Mist

Still in the UK…

According to original plans, we should by now all be in the Czech Republic supporting Jon at the World Orienteering Championships. Thomas, Mist and I are, however, still in the UK after we decided that 5days’ travel through Europe, and a week on my own with the 2- and 4-legged dependents on a Czech campsite, might be less fun than staying longer in Keswick and having another week with my parents in Wensleydale. Jon flew to Czech and will fly back here before we set off back to Norway, and the long drive north to Tromsø.

We had 12 days in the Lake District, staying at Jon’s dad’s house and enjoying all that Keswick has to offer. It was really great to be able to do so much without using the car….. running, dog-walking, Thomas-walking/pushing, shopping, family-visiting…. all from the door. It’s certainly a fantastic place to live, and it was the first time really since we went to Norway, that I really noticed things I miss about Britain. Probably most noticeable was how so many people are willing to make conversation, or at least say hello - total strangers you pass on the way into town make eye contact, smile and say hello or thank you for stepping aside on the narrow footpath to let them pass, an old lady calling out from her garden asking whether we thought it would rain or whether she should go and visit a friend in town, people who saw Mist and wondered where she was from (given her strange colouring), and all the people Thomas beamed at, who then stopped and chatted for a while .
We spent lots of time with Jon’s sister and family - at home, at the park, days out….

On the Lal Rattie steam train

Walking by Derwentwater (from the house )

New friend, Flo

I tried to fit in some training - a bit of tracking and search squares in Castle Head (the woods just over the road from Jon’s dad’s house), but most exciting of course was joining the SARDA crew for Tuesday evening training, twice. Both times was at Winlatter, on open fell behind the forest. There were sheep, but they moved out of the area once they heard all the dogs barking . I wasn’t sure how Mist would behave if sheep ran away as she searched, so was quite relieved that they left before we got out there! I’ve tried to do as much training as possible with sheep in relatively controlled situations (more about that later ), but didn’t want to risk it in such a large open area, and especially in front of the SARDA guys of course .

There were about 6-8 dog handlers (?), plus 5or6 ‘bodies’, and one person (Mike) running the session. Les, Benny and Kaz, who came to Norway to run a course for us (NRH) in May were all there the first week, and it was really nice to see them all again, meet their dogs (especially Benny’s lurcher ) and see them ‘at work’.

The format was a ‘circuit’ of the area, with 5 or 6 bodies located in various places, and dog/handlers setting off at intervals. The bodies were sent out first and it was noticeable how unconcerned the dogs were - they’re used to seeing the bodies set off, whereas Mist set off in an attempt to ‘find’ them almost immediately . Thankfully she did come back after a bit of whistling. The following week, I kept her in the van while the bodies walked out to their positions.

The first Tuesday we searched for/found 4 bodies, and I should have stopped after #3 as I saw Mist’s concentration was dwindling (ah, the joy of hindsight ). I’d asked the bodies to induce barking if necessary, and I think all did need to ‘help’ her to get started, although they did say she wasn’t difficult to get barking, despite having to remember a silly command (Hats! - thought it was easier to remember than the Norwegian command I use… Hals!). It was no problem to get Mist to return to me and bark at me, but she still didn’t bark spontaneously back at the body. However, given that we’ve been moving from place to place, the location, other dogs/handlers, bodies etc were all new… I think she did ok .

The second Tuesday we searched for/found 3 bodies, and had a second circuit finding the first 2 again. It was fun working at the same time as other dog/handler teams - we don’t often train ‘back home’ with other dogs out at the same time, and Mist was quite obviously affected by it, especially the second Tuesday when there were up to 3 dog/handler teams visible at once. Mist seemed quite concerned by all the barking going on (not really any surprise, bearing in mind there are very few other dogs in our NRH district that use bark indication), and seemed unsure whether Mick G was a ‘body’ or not…. and tore off after his dogs anyway :roll:. As a result, Mist didn’t indicate for body #3 (Geoff) at all, and I ended up ‘finding’ him myself!

Thanks to all the SARDA Lakes folk for letting us join in, and for sharing fundraising ideas which I will take back to Norway with me (and no doubt pick brains further in future). Hope to be back again sometime (maybe with a qualified search dog) .

Here’s a pic of the area we were searching in - the first week, by the time I remembered I wanted to take some pics, the weather was pretty awful and it was getting a bit dark, and the second time Mist and I were out almost all the time available. Anyway, there wouldn’t be much to see…. a pinprick figure of a handler, and possibly a dot of fluorescent yellow for the dog….

