The Munchkin and the Piglet

The Munchkin has a friend - a little Munchkin, or a Piglet as she snorts and groans and talks when she is sleeping, playing or cuddling. So now we have the Munchkin and the Piglet. As everyone knows, the Munchkin's purpose is to be a "kick-ass" Search and Rescue (SAR) dog. The Piglet's purpose, on the other hand, is to be a "kick-ass" / awesome snare detection dog.

Why can't the Munchkin be a snare detection dog as well as an SAR dog? Surely it's better to feed one dog rather than 2 dogs? Yes, it is better to feed one dog rather than 2 dogs, but while the training is similar, there is a different end goal. The Munchkin finds people and, therefore, thinks that all people she comes across in the bush / wilderness are friendly and are her victims. She will bark and come and find me and shuttle between the victim and myself until she leads me to the victim. It's known as a "find/refind" technique.

The Piglet, on the other hand, will also use human scent to find animal snares. She will also come back to me, with the aim of leading me to where she has found snares. It is also a "find/refind" process. The difference is that the Piglet is essentially working as an anti-poaching dog and if she finds strangers in the bush, we assume that they are poachers and we get out of the area very quickly while the game rangers/police deal with the people.

Now that we have the differences between the two dogs out of the way, it's time to rush out and train dogs. I will keep you posted.
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Night training - rain, mist and fun as well as random photos

It was dark, misty and cold outside and it was passed the Munchkin's bedtime. Did you know she goes to bed at 8pm every night? Or, at least wants / tries to... This time, however, she had to stay awake as we went up to Alverstone a couple of months ago to play with some people from Mountain Rescue, KZN.

Part of my brief was also to provide a 20-minute informational lecture on K9 SAR dogs in general. Google is my friend!!! With the help of Google, I managed to put together a power point presentation. After singing the SAR dogs praises, we had to go out, in the dark and mist to find a lost 'victim'. We also attached a glow stick to her collar as it was important for everyone to be able to watch her work. 

The victim ran away to hide and after a while, I told the Munchkin to go and find the "missing person". Off we went. It was dark, cold and very misty so I couldn't see much.  As usual, we found the "missing person before he died of hypothermia; actually, as always it was the Munchkin who did the finding and all I did was walk behind her and watch her work. We also discovered that there were actually 2 wet and cold "missing people." They were very grateful that we found them.


This was an interesting search exercise. I learned a lot. Because of the layout of the land, we had to start our search with the wind behind us at about a 60-degree angle. We should have driven to the other side of the search grid but that was too difficult so we just walked.

While walking down the road the Munchkin turned back to look at the flanker and guests. She circled back to them once so I decided it was time to move off the road into the bush.It was wet, dark knee high grass, and it didn't take long before we were both soaked as well.

The wind was blowing in the wrong direction so my plan was to walk to the end of the search grid and then turn around and walk back. The Munchkin would pick up their scent on the way back. Fortunately, In true Munchkin fashion, she picked up the scent of 2 wet cold victims just as we walked passed where they were hiding.

At the start of the search area, there was a wire run full of turkeys. Oh no, I thought, the Munchkin is going get side tracked by the turkeys. As usual, I was proved wrong (I love being proved wrong), the Munchkin looked at them for a brief moment and decided that finding the human that has her toy is a much better idea...So on we continued....we had a toy to find. Then it's time for a good game of tug-of-war.

The interesting thing that I picked up is that Electra gets frustrated when the search takes too long. She comes back to me and cries. A bit of verbal encouragement usually gets her going again. We have to work on increasing the distance and length of time of the search exercises slowly so she gains confidence in her ability to find the victim and her toy.

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Tick Prevention in the bush all over the world

Some of my regular readers must be saying: "Welcome back and we have missed your updates." I must apologize for not posting for ages. I don't even have any valid reasons or excuses - life and training have been continuing as normal. To be honest, I have just not made the time to post.
Much has happened over the last 18 months. The Munchkin has been involved in some real life action over the last 6 months. People go missing, their loved ones worry about them and we get called out to look for them. It sounds very simple... and in essence, it is. In practice, people don't want to be found, or they are deceased or are not where their family thinks they are. But theses are stories for another day.

Snow training - "are there ticks in the snow Mom? Where's my toy? I want to play!"

Before I get into what has happened and what the plans for the future are, I'd like to mention the importance of regular tick control.It is critical that working dog owners and handlers keep their dogs' tick and flea free. Not only does tick bite fever in all its variants keep the dog from working, long courses of medication are often required to clear up the parasites in the dog's body.

I have just learned of a new form of "tick bite fever." It's known as tick paralysis. In a nutshell, the "toxin [contained in the tick's saliva] directly affects the [dog's] nervous system...caus[ing] lower motor neuron paralysis." Ouch...this is serious. In my opinion, the age-old adage: "Prevention is better than cure", is relevant here. 

Here is a wonderful infographic that explains the ins and outs of tick paralysis. 

Click here to view bigger image
Courtesy of gordonvet.com.au