Sunday we had a K9 training.  Well as some of you know I'm in the Great White North.  Just South of Lake Ontario.  We get what is called Lake Effect.

Where all of the rest of you have been getting a good dose of Winter we have been accumulating a nice blanket of snow a bit at a time over and over and over.  Snow causes scent to fall out of the air and pool near the source.  This makes it difficult for the dogs that are using this scent to locate the source.

Sunday was a nice day, it got up above freezing for a few hours.  We went to a local park into an area called Woodchuck Hollow.  This is tree covered and a depression between several Morains( a group of 100 foot steep hills formed by the glaciers).  One of the other handlers hunkered down in the lee of a big tree and let me know he was in place.

Elphie and I started working a grid through the snow.  She was struggling a bit as the snow was up to her belly.  As we came around one rise, up popped her nose as she was sampling the air and getting something.  I got out my poofer (wind direction indicator ) and found that the wind was shifty and slight.  She didn't seem to have a good direction so we continued our grid.  At the bottom of the hollow we got into scent again.  She ran off a bit ( well hopped due to the snow depth) and seemed to be checking a track that someone had left in the snow. 

Finally, she took off in a direction down the hill and popped over a rise. Head up and sniffing she turned 90 degrees and headed off in another direction.  A few yards later she did the same thing.  Then turned back,  then we had the ding moment when she started working the scent cone.  Back and forth with a vengence and zeroed in to my buddy.

At this point she is trained to come to me and jump on my leg to indicate that she has a find.  Her tongue was lolling out and she was working hard to cross the 30 yards to where I was standing.  She didn't give me an indication but came to me and went back to him.  She expected to be rewarded with her toy but since she didn't indicate she had to return and give me my notice before she got to play. The second time in she dragged herself off the ground and gave me an indication.  Through all of this she looked like a bunny bouncing into and out of the snow.

Well, now she got to play and turned into a dog possessed all trace of fatigue disappeared as she grabbed the toy and pulled.

I just thought you might enjoy a quick description of a training session.  When training a K9, the biggest concern is getting them out there to practice.  The weather is a concern but more for the scent picture.  We get to do this as often as we can so that when there is actually a person to be found we can read the dog's behavior and get the job done.

 Thanks for listening.