I also spent some time continuing my ’sheep-proofing’ training. All was going well until we went for a walk with a friend and her BC and passed through a field of sheep. Mist was about 20m in front of me when a lone scraggy-looking sheep suddenly appeared from a hedgerow and ran off. Mist first stood still, woofing uncertainly, when the sheep began to run away and, to my horror, Mist followed. Aaaargh I’d taken note of the sheep up the field from us, and another group downhill (both groups more than 50m away), and decided Mist was unlikely to be bothered by them, since they were far enough away to stay put. But I missed the single sheep ahead of us. Oops. I don’t know exactly what happened, because Mist ignored my whistles, and disappeared down the hill into a dip, out of sight. I saw the lower group of sheep take flight and my heart sank, expecting to see my dog in hot pursuit. But, no…. she re-appeared up the hill and came back to me .

I was pretty gutted that this had happened, after all the hours gradually building up Mist’s exposure to sheep in relatively controlled situations. But, it seems that it hasn’t had such a big impact after all…. Back in Wensleydale, we have continued to walk in fields of sheep and Mist doesn’t seem any more interested than previously. Individual sheep have run away in front of us, and Mist hasn’t reacted. When out running (on-lead) on Tuesday, we followed a loose lamb up a lane and when it finally darted off into a field to the side, Mist just continued along the lane without even much of a glance. I’ve had her off-lead in fields with sheep and, keeping her close, have walked towards the sheep to get them to move, and she hasn’t bothered about them and just waited for her tennis ball to be thrown. So, fingers crossed it was just an unfortunate blip in her ’sheep training’ and I will still reach the goal of her being indifferent to them.

Back at Redmire…. good old English country lanes

Swimming at Redmire falls

Helen Miscellaneous / Diverse, Airscenting / Overvær 4 Comments »

Big Trip - part 1

How time flies…. Mist did get some more training in the second half of May, but Jon was away quite a bit so I was home alone with dog + baby and had to get things ready for our Big Trip…. so it was only the odd search square and some obedience.

Can’t quite believe we’re now almost 3 weeks into our 11-week summer holiday! We left Sandnes on 9th June, and (thanks to Mist!) took the long route to the UK via Denmark, Germany and Nederlands, and an overnight ferry. We then drove all the way to Aviemore in the Highlands of Scotland for a long weekend with a bunch of friends, then back down to the Yorkshire Dales to stay with my parents.

The journey to the UK went fairly well - we travelled mainly during Thomas’s usual sleeping times, as we had suspicions (duly confirmed ) that he wouldn’t be too happy about hours in a car seat if he was awake. The first day, we managed to pop in very briefly to see Sandy + Aksel Hott in Kristiansand (briefer than originally intended, but better than nothing ) just before taking the ferry to Denmark. The crossing was fine, and Thomas impressed fellow passengers with his ability to sleep anywhere (*not any more it seems*).

Neither Jon nor I slept particularly well our first night in the campervan at Hirtshals as a result of strong winds blowing straight off the sea, and Thomas’s multiple night-awakenings (a recent development which no doubt will only make the summer more interesting ).
On day2, we dropped in on Mist’s breeder and caught up with some of the family, and fortunately hadn’t had time to grab the sandwiches we’d intended to make beforehand, as we were invited to stay for lunch.
Mist had a great time with sister Ginger, and was bullied by the newest addition to Kennel Kewstock, 5month-old Phoenix….

Ginger is very like Mist, although a much lighter build, and darker in colouring. It was also interesting to see Mist’s mum being trained (agility) and when given her rope toy as reward, ‘killing’ it in just the same way Mist does

Day3 we had a vet’s appointment in Neumunster in Germany - arranged with the help of a German friend, after some failed phone calls on my part. After a few circuits of town, we found the right place and Mist was given the once-over, tick and worm treatments and her passport filled in.

Day4 we finally made it to the ferry at ‘Rotterdam’. Neither Jon nor I had checked where the ferry would go from so, given Jon had taken a ferry to the UK from there before, we drove to Hook of Holland only to find that it was the port for Stena Line only and that for P&O ferries we needed to get to ‘the other side of the river’….. another 40minutes drive, about 20minutes of which was backtracking where we’d come from.. oops!

Mist got a last walk around the delightful (not!) port of Europoort and was then shut in the car for the following 14hours. The ferry did have kennels available, but we chose to leave her in the car as it’s ‘home’ and we thought she would be less stressed. Although very pleased to see us the following morning, she certainly didn’t seem to have suffered. We were lucky to find some big park/playing fields on arrival in Hull so Mist was able to let off some steam before the long drive to Scotland.

