Reyna's Photo Shoot

Jeff met us at SAR training last Sunday and took loads of pictures of me and Reyna (mostly Reyna). It was foggy during our first search, so we waited until most of the fog had burned off and ran a second search. Below are a few of my favorites, in no particular order. I realize ten pictures may not seem like a very small sample, but there were over 150 from which to choose....

Courtesy of Photos By Jeff™, I present to you Reyna: A SAR Dog.

Honey Goodness

After a long break due to illness (hers) and busy schedules (mine), Reyna and I started back with SAR training this summer. Some of you may recall that we took a few AKC Tracking classes in the late spring, but that just didn’t work out for us. Reyna is too much of a SAR girl to be given a scent article and then follow a trail to a glove some 500 yards away when the guy who owns the glove is standing right beside her. One of the Tracking trainers told me that Reyna is a sight hound, because she doesn’t follow a track with her nose to the ground. Um, yeah, three things about that… 1 – She very often follows scents with her nose nearly to the ground. 2 – She can still smell something even if her nose is a foot and a half above it. 3 – She’s freaking spectacular at wind scenting. Not to say she doesn’t have frighteningly intense focus if she sees something that really catches her attention. I think he just didn’t appreciate the fact that, on the rare occasions she did decide to bother going for the glove, she’d take the shortest distance instead of following a precise path. So, anyway, back to SAR we went.

We volunteered for the early session, starting at 7:00am. Initially, this was just because it was very slightly cooler at 7:00 than at 8:00, but then it just became nice to get the training done and be back home in time for a mid-morning nap. Of course, a 7:00 session generally means we have to be out the door no later than 6:15. Depending on the location, we may have to leave by 6:00 to get there right on time. Our first training day, I made the mistake of trying to get up early enough to eat breakfast before we left. I don’t like getting up at 5:00 if I don’t absolutely have to. So then I started looking for breakfast options that travelled well. It took me a couple of weeks, but I finally settled on graham crackers. I initially thought I’d eat about half a pack on the way to SAR and save the other half for the next class. Unfortunately, even a Ziploc bag doesn’t keep graham crackers all that fresh for an entire week. So then I was a bit disgruntled about wasting crackers, but didn’t find anything else to take their place. Then one morning on the way to SAR, Reyna solved my problem. I wasn’t paying attention to Reyna (actually watching the road, for some silly reason), and she stole the cracker out of my hand. Turns out Reyna loves her some honey graham crackers. From then on, we’d eat an entire pack each morning. I’d get a cracker, then she’d get a cracker. Then she would drool on my arm while I ate a cracker. Then she’d lunge and bark at a sign/tree/barrel/parked car, and then she’d come back and eat a cracker. This worked really well for us until the last two sessions. Surprisingly enough, Reyna does not like sharing her crackers with Duncan. I know, I was shocked by that, too. This coming Sunday will be our last SAR session – hopefully Reyna’s hips will let her get back to it next fall – and its just me and Reyna. I have one pack of graham crackers left, and we’re going to savor every last one of them.

We’re So Proud Of Us

Reyna had SAR Sunday morning – only three sessions left before we wrap up for the year. They’ll start sessions again in January, but I don’t know if Reyna and I will participate. It all depends on how she’s doing.

Yesterday went very well. Our session started at 7:00am, but the trainer made us wait until 7:30 because it was still too dark to see in the woods. And he very nicely didn’t want me and Reyna tripping over every stick and falling in the gullies just to go find someone. When we finally started out, the trainer made a few suggestions about the best way to approach the exercise, based on terrain and wind conditions. What he apparently forgot was that telling me doesn’t mean a whole lot – I go where Reyna wants to go, so if he want us to take a specific path, he needs to talk to her. We started out following the trainer’s suggestions, but Reyna kept getting annoyed by a fence that was blocking her from a slightly easier route. She decided she was done with that and veered off to find a new path. In fact, she found a very nice, wide path. We followed it for a ways, and then she turned around and trotted back the way we’d come. She took me into an old family cemetery, sniffed at a couple of headstones, and then trotted over to our missing person. After our “You found her!” party, I told Reyna to “take me home.” (Note: “Take me home” means different things to Reyna, depending on where we are. During SAR sessions, it means that she needs to lead me back to the truck. When we’re in the woods behind the house, it means that she takes me to the pond where we always play before we go back to the house.) She took us through the woods – using a shortcut of her choosing – straight to the main road. As we walked towards the vehicles, I saw the trainer working with another team. He left that team and met us, looking worried. He seemed very confused, and glanced at his watch.

Trainer: What’s wrong?
Me: Nothing. We found Megan, so we’re headed back to the truck.
Trainer: You already found her?
Me: Yep.
Trainer: Already?
Me: Yes. We started out the way you suggested, but Reyna didn’t like it, so she found an easier path to take. We overshot the cemetery at first, but then she went right back to it and found Megan.
Trainer: Really?
Me: Yeah.
Trainer: That should have taken longer.
Me: Um, okay. Why?
Trainer: That was a very advanced exercise.
Me: Okay…
Trainer: It should have taken Reyna longer than 10 minutes. It was a very hard search.
Me: Heh. No one told Reyna that.
Trainer: Take her home. She’s done for the day.

