail and I) for a practice session with Blue and Gray. The map said we were in the George Washington Park. That has to be a huge park.

We started with an exercise with Ronnie and Saibra that took longer than expected, but I'm glad I went as the flanker because I learned a lot about a flanker's responsibilities. Rick from the Virginia Emergeny Services was kind to share his knowledge.

Tucker did okay on his exercises, but not stellar. He missed a subject on both outings due to tricky wind conditions. I have so much to learn about scent and wind!

Boys Will Be Boys

Tucker discovered that playing in the mud is lots of fun. Gail and I can attest it wasn't so much fun cleaning up the mess!

Tucker's search dog training has been going well. We are doing more difficult problems and he is now getting used to finding some strangers. Gail and I are going down to a SAR conference at the end of April to learn more about this discipline. He gets dirty on search practices, but not this dirty!

Training at Yancey

Here's another picture of us with Tucker. It was rather cold out there in the woods.

Below is a video that Gail took of Tucker out finding a "victim." It was really just Laurel with some stinky hot dogs!

Yogurt is Yummie!

The doctor says 1 tablespoon of yogurt a day. Well Tucker will get it any way he can.

Training At Kennedy Fields

This is Matthew, Laurel and Uzi, a 2.5-year-old Chesapeake Bay Retriever. They joined us today for an informal training session at Kennedy Fields close to Waynesboro, VA. We ran him on an exercise. Part of the video is below. Watch Uzi in action!

Tucker did some more puppy walks and we increased the difficulty on the second run by walking through the woods and not alongside a road or path. The subjects also hid deeper and Laurel even laid down behind a log. Tucker missed her completely on the first pass, but then caught her scent.

Tucker also played with Saibra in the creek and got some experience crossing the creek with Saibra as bait. He wanted to dive in after the sticks like Saibra, but couldn't quite muster the courage.

This isn't Tucker, but definitely something he would do!

Training

March 9, 2008

Today we met at the Rapidan Wilderness area in Madison County. It took me two hours and 15 minutes to find the location mostly due to a bridge outage that detoured my attempt to arrive on time at 2 o'clock. Oh well.

Brain/Jarod and Ronnie/Saibra were there as well as Jennifer and Shayna, Brian's daughter. Shayna is considering getting a dog if her mother will let her. I take it Pam is not too keen on the idea. I understand her concern. It's a huge responsibility, but if Shayna can handle it, I think it would be a great experience for her. High school does have its time constraints.

We worked Tucker on some more puppy walks today. He seemed to respond more quickly and really enjoy meeting "the fun people in the woods." Check out the video.




This is Saibra at work. She is only one test shy of her certification as a wilderness search dog. Way to go Ronnie!

First Search and Rescue Training Outing

Today Gail and I took Tucker on his first SAR training outing. We drove up to the Shenandoah Valley outside of Harrisonburg and met three other members of the Blue and Gray Search Dogs Team.

The exercise we did is known as "imprinting." Gail and two other members hid beside the trail and waited for Tucker to walk by. Once he saw them he went over to investigate and was rewarded with one of his favorite treats... freeze-dried liver. We then proceeded on to the next "victim" where he was rewarded generously once again. After "finding" the third person we turned around and repeated the finds. Tucker caught on quick that these friendly people in the woods had valuable treats hidden in their pockets.

We alternated Tucker with Took, Ditto and Saibre who are much more advanced search dogs. By the third time we repeated the exercise, Tucker was definitely getting the idea and started using his nose more to locate the subjects. It was fun to watch his little brain process the task.

We then drove home and he slept until we got to Wal-Mart where Gail went in and bought some groceries. I waited outside with Tucker and socialized him with several girl scouts selling cookies. Many people stopped to meet Tucker from 3 year olds to 73 year olds.

Here's a particularly studious shot. He's always trying to figure out what I'm saying.

Tucker gives his attempt at agility. I know that treat is here somewhere.

This is Friar Tuck. We call him Tucker for short. He was 51 days old when we picked him out of the litter. He actually picked us out as he was the first to come running to the edge of the pen. He is a labrador retriever from Misty Morning Labradors in Manakin Sabot, VA. He weighed 11 pounds when we brought him home, but he is growing quickly!

This was Tucker's litter. Check out the video.

Tucker quickly became the hit of the neighborhood with people and other dogs. That's Brodie in the background, a labradoodle. They stop by often to play.
















































When Tucker is not eating (his favorite activity), he is sleeping!

Don't bother me dude. I'm busy.