We had a fantastic weekend staying at Badaguish near Aviemore with a group of friends from Scotland. The weather wasn’t particularly kind and although not bad by Scottish standards, the midges were many and annoying. Katy & Peter were running a bike event, so we were roped in to help on the Sunday (easier than taking part anyway). Mist got to ‘do’ the Mheall A Buichaille ridge twice - once runninng with Jon on Saturday morning, and again in the afternoon with me, Jill, Fiona and Beth. She also discovered the delights of red grouse, and had to be kept on the lead after a couple of rounds of bird-chasing since there were signs asking dog owners to keep dogs under control due to ground nesting birds . We managed to do a bit of tracking and some search square practice while there - the lodges are in the forest, so there was plenty of suitable terrain. On the Sunday evening we realised that the talk of ‘diesel shortages’ we’d heard on the radio, was now a serious issue, and with only 70km of diesel left in the van (according to the computer) we were getting nervous about our trip south the following day. In the end, Dave’s mum was roped in to search the internet to find info on petrol stations in the highlands so that we could find out where there was diesel available, and Jon made the 120km round trip to Inverness to fill up….. good job the information was right and Tesco’s at Inverness did have plenty, as he didn’t have enough to get back to Aviemore

So, on Monday 16th June we drove south, and made it all the way to Wensleydale to stay with my parents. Since then, Jon has been away more than he has been here (ironically flying back to Norway for a race last weekend!). We have had visits from aunts, uncles, great-aunts, great-uncles, cousins, you name it! And have introduced Thomas to great-grandpa. Mist has enjoyed many good walks on the extensive network of public footpaths in the area, has discovered the delights of more British birds, and rabbits, which must outnumber humans here by many 10s to 1 (disappointingly for my parents, though, she hasn’t managed to catch any in the garden where they’re struggling to get rid of the resident population who like it so much that they are reproducing at a great rate!). I think Sisco, Mist’s greyhound friend, has a lot to answer for as I was somewhat surprised to see Mist actually gaining on a rabbit she was chasing - I really didn’t know what would happen if she caught it. ….. Quite comically, the rabbit headed for a low point in a stone wall, leapt over and SPLASH! into a water trough. Fortunately (?) I managed to get to the trough and pull out the rabbit as Mist frantically snapped at the slowly sinking bunny, and released it and kept Mist on the lead for the rest of that walk.

On a more ‘well-behaved’ note, we have been walking lots in fields of sheep, including yesterday, walking through 3 fields full of sheep, with Mist off lead She is interested in them, but is learning that they’re not worth bothering with. The tups (male sheep) we met yesterday afternoon probably helped, when they approached her, seemingly harmless, had a little sniff, wandered around a bit, then took a step back and Bam! headbutted her in the shoulder Poor Mist, she’d done her best to look small and harmless….

Last Friday Mist had an internet date with a friend I ‘met’ through a dog-related forum. Louise has a german wirehaired pointer with many characteristics shared with thule, my previous dog - mainly an amazing independence, and a desire to hunt! Sadly Connie (the GWP) was run over last year and after not mending properly, had to have a leg amputated. She is however, still fully active and even if slightly less agile these days, still has the same mind. We had a lovely walk in meadows in Balderdale near Barnard Castle with Louise, Connie and Jasper (a friend’s cocker spaniel) and Connie demonstrated her hunting prowess by catching a baby rabbit in the long grass! Luckily, Mist didn’t see!

Just spent the weekend with my brother and his girlfriend in Lincolnshire - Mist and Euan are as daft as each other and it’s a good job we weren’t staying any longer or I think I would have to forget any attempt to teach Mist not to jump on, lick, mouth, push people etc. as Euan spent most of the time rolling around on the floor with her, encouraging all previously discouraged behaviours His plans for a ’safe’ walk for us on Saturday (no stock, no traffic, no people etc etc) were a nice idea but Mist managed to prove him wrong in quite spectacular style when she plummeted at top-speed 2metres down a boundary dyke (field edges are bounded by ditches rather than hedges in this part of the country) - in the long grass, she clearly had no idea there was anything there, so got quite a shock! Awaiting a splash which never came, I was worried she might have hurt herself but it appeared only pride had taken a tumble when she clambered back up the steep sides, with every inch from her neck down plastered with thick, black mud. We changed the route-plan to include a river to try to get the worst of it off, but despite also shampooing her when we got home, she still smells of mud Just wish we’d had the camera.

Helen Miscellaneous / Diverse No Comments »

More ‘passing’ training, and 17th May parade

This morning we met up with the others at Sviland and after a very leisurely and sociable start, we were 2nd out. After Wednesday’s ’speed of light rundering’, I decided to use the main track at Sviland as the midline in the hope that the terrain would prevent Mist from running at a totally uncontrollable speed.

The first two loops were messy - she seemed to be on the right line out to Johannes on the right, but then found something of interest (trail?) and didn’t go quite far enough out. When she eventually came in towards us on the midline, I called her, but although looking for a while as if she was coming to me, she suddenly turned and off she went on the other side looking for Aud. Sadly, after waiting some time to see if she’d find Aud, I called her, apparently just as she was on her way to Aud (i.e. she’d got scent of her and was following it up). Arrgh

Anyway, I decided to have a sound cue from Johannes next to ensure she found him, and to allow us to actually train what I’d intended! So, this time, out she went, worked for a while and eventually I heard the long-awaited barking. Yes!

