 March 2005 Exactly 10 months ago, Kim and I were introduced to Search & Rescue-work. It was a weekend trainingcamp and you can read all about it here. It didn't start out quite as well as one could hope. But we gave it another try later that autumn, and now pieces started to fall into place - click here to read about it. We were also invited to come training with our local SAR-team, but that did not turn out what I expected with only 3 trainingsessions from september to december... Since there was that little interest in training, Mats and I founded our own SAR-team out of three eager-to-learn Collie-owners at various stages of dog- and training knowledge! And since Kim is as large as a small Collie (!), we named our team the "Lassie-wannabe's". Toya (German Shepherd) is the only one that doesn't "fit in" ;-) We have been out almost every weekend since mid January, and I will tell you all about our training a bit further down. But first a short presentation:  Micke and Nellie were the first to join our team. Nellie is his first dog, and he is interested in almost everything you can do with a dog... Beside the search-training, we also help them with tracking and obedience. Nellie has some experience from playing hide-and-seek with the kids in the family. Nellie is two years old and Micke describes her as "a neurotic beauty"! She can be a bit jumpy and doesn't like loud noises or travelling in the car, but hopefully the last part will change, once she realizes that car riding can turn into fun search-practice!  Marie and Sally are the experienced party. Marie has been breeding Labrador Retrievers for several years and doing a lot of bird hunting. She has also been taking part of the education section in her local dogtraining club. Sally is 3 years old and thrives herself into every game Marie tells her to. She is a skilled tracker, and has a lot of experience from searching after Maries "boyfriend" Lasse.  Lasse and Noel live together with Marie and Sally. Lasse is a novice when it comes to dogs, and he took over Noel (4 years old) just recently (but he was raized by Marie from puppyhood). Noel is a bit selfish and tries to rule from time to time. He is very tough for being a Collie, which comes in handy when doing search and rescue. He has also a lot of experience from searching after Marie, and does not depend on the wind to go out. He almost always does long, straight and correct searches!  Kim and I, well you can read all about us here, on this website! Kim is 3 ½ years old by now, and we live together with:  Mats and Toya - the cat among the ferrets! Yes, a GSD in our Lassie-wannabe-team. Their biggest interest is tracking, but Mats is helping us by going into hiding and letting the dogs search for him. Toya is his fifth GSD. She is 1 ½ years old and they are also doing obedience. |
