I worked with Cass County Sheriffs and Plattsmouth PD today. Nice guys and really nice dogs. We went to an auto auction yard to work the dogs on narcotics. There are of course plenty of cars to hide dope in as well as trailers, RVs, trucks and all manner of land and water vehicles. The dogs did great and we worked for a couple hours searching for narcotics. I even ran my dog U once, but I was there to help so he only got one pass. We took a break across the street at the truckstop and had lunch, and then went to the raceway for more training. I had previously shown them some tug work, but apparently I did a poor job explaining myself, so I worked each of their dogs and physically showed them what to do. One of the dogs “Moose” was supposed to shred my hands, but no, he did awesome and other than not knowing how to play the game at first, did fine. I worked the other two dogs and with a little more work and the now much better explanation, they should do better next week. U came out to do a demo on how the dogs should be biting the tug, but of course the show off that he is, he bit his rubber hose in half and play time was over. I really need to pick up another piece of sandblasting hose. The automotive hose just doesn’t last for long with him. Back at the training center we worked 15 dogs on the boxes. Mark, one of the Cass County Sheriffs came to help. (Thanks Mark) Some of the greener dogs are really starting to catch on and my daughter’s dog Tea (pronounced teeah) is coming along nicely. I expect her to do an oral bridge sometime this week, then on to another odor. Maybe cocaine, as it has a strong odor too. Ready for dinner soon and boy am I hungry now. Working dogs will