I have been away a lot this winter in search of the snow and so Skye has had less training than either of us would have liked. We missed the January training weekend but had a good couple of days in Feb and a great weekend in March with SARDA Wales. We have also been doing a fair bit with my kids and with Emmer from SARDA Wales between official training sessions.
Skye is now searching areas, these started off small with the search taking no longer than a couple of minutes and we have built that up so that at the last training weekend she did a couple of 30 minute area searches. She is like a different dog when the jacket goes on her now, super keen to get to work and is starting to range quite nicely. This means that she will cover the ground away from me and so we can be more efficient in our searching. I now have an understanding of how to direct her where I want her to be in relation to the wind and we are forming a partnership as a search team which is really exciting.
I am also starting to read her body language as she is out on the hill. I can read the difference between whether she has picked up the scent of a person or a sheep or perhaps some discarded food. She is far better at reading me and knows when we are heading out to do some training!
I am looking forward to a spring and summer of work with her so that we can both develop what we are doing and prepare for our first assessment.
Skye is now searching areas, these started off small with the search taking no longer than a couple of minutes and we have built that up so that at the last training weekend she did a couple of 30 minute area searches. She is like a different dog when the jacket goes on her now, super keen to get to work and is starting to range quite nicely. This means that she will cover the ground away from me and so we can be more efficient in our searching. I now have an understanding of how to direct her where I want her to be in relation to the wind and we are forming a partnership as a search team which is really exciting.
I am also starting to read her body language as she is out on the hill. I can read the difference between whether she has picked up the scent of a person or a sheep or perhaps some discarded food. She is far better at reading me and knows when we are heading out to do some training!
I am looking forward to a spring and summer of work with her so that we can both develop what we are doing and prepare for our first assessment.
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