Reyna and I strolled back to the truck, smug expressions on both our faces.

Working Girl

Dad went to SAR training with us yesterday morning, and Donny made sure he had a pretty good view of what we did. Unfortunately, he only took three pictures. Dad said later that he’s having trouble getting past the idea that he’s not wasting film. Oh, well. Maybe I’ll be able to get more pictures sometime (Jeff, are you available really early some Sunday?). And at least I have these.

For this exercise, our “victim” was hiding in the woods to the far left of the field, and she had entered those woods from several hundred yards even farther to the left. This means she didn’t lay a track in the field or at the edge of the woods. We started at the far right, and were given boundaries (basically, the tree line on either side of the field). Reyna wasn’t given a scent article, so we had to work the field until she caught the scent of someone new. That’s really all Reyna had to go on – we were looking for a person who hadn’t been hanging out with the rest of the group. Reyna’s way too good at this…we’d only worked the field for a minute or so before she caught the scent. And I’d like to point out that this was pretty large field – about 8 acres, nearly square. I followed Reyna to the wood line, where she caught a strong scent from the path the person had taken into the woods. She went along the wood line until she found an easy way in, and then went straight to the person. I think Dad was a bit disappointed that we got up at 5:00, drove an hour, and it took Reyna less than 10 minutes from start to finish. What can you do, though, when that’s all the time she needed?

Following the scent.

A successful find.

Just A Bit Of Bragging

Reyna’s been going to search and rescue practice sessions Sunday mornings for the last few weeks. She’s been having an absolutely wonderful time, which is what makes getting up at 5:00am worthwhile. The trainer, Donny, has been giving us difficult searches, making Reyna really work for her finds. The other dogs get to follow relatively fresh tracks directly to the “victim.” Reyna, though, gets sent to the far end of a patch of woods and has to search several acres with nothing more than a scent article. She’s been doing really well, and always finds the right person.

This past Sunday, Donny saw Reyna coming out of the woods after a long, successful search and said that it was very obvious that she truly loves SAR work. It must have been the combination of the big doggy grin and the smug expression on her face that gave it away. I told Donny that Dad was planning to come to this Sunday’s session, and so I wanted him to give Reyna something really good so she could show off. Donny laughed and said that Reyna is so good at SAR that everything she does is showing off. Then he said he wished we could have taped her session from the previous Sunday (a wind-scenting practice with no trail), because she was text-book perfect. Let me tell you, that just gives me a warm fuzzy, knowing that my girl not only loves what she’s doing, but that she’s also very good at it.

With luck, I’ll finally get some pictures of her working. This coming Sunday is another wind-scenting exercise. We’ll be in a huge field with tall grass, so the victim will be able to hide easily. Reyna will have to work the field to find the person, using nothing but the scent cone to lead her to the right place. Donny said he’d put Dad on a hill beside the field so he’ll have a good view (and hopefully take some good pictures!).

Cadaver Dirt Smells Yummy!

Reyna and I are back in Search and Rescue training with Donny, the same guy we originally trained with when Reyna was a pup. The last time we signed up for this, I hurt my back the day before the first session. Thankfully, that did not happen this time. Donny calls us his two cripples and his walking wounded, so he’s making a point of keeping our searches physically easier than they used to be. In fact, Reyna now only gets one standard search during each practice. I hate to admit it, but its probably a good thing. Reyna is still having some trouble with her hips, even with the new pain meds. And I feel it in my back every time we run a track.

Since we’re not letting Reyna work as much physically, we’ve decided to work that scary-smart brain of hers instead. She started training for cadaver searches a couple of weeks ago. Donny gave me a bottle with some cadaver dirt (yes, that’s dirt taken from around/underneath a dead and decomposed person) so that we can practice at home. Its teaching Reyna the scent she’s supposed to be hunting, since I can’t exactly give her a scent article that smells like a cadaver every time we start working. Basically, I just hide the open bottle, run her through the area telling her to “seek”, and when she finds the bottle, she gets heaps of praise. She hasn’t quite decided that looking for cadaver dirt is as exciting as looking for a live person, since the live person also gives her loads of praise, and the bottle just sits there. So I have to be really goofy about it, and make it as fun and rewarding as possible. She did better yesterday than she’s done recently, so I think its starting to click for her. Thankfully, cadaver work doesn’t exclude her from being able to look from live people, since that’s a different command. We “find” live people, but we “seek” for the dead. A simple distinction, but all-important in doggy vocabulary.

There is one drawback to being goofy...Reyna nailed me right below my nose with the top of her head yesterday. Now every time I blow my nose (which is a lot, thanks to this stupid cold), the sore spot makes itself known. Of course, I’m lucky she didn’t hit me any higher...she could easily have broken my nose, as hard as she hit it.