- Rudi and the d litter complete their suitability assessments for the September 2017 general purpose initial police dog course
- Elsa and Eric meet for their first development session
- Feela and Ferra ( renamed Eva and Ella ) arrive from Germany
Rudi and the d litter complete their suitability assessments for the September 2017 general purpose initial police dog course
During the last 3 weeks I have been assessing Rudi and the five D litter pups in our puppy program to see if any of them are suitable to join the September 2017 Initial Police dog course.
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| Rudi is pictured with me in our garden |
Rudi
Rudi is a dog I imported from Teikerhook kennels in Holland when he was 4 months old. He is now 12 months old and he has lived with me since I brought him back. He was outstanding in all areas of the assessment. He is a very powerful, confident dog who is extremely hard on his bite work and has a lovely well balanced temperament.
Here he is showing his determination on a bite pad on his assessments
Because of his speed and power he is best suited to an experienced handler. At the time of writing this report we do not have an experienced handler on the course and so Rudi will be held in reserve.
DEVON
Devon is a clone of his father Lenny in character and like Rudi sailed through all the elements of his assessment. The assessment looks at a wide range of skills and character traits needed in a potential Police dog.
We look at their nerves, temperament, tracking drive, searching drive, fighting drive, all round determination and their resilience. As a result of passing his assessment Devon has now been allocated to first time handler Sgt Kevin Roberts the Ashburton dog section supervisor.
Between now and the start of the course they will spend the time just bonding and getting to know each other.
Devon has been puppy walked by Lindsay and Anthony Lane-lobb in Plymouth. They previously puppy walked Buddy from the B litter and Cosmic from the C litter.
DANNO
Danno passed his assessment and has been allocated to first time handler Kevin Ridgers in Cornwall They will also spend the time between now and the course just bonding and getting to know each other .
DIZZY
Dizzy performed exceptionally well on the first 2 days of the 3 day assessment where we look at their play drive, hunting drive, tugging determination, searching for articles and reaction to a noisy crowd. Here she is searching for a criminal hiding in bushes and giving a good strong confident bark indication on finding him.
She didn’t do quite so well on Day 3 when we came to the two boldness tests which assess the resilience of a dog in coping with a sudden and unusual situation.
Dizzy didn’t recover fully on these tests and remained a little jumpy which did surprise me. She has been puppy walked by Mary Downs who lives alone in a quiet cul de sac near Launceston.
Mary has had a number of injuries which have prevented her getting Dizzy out as much as she would have liked and I think this may have contributed to Dizzy’s lack of resilience in these situations. Mary is 71 years old and despite her injuries has soldered on refusing to give Dizzy up and has done a remarkable job.
Taking into account that Dizzy has been so consistent on her development days, her tracking work is so exceptional and she was one of the top pups on her puppy tests I believe she can still make the grade with further development.
To develop Dizzy further I have asked experienced puppy walkers Lindsay and Anthony Lane –Lobb if they would take Dizzy for a couple of months. They live in a very busy area of Plymouth and will give her some intense socialisation.
I intend to reassess Dizzy because I believe she could become an outstanding Police dog given time. Mary is very happy with this arrangement because after all the work she has put in she just wants her to succeed.
DONNA
Donna did extremely well on most of the areas of her assessment and her tracking was very impressive. But she also needed to be a little stronger on her boldness tests.
She is pictured here slowly making her way back to the dummy which flew into the air as she walked past it. It took a while for her to recover but she wouldn’t give up and worked through it very well.
Donna has excellent work potential but she can be sensitive to certain sounds and can be a little mistrustful of certain situations.
I will be assessing Donna further over the coming weeks.
Donna has been puppy walked by Janet and Jerry Burdett in Cullompton .
DAISY
Daisy is a very confident, enthusiastic, playful dog who did extremely well on the majority of the tests but did lack some tenacity on the tugging games and did struggle to recover on the boldness tests.
My feeling is that she will strengthen on these areas as she matures but at this point in time she is not ready to take on the role of a trainee Police dog. She will make a tremendous companion and general working dog. She could excel at any working task such as herding sheep, agility, working trials.
Daisy has been puppy walked by Eamon and Karen Rogers in North Devon who previously puppy walked Dexter.
We have found a super home for Daisy with farmer Richard Knox and his family in Whiddon Down.
I have visited her twice and she is settling in very well.
So to summarise Rudi, Devon and Danno passed with distinction. Dizzy and Donna will undergo further development and assessment.
Daisy was unsuccessful on the assessments and has been relocated to her new home.
What was most striking on the assessments was the incredibly high standard of tracking by all the dogs which has clearly been inherited from their dad Lenny.
Here is a video of Devon tracking, note the intensity of his tracking.
For those of you who have not read the previous blogs and have no knowledge of the D litter I thought it might be of interest to explain what happened to the other 4 pups in the litter.
