Training day for our Pepnick bred litter mates Max, Jasper and Megan on Sunday 23rd June 2013-06-23

We started the day with an introduction to searching for missing persons where the dogs were required to find and bark when they located a person. This is achieved by the person initially running off with a toy and the dog chasing on a lead and barking at the person for his/her toy reward. This is then developed where the dog doesn’t see the person run off and has to search and find the person who will be hidden.

Shows Max barking at me for his reward

We then moved on to see how the dogs coped with various shiny floors,  different types of stairs, a strange mannequin sat on a chair and lots of noise made throwing metal trays around on a concrete floor.
All the dogs coped very well with all of these challenges.

Shows Megan getting very excited with the noise of the trays being thrown around

Shows Jasper negotiating different steep stairs.

Shows Jasper negotiating different steep stairs.

Max searching intently

We then did some searching in the building amongst piles of debris for hidden articles. Our dogs are required to search and locate any articles bearing recent human scent. This is started with the dog seeing an article thrown into an area where he is then released to search and this is progressed to him not seeing the article thrown.

It was then outside for the introduction of Criminal work. This is the start of getting a dog to detain a criminal escaping or attacking the handler. This is started by getting the dog excited about biting a moving canvas bite roll and this is then progressed to the helper wearing a padded arm.

Shows what a tenacious young girl Megan is for this exercise

We then concluded with some group obedience exercises working on sit and down stays. This is a very important exercise which allows a handler to leave his dog in a controlled position. He might need to do this when wishing to go over and talk to someone or to check over a wall or fence that there are no dangers on the other side before getting him to jump the obstacle when pursuing or tracking someone who is on the run.

Here are our 3 tired but happy dog teams with their puppy walkers after a very successful day.

Dogs with their families and the training Paul Glennon