In short, the session went well, after the first two loops were out of the way (note - should consider using cues for the first loop to keep Mist’s head on straight at the beginning and avoid her running madly around the forest). In the easier terrain (left hand side) Aud held on to Mist while I went in, and I called her in from the track and managed to direct her where I wanted it out into the terrain the other side. On the right-hand side, where the vegetation is thicker, I got Johannes to come closer to the track with me and hold Mist while I went in, then called her. On later loops Johannes stayed out at 50m and Ola held Mist 10-15m out in the terrain and let her go when I called her, and she passed just as intended. On one ‘pass’ Mist came in from Aud and onto the track some 30to40m+ back from where I was waiting to send her out, but by running out into the terrain with her as she came to me, managed to send her straight out as intended .

In summary, ‘passing’ much better than Wednesday. Barking needed inducing, and she needed help to keep barking especially when she heard me coming - this doesn’t concern me since today I specifically wanted to concentrate on passing. Will make sure we spend some more time on just indication training to get the spontaneous barking again.

In the afternoon, we (J,T,me + Mist) drove into Stavanger so that Mist and I could take part in the 17th May parade.

I didn’t know how Mist would cope with the big event - thousands of people, loads of noise - airhorns, drums, brass bands, random hands reaching out of the crowds to stroke, other dogs (some unfamiliar), warm and sunny…… But she did me proud I let her go to people (who wanted to stroke her) lining the sides of the route and she didn’t jump up once! She even managed to sit, lie down, walk to heel, bark on command. We were 6 in total (KristinM, Ghita, Svein Magnus, Tone, Trond and me) and all the dogs behaved extremely well and were very popular. Lots of people commented how good they were - although I did hear one child ask “Are those people blind?” . True to form, Isi managed to take a hotdog sausage out of a small girl’s hand as she walked past, much to the hilarity of everyone around, apart from the very shocked little girl herself But all in all, good publicity for NRH….. and the sun shone

Do you think Mist was tired this evening?

Helen Miscellaneous / Diverse No Comments »

Training “passing”…. or “fly-by’s”

Training was at Vigreskogen Wednesday evening and for once, I was completely decided on what I would train, and how. I wanted to start training ‘passing’… i.e. while rundering, when Mist comes in from a loop on one side, she should cross the mid-line right by me, allowing me to direct her where and in which direction I want her to go in next. I therefore decided I should minimise the ’search’ part and stick with barking just at the body (no shuttling) so that I could concentrate on the new part, ‘passing’.

It soon became clear, though, that my idea of making things easy by training in the ‘baby forest’ (mature, widely spaced trees with pine needles covering the ground) wasn’t necessarily the best plan. For starters, I parked the van face in, and left the door up (as I usually do)…. and so Mist got to watch Ola and Leo train first. She yelped, barked and howled in frustration that it wasn’t yet her turn. And when it was finally her turn, she had obviously wound herself up so much, it was like letting go of a balloon full of air without tying the knot

Focused out into the forest in the right direction, I thought Mist was concentrated and ready. Let her go, and…. zoom… off she shot like a rocket, straight out 50m (just as it should be)… and straight on (not as it should be ). Right past the body at full speed! There was no chance she’d notice anyone at that speed, unless she trod on them (and perhaps not even then!). Over to the left 50m or so, then back again, passing Kristin again and taking a tour of pretty much the whole baby forest. Eventually, after she’d let off some steam, I called her in and tried again. This time she found Kristin. She barked fine and Kristin kept her barking until I got there.

Then came the planned ‘passing’ part. Kristin would hold Mist and I’d go in to the mid-line and call Mist to me, then send her over to the next body (KaiErik) by taking a few steps with her as she crossed over the path, thereby showing her which direction to run out.
Well, the speed she came in at, there was no chance of taking any steps with her. I was almost scared of the blur that passed me, thinking she’d either completely deck me, or collide with something in the forest and do herself an injury. So, anyway, as she whizzed past (note to self - too much running with greyhound friend Sisco ) I managed to mumble ‘runder’ and off she went out towards KaiErik. Fortunately, she was on the right line and I thought maybe it would be ok…. but no, she flew past KaiErik at top speed and took another tour of the forest before coming back towards me, at which point I was ready to bring her in and send her again. But at last moment, she turned and ran out again towards KaiErik, got some airscent and after a little work, found him.

Basically, the rest of the session continued in the same way. Flat out mad running all the way! Physically she could have gone on like that all night, it seemed. Her barking got worse as she became more mentally tired and hoped to shortcut the process by a quick bark and wait for me to turn up. But I stood still (instead of walking/running out towards the body) if she stopped barking, and the bodies encouraged her to bark, so she didn’t get away with it!

