A walk in the bush

An Area to discuss General Handler Issues

A walk in the bush

Postby kiwicopper » Tue Apr 20, 2010 8:10 am

I thought I'd share an experience I had the other day.

3 years ago an elderly gentleman who was suffering from the the later stages of alzhimer's and went missing during his afternoon walk.
After quite an extensive search he was not located.

Recently the widow approached us to re search certain areas based on information from a Clairvoyant (This is probably a topic for another time). But as nobody likes unfinished business it was a good enough reason to have another crack.

I spoke to the controller and asked if I could take the boy along for a walk. He is nowhere near searching areas of that size but he has very limited experience in the bush other than following tracks.

Anyway, I was quite impressed to see his level of confidence develop as time went on.
To begin with he was very cautious as the bush was reasonably think and had a heap of blackberry. He stuck very close to me and needed encouragement to get over small obstacles. By the end he was running all over the place, running between members of the team. We even did a few small high energy problems which he aced. At one stage he winded another search team so he obviously knows what he is meant to do.

I just felt that it was very beneficial to both me and the dog.
NZ LAND SAR DOGS == NZ LAND SAR == NZ USAR == NZ USAR DOGS

"The dog wags his tail, not for you, but for your bread." - Portuguese Proverb
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Re: A walk in the bush

Postby mandy & sakari » Sun May 02, 2010 10:43 pm

Well done you. The more they go out and do the more confidence they gain.

Mandy [cool]
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