We had a great evening’s training in the snow on Castle Meadows, Abergavenny. The moon was so bright we didn’t need torches. Apart from a few hardy dog walkers and a herd of cattle we thought we were the only ones out on this very cold evening. And then, in the distance, we saw someone practising their fire juggling! What an evening!
Archive for the ‘Dogs’ Category
Training the week before Christmas
Tuesday, December 28th, 2010Training 10.11.10
Wednesday, November 10th, 2010A good nights training last night – unfortunately Ben has a cut on his back so I didn’t bring him this week. The weather is starting to be very cold now and I was almost convinced we had snow at one point – wishful thinking there though. Our thanks to the two Gwent Police POLSA’s who attended to observe our training evening and I’m looking forward to the training scenarios they want to present us with, it sounds like a good challenge for us and the dogs.
New dogs making good progress
Tuesday, June 15th, 2010Nice training session this evening with great progress shown by all the new dogs. Mya is coming along nicely, finding and returning to Colin, just needs to build in an “alert”. Tilly is finding nicely and now starting to come back out to Rob. Murphy has a great nose for finding and is doing well even after a bit of time off. And as for Jen, first time out tonight and its looks very promising – fastest dog we’ve seen for a while!
Mustn’t forget Archie and Spot who did great too, and Sam who did some “moving misper” work.
And finally, thanks to Sarah for organising last Sundays day training which was great fun, with some different object to go searching for and nice long searches.
Good training session
Thursday, June 3rd, 2010Although we were a bit short of people for this weeks training (due to holidays, courses, etc!) we had a good session. I was very pleased with Spots first long distance search with me as handler and she did brilliantly 
. We did 1km (half the assessment distance), found both her mispers, alerted well and made good time. Well done to Sam, Ben, and Tilly who also had great session. Looking forward to weekend training next week.
Friday, May 28th, 2010
Thanks to all for a great nights training on Wednesday and good luck to everyone at the Steam Rally in Abergavenny next Sunday and Monday – everyone is welcome and we’d love to see you there! Ben is working well and getting fitter… he is alerting well and searching well with much more energy now, and I’m keeping up!
Spots new handler
Sunday, May 16th, 2010We have decided for various reasons that I will now be Spots handler instead of Helen. Thursday was our first training session and it went really well. After a little encouragement she got the idea that it was the same game, just with a different person! She made 4 successful finds and alerted well (as the paw prints on my trousers testify!!!
Spring!
Friday, April 9th, 2010Tuesday nights training went very well with the two new pups Mya and Murphy proving they are learning well and showing the benefit of Colin and Jerry’s training at home too – keep up the good work chaps! Mya also showed us how not to run over a cattle grid, but no harm done thank goodness.
I am also very happy to report my first TWW night of the year (that’s Training Without Waterproofs) – a reliable sign that Spring has arrived.
Training again at last
Thursday, March 4th, 2010I was going to write, but Clare has covered most of it! Just to say I’m glad to be training again, and welcome to our new members – hope the wind didn’t put them off. Spot did well finding several places where bodies had been previously hiding – unfortunately I let her down by not pushing her into an up-wind area, hence missing the first bodies, then calling her back off a scent, and subsequently missing the second bodies. When she did find them, though, her alerts were really strong – Got to look on the bright side, she did her part
Training with Sussex Lowland VR Dogs
Thursday, January 28th, 2010Ben and I had a great time training with the Sussex Lowland search Dogs Victim Recovery section last Sunday – he worked really hard and I got lots of training tips, it was a very useful day and well worth the 400 mile round trip! Many thanks to everyone who was there on the day and especially to Sharon who organised the day and also provided lunch.
Training in the snow
Thursday, January 21st, 2010We had a good nights training at Garn Lakes last Wednesday, most of the dogs enjoyed working in the snow! Ben did well, finding his scent sources well, and we’re really looking forward to training on Sunday with the English VR dogs from some of the other Lowland groups. Deep snow has disrupted training to some extent but we have all been working hard at home in the interim.