Not a complete disaster, since she did cross the midline relatively close to me, and in the right direction. But it was at least 50% luck, and there was very little ’steering’ on my part.

So, next time, I will be avoiding any ‘easy’ terrain with the intention to avoid this top-speed running in the hope that I might get a chance to direct her a little……….perhaps even say ‘Runder’ as she passes….

Helen Rundering No Comments »

Mist takes matters into her own hands!

Well, I was looking forward to yet another day in the sun at Tjørn, but it was not to be. Thomas woke more times during the night than he has done in a very long time, since he was just a few weeks old I reckon. There didn’t seem to be anything wrong, so maybe he’s just trying his luck . In addition I’ve had an upset tummy for a couple of days which still hadn’t gone away. So, we cancelled, and I thought maybe I could do one tracking session from home.

A couple of weeks ago, I visited the farm who own the land directly outside our house and asked if we could have permission to train tracking there. They have cows in the field/woods in summer, but apart from one, seemingly ’stray’, cow the other evening, it seems they aren’t yet out. So, off Jon went into the woods with objects to drop and tape to mark start/finish etc. This was apparently just too much for Mist…. she yelped, barked, jumped up and down, dug at the ground by the gate where he’d left. I tried to call her away, but she was too focused on where he’d gone. Confident that the garden is fully fenced, I returned (no further than 5metres away!) to play with Thomas on the floor. And suddenly I heard rustling in the woods….. and there she was . Trying to find her way down through the rocks to where she’d last seen Jon. I tried to call her back but she wasn’t having any of it. Her best friend had disappeared and she was off to find him. I’d been sitting shading Thomas from the sun so couldn’t just jump up and open the ‘gate’ (which is quite a job in itself) and go and fetch her. By the time I’d thought about what I could do, she was gone anyway. So I just had to sit and wait.

I knew Jon was going to set the trail through the woods and would then climb over a fence to get onto Ragnhildsnuten to come back. So if Mist was on his trail, she’d eventually come up against this obstacle….
About 20minutes after he set off, I heard Jon come back, through the woods… and carrying the tapes, finish and objects he’d laid out. He also had Mist . As suspected, she’d followed his trail up to the point where he’d crossed the fence and then, unable to continue, had stood there barking. Jon by this time was on top of Ragnhildsnuten and heard her barking… and soon realised what had happened. Luckily for Mist he climbed/ran back down to the fence and ‘rescued’ her, bringing her back to the house through the woods.

So, Mist…. next time wait for me!

Helen Miscellaneous / Diverse No Comments »

Back to Weds night training

Now that the evenings are long and light, it’s nice to be back to regular Wednesday night training. This week it was split training, for Group1 at Dale. Since the Tjørn weekend, I’ve been moved into the same group as Bjørn and Sylvelin since they both are training barking indication too. So there was the 3 of us plus Ola, all to train rundering.

I wanted to try out the shuttling in a rundering situation (all the weekend’s training was open air-scenting). Sylvelin was the body on the right-hand-side and Bjørn on the other side. It went generally well, although Mist needed quite a bit of help to get started at Sylvelin, both times (she went out to each body twice before I called it a day). At Bjørn she barked spontaneously, and even came running back to me without me calling on the second go . Hard to know whether the ease with which she indicated at Bjørn and relative difficulty at Sylvelin was due to her being used to Bjørn as a body, from the weekend, or the terrain. Sylvelin was sitting near the terrain boundary of the forest and the open field/rough ground. I’ve seen lots of dogs distracted here, and Krimp showed the same tendency today. Never mind, she needed help and she got it, and we had a good session. I stopped while we were ‘up’ after 4 finds.

Helen Indication / Melding, Rundering No Comments »

Tjørn training weekend with SARDA (Lakes) instructors 1-4 May

I’d been looking forward to this weekend for some time…. 4 days with instructors from SARDA (Lake District) at Tjørn, training open air-scenting in the extensive open hill terrain around the Rogaland Friluftsliv hytte. The idea began last October when Jon and I were in Keswick (Lake District) and I joined an evening SARDA training session at Grizedale. Over the following few months we agreed a plan, and last Wednesday I drove to the airport to collect the 3 instructors, Kaz, Benny and Les.

We had an excellent weekend, and after one day of the usual grey skies and rain, enjoyed some very un-Tjørn-like weather on Fri, Sat, Sunday - glorious sunshine, blue skies and warm .

Search dogs in SARDA are trained to air-scent only (they don’t do tracking) and they search mainly in open fell terrain, although sometimes other types of terrain such as forest too. In NRH we concentrate a lot (many would say far too much) on the structured corridor searching, rundering, and on tracking, which are the two skills which are specifically tested in assessment for qualification (although open-area searches are a part of the assessed week also part of the qualification prosess). This is despite the fact that open-area air-scenting is the most common method used in callouts. It was therefore a fantastic opportunity to get instruction from some real experts in these methods and I think all the weekend’s participants learnt a lot and took away lots of new ideas and points to discuss further.