The D litter were born at our house on the 24th of May 2016 consisting of 9 pups of which there were 6 girls and 3 boys. The mother is Sasha and the father is Lenny who I imported from Germany and who recently graduated as an operational Police dog.
They are all pictured here at 8 weeks of age about to go to their respective puppy walkers and new owners.
We only needed to keep 6 pups for our 2017 September Initial Police dog course and so we had to sell 3 of the pups. It was extremely difficult selecting 6 pups because although 3 pups stood out as outstanding on the puppy assessments ie Devon, Danno and Dizzy the remaining 6 all did well and were very even.
On our previous 3 litters we kept all of the pups and ran them on with puppy walkers. But on this occasion because it was such a large litter we had no choice but to sell 3 pups
We decided to sell Dot
Darcy
and Dora
Our remaining 6 pups continued in our development program meeting for training every 2 weeks. I also monitored Dora and Darcy on twitter and saw Dot on occasions. It was important for me to see how all 9 pups developed to help me to decide whether to breed from Sasha again.
Unfortunately in May this year I had to release Duke from our program because he was not developing or progressing as the others were.
Duke was puppy walked by Lyn, John and Ian Parlour in Plymouth.
Duke is pictured here 2nd from the right with Lyn on one of our many training days.
It is always emotional looking back at all the photo’s of our sessions together because we had some great times and it affects us all if one of the pups has to be released.
We found a super home for Duke with Plymouth Policeman Kyle Anderson and his family. Kyle tells me that Duke is doing really well.
I have been toying with the idea of having another litter from Sasha using Rudi as the stud dog. To make an informed decision I needed to see how all the pups turned out.
To that end I arranged to see Dora ( Now Delta) and Darcy ( Now Pepper) again at the old Exmouth college.
I assessed them on a lot of the working tests that I use to assess our Police dogs and they both did very well. I think my original assessment that they were more suited to be companion dogs was correct but they were still very impressive considering that they haven’t had the training that the others have.
Their temperaments were superb and they would clearly make good working dogs. They are a credit to their owners.
Dora ( Delta) is pictured here looking very relaxed on shiny slippery floors.
Darcy ( Pepper) shows intense concentration and focus when playing tug..
I also saw Dot ( Now Zena ) who is owned by a friend of mine called Gary who has done an excellent job of training her.
Having seen all of the litter I have decided to have another litter with Sasha. I will use Rudi as the Stud dog. They both live with us and they adore each other which makes it so much easier. So Lenny Im sorry but Sasha has a new boyfriend.
Elsa and Eric meet for their first development session
Eric and Elsa are pictured here waiting patiently at the vets for their final inoculation before going on to their first training session together.
Eric was so laid back we had to practically wake him up for his examination and inoculation.
Eric lives in Plymouth with Terri and Mark and Elsa lives in Launceston with Steve and Maria. We introduced them to the agility ramps and the tunnel which they enjoyed and we then did some work on the sit, down, leave on command, and recalls.
Here are some pictures and video’s of our session.
They are both very confident strong pups and seem to take everything in their stride. I can see already that both have the potential to make excellent General purpose Police dogs and such is the quality of Elsa I am hoping she will be the future of our breeding program along with our latest German imports Eva and Ella.
Sisters Feela and Ferra arrive from Germany and have been renamed Eva and Ella
On the 1st June I collected 15 week old sisters Feela and Ferra (renamed Eva and Ella) who had arrived from Germany. They took no time at all settling in my garden as you can see.
From the moment that they arrived they were charging around like they owned the place.
It was clear that they would soon need to be split up because the speed at which they were charging around the garden chasing each other was an injury waiting to happen.
Tug of war was definitely their favourite game.
After a few days of settling in I took them down to my old Mentor Graham in Plymouth for assessment. In his words Ella, Eva, Elsa and Eric are probably the best 4 pups he has seen in our program.
Here they are undergoing a series of character and work assessments. An umbrella opened suddenly no problem for Ella ( Pic 32) Being restrained against my will no problem.
Tug of war with Eva very determined.
Place me on a rickety table no problem.
Ella will be staying with me and Eva will be staying with temporary puppy walkers Colin and Mitzi for a couple of months while I sort out a permanent walker.
We took them both into Exeter for the 50th Anniversary celebration of Devon and Cornwall Police. They just took it all in their stride which is remarkable because I know they have had very little socialisation.
Ella and Eva will now be in the same development group as Eric and Elsa. In 6 weeks’ time I will be collecting two more pups from Germany called Gary and Gunnar who are now 8 weeks old.
They were bred by Arndt Muller the same breeder who bred Lenny, Eva and Ella. They will also join the group.
Sasha has just come into season and no doubt Rudi will be soon looking to take their friendship further.
Bye for now.