In addition, all SARDA dogs indicate by barking and shuttling back and forth between the body and the handler (see videoclip on front page of their website, link above, to see what it should look like!) - no bringsel indication at all in the UK. After visiting in October I’d decided I’d like to use this method of indicating with Mist, and have started on this in the last few months. It was good timing from my point of view since it became clear that I was making one or two ‘mistakes’, which were quickly corrected, and I now have a much better idea for how things should progress. It was great to see real progress in the 4 days we were up at Tjørn, and even more fantastic was how tired Mist was when we got home

It’s only a week since the training weekend, but I’ve already forgotten details of what exactly we did , when (:roll: ), so I’m not going to split things out according to each day, but will summarise the main points.

Mist and I were in a group with Kai-Erik & Umi, Ghita & Tara and Bjørn & Krimp.
Our instructor was Benny (Dave Benson) who is an assessor in SARDA (Lake District) and is a graded dog-handler team with a lurcher of all things!!

My main aim for the weekend was to train the barking indication and get a good start on the shuttling. In addition I was keen to learn about area coverage, in particular to see how close/far a dog had to be to a body to pick up the scent - obviously depending on location of the body, wind direction and stregth etc.

We started by going back a little, getting Mist to bark at the body while standing with me, then getting the body to run away and hide, letting Mist go, and getting her to bark. Since we’ve trained quite a bit of this, she didn’t need any ‘help’ to start barking. We then searched a small area, and Mist fairly consistently barked spontaneously when she found them. Where I have been going ‘wrong’ is that the body has rewarded Mist after a certain number of barks, whereas the SARDA method requires the handler to be with the dog and body before any reward is given. This reinforces to the dog that it has to get the handler to the body before it will get what it wants (usually a toy). So, we put this right, and I had to start legging it across the tussocky heather, bog and rocks to get to the body in a reasonable amount of time. If at any point Mist started to lose focus on the body, they would induce her to bark by either using the bark command, Hals!, or small gestures to keep her attention and encourage her.

Come on, let’s get started

I think it was the second day when we started on the shuttling. Mist searched as usual, found the body, started barking, but the body didn’t induce her to keep barking when she started to look around for me. At this point, I called her in to me and asked her to bark. I was pleasantly surprised that she came all the way to me without much encouragement, and also didn’t try to sprint back after one measly bark. After a few good barks, I sent her back to the body, where she barked spontaneously (as required) almost every time we did this exercise. Over the course of the weekend we mixed shuttling indications, with just barking at the body’s location. Not surprisingly, when the shuttling is introduced the dog can often try to take shortcuts and not bother barking at the body first, so it’s good to consolidate by going back to induced barking at the body with no return to handler.

Mist has found someone and wants me to hurry up!

We worked small areas as well as doing A-B-C searches, where we just walked a line such that we first came into the scent cone of body A, and then later body B and so on. On the second day, we took all 4 dogs out to the area just over the hill behind the hytte and tied them up. I think we were all a little nervous about it since none of them are used to it (apart from Krimp perhaps), but it was certainly a good opportunity to try it out. And they pleasantly surprised us . Even Umi, who can’t bear it if KaiErik even walks away, never mind out of sight, managed to lie down and calm down after a while Mist coped with the whole experience by spending every minute that she wasn’t searching, excavating a large hole… there was a small puddle when we arrived and a small pond when we left Still, it kept her out of other trouble. I hope this is something we might use in future, in order to make better use of time and terrain - we avoid all the time-wasting of going back and forth to fetch dogs/get ready. Maybe not so much fun in ‘normal’ Tjørn weather, on the other hand!

The weekend was fun in other ways too….. having never heard most NRH’ers speak English before (I requested that people only speak Norwegian when I first joined, such that I learned quicker) it was quite odd hearing and speaking English for the weekend. As ever, even people who said their English was poor, sounded practically fluent . Even funnier was hearing Norwegians speaking English to each other, forgetting that they no longer needed to
On Saturday evening, after thanking the instructors and presenting them with a NRH gilet each, we asked Benny if he’d like a challenge. “Yes, of course!” he answered…… and 20minutes later was crawling around in sheep poo outside the hytte, decked out in a Redningshund triangle bikini-style over a pair of waterproof trousers, nose to the ground, and urged on by Les as they found out what it’s like to be a tracking dog, on a ‘coffee-trail’. We explained that at the end of the trail is always something that the dog considers high-value…. in his case a blonde Norwegian (Tone) prepared to whip him with a juniper branch . Don’t ask!

Thanks very much to the SARDA instructors who taught us lots, were really good fun and even brought some very uncharacteristic weather! We hope someone from NRH Dio06 will be able to come across to a SARDA (Lakes) training weekend sometime next year. Just hope it’s not me as I’m sure Benny will have a suitable return challenge lined up

Helen Indication / Melding, Airscenting / Overvær No Comments »

Update at last…

Where did the last month go? For various reasons I haven’t managed to keep the ‘training diary’ updated, so will no doubt have forgotten a few sessions here and there. Anyway, here’s an attempt to recap on some of what Mist has been up to…

4 April - Tracking, grassy field, Sviland
A couple of 100-150m trails in the grassy field with 2 articles each. Went fine, nothing particular to comment on. Mist still picks up fabric objects and stops at plastic/other objects but rarely picks them up. Something to work on….

5 April - Tracking, Arboret
Not able to train with others (the lice issue!), we had a family outing to the Arboret. Jon laid out a couple of short (<100m) trails with the main challenge being path-crossings. We waited just 20-30minutes before setting off. And it was as if there were no paths! Mist crossed both small woodland paths and a slightly wider gravel path without even checking out alternative trails along the paths (including one of mine, which was very recent). Yes!

9 April - Search square, Sviland
KristinT laid out 3 ‘corridor’ searches for Mist. The first two had a single object each and Mist saw Kristin go out, the last one had 2 objects and we waited 15minutes before going back and searching. All went well. At the moment, I reward Mist with a toy for picking up and starting towards me. She isn’t required to bring the object right to me. The idea is we’ll shape this gradually, and it seems to be working. She certainly comes in at quite a speed!

12 April - Tracking / Search square, Dale
Krissi laid a 200m (?) trail for Mist which crossed the main path up to Dalevatn, twice. It laid for a couple of hours. Despite becoming a little distracted in the young, thick trees about 10metres before the first crossing, and struggling again a few metres after, Mist seemed to tackle the crossings themselves without a problem. Certainly the second crossing was excellent - Krissi had walked down a steep bank to the path, and then at a 45degree angle down into the forest on the other side (it wasn’t possible to go straight across due to fallen trees/branches), and Mist followed it as if there was no path. Well done Mist And thanks Ronny for pushing Thomas in his pram while we trained .

In the afternoon, Krissi laid out a large ‘corridor’ for Mist to search - about 20m x 10-15m. We definitely made it too easy! She raced out, found the objects in no time and came in at top speed. Need to make things more difficult….

16 April - rundering, Sviland
3 weeks since the op, and both Mist and I were itching to get back to ‘real’ training! It was nice to meet up with everyone at Sviland and train rundering. Don’t remember many details, but I do remember that it went well. She barked without any help each time she found a body. And she even had her first ‘blindslag’ (loop without any body) - totally accidental but although she searched for some time, she didn’t find the Bjørn, so I just called her in and sent her the other side. She certainly didn’t seem to mind!

17-21st April - holiday with Marie & Sisco
Jon, Thomas and I went to Scotland for a long weekend and Mist went to Marie’s for a holiday with best friend Sisco! It’s lovely being able to go away knowing that she’ll be having a great time .

22 and 25? April - tracking, Vedafjell
Not sure about the dates but sometime around then, Jon laid two longer trails for Mist. We have mostly trained up to 200m previously, sometimes a little longer. We’ve increased the time to up to 2.5hours, so thought it was about time to increase the distance too. It’s also easier than increasing the time even more, as I can get Jon to lay a trail when he comes home from work, then follow it later once Thomas is in bed - giving us a ~2.5hour old trail.
500m one day and 750m the other. Both with 4 objects. The first one, Mist picked up the fabric objects, marked one plastic object and didn’t notice another. The second, she only found the first object which was plastic (!) and I think didn’t get any of the others because they were along the top of the ridge (leading up to the concrete building halfway up Vedafjell), and there was quite a strong wind, so I think she was tracking quite a few metres from the actual trail. Still, the extra length didn’t seem to bother her at all and she worked well the whole way.

26 April - search square, Sviland
Jon was running Siddisløp (10km race) in the afternoon, and I wasn’t 100% well, plus Mist was back on antibiotics as a tiny part of her scar was infected….. so I didn’t go to NRH training. Instead we had a family outing to Sviland (!) and set up 3 short trail searches. Mist chose the right direction each time. The first one she went right over to start with, but when I wouldn’t pay out any more line, she came back and turned at the right place. The other two, she ound straight away and set off in the right direction with no hesitation.

Sometime during April we also did some more search squares at Sviland on the grassy area. Still working with ‘corridors’ - i.e. the full 30m out, but 10-15m wide. Mist found and picked up both objects both times. I have a suspicion that she sometimes finds one, but continues to look for another in case it’s more exciting. Still need to work on interested in non-fabric objects. She does pick up plastic/leather/paper items, but not with the enthusiasm she has for fabric!

Helen Article search / Feltsøk, Tracking / Spor, Rundering No Comments »

Taking it easy after her operation

Yes, in theory at least, Mist is taking it easy this week after being spayed last Wednesday. Clearly, noone told Mist that she should feel groggy and tired for a few days, as 24 hours after the operation, she was shoving her football between my feet trying to get me to play, when she was supposed to only be outside to have a wee Almost a week later, and she’s struggling to stay calm in the house - fortunately her collection of Nylabones keeps her occupied at least a few hours each day - although they have to be taken away when Thomas is sleeping as she has a tendency to lob them around the room and ‘kill’ them which is very noisy if you’re trying to sleep downstairs (I know, I’ve been in bed when she’s started that game!).

We were given strict instructions to use the plastic collar for 10days whenever we can’t keep an eye on her. As Jon put it ‘it’s like putting a sack on a chicken’s head’ . For the first few days, whenever the collar was put on, Mist ‘froze’ where she was and refused to move, and looked very, very sad. Now she sits at the top of the stairs when Jon goes to work and howls until I get up .

Roll on another 10days when she can get back to normal exercise.

Don’t take pictures of me in this horrible thing

The surgical wound is really neat - I’m impressed. This was taken the same day as the operation.

Helen Miscellaneous / Diverse 2 Comments »

Home alone, wee beasties and NRH nannies…

Well, Easter was supposed to be a holiday - we had tickets to go to the UK for 5 days, staying with family and friends and competing (Jon) in the JK orienteering comp. But this little evil creature changed all that

Lice!

Although she’d been treated, Mist was/is still contagious and so Marie couldn’t look after her as planned, and no kennels would have her (no surprise). So, Thomas, Mist and I stayed at home while Jon flew to England and caught up with various friends and ran his races.

Not looking forward to the prospect of an itchy, frustrated dog becoming even more frustrated and unsettled, I sent out a plea for help to some NRH friends for a little babysitting, so I could give Mist a decent walk each day. And they came up trumps I am very very grateful to Tone, Ghita and Krissi who were so kind as to look after Thomas for an hour or so on Thurs,Fri and Mon. It helped me keep my sanity, and Mist’s too! Seems Thomas had saved up one of his ‘madras specials’ for Tone - sorry , and I need to learn the song Krissi sang to him which promptly sent him to sleep. THANKYOU! Also thanks to Nina and Kristin who looked after Thomas while I trained with Mist on Saturday - I really appreciated it

Training on Saturday was a bonus - I’d gone along more for the social side, and given the gorgeous sunny cold weather, thought if nothing else I could go for a little walk. Anyway, Nina and Kristin offered to take Thomas off my hands so I chose to do a little rundering, with indication. Bjørn and Ghita were ‘bodies’. I wasn’t sure whether I was going to use cues or not, but Mist’s focus was so definitely in the right direction when we got ready for the first runout, that I sent her without… and it went fine. So, I didn’t use cues at all and all runouts went well. She was a bit overexcited to find Bjørn lying on the ground and got a bit carried away with jumping on him and trying to lick his face (we haven’t tried with bodies on the ground before, only standing and squatting), but for the next go, he asked her to bark before she jumped all over him, and by the third time, she barked without ‘attacking’ him first . I asked Ghita to use 2 tennis balls as Mist’s reward - Mist has not been good at bringing back any toy, for quite a while, so I’ve been using mainly tug toys as her reward. This works fine - she loves the game - but I’d like her to be able to play throw/fetch/swap with other toys too. As I suspected, Mist was more willing to bring a toy back near Ghita than she often is with me. So, will do more of this when the terrain suits - i.e. open enough that the ‘body’ can easily move around to pick up the ball that Mist has dropped a few metres away. Hopefully she’ll eventually be as good as she was when she was 3 months old!!

In total we had 8 runouts. One go Mist failed to find Bjørn, but we just took it as an ‘empty circuit’ (i.e. no ‘body’) and sent her out the other side…. well, that was the plan - she actually ran out of her own accord when she saw Ghita moving in the forest . On one ‘find’ Marshall, Hugo’s (8-month-old?)GSD, came to join us - they were rundering on the other path and we were a bit too close. Mist was not impressed at the intruder and was quite clear in her body language that he wasn’t welcome, but Marshall just bounded around trying to get her to play! It’s the first time I’ve seen Mist like that - she normally wants to play as much as the other dog. But maybe it was the fact she was ‘working’ - it was interesting to observe…she tried turning away and ‘freezing’ first, but that didn’t work, so she showed her teeth and growled at him and tried to chase him away from where her tennis ball had been (we’d actually removed it to avoid any arguing). Fortunately, Hugo came and dragged away the disappointed Marshall without any further issues.

It’s Mist’s turn babysitting

Helen Miscellaneous / Diverse, Rundering, Uncategorized 4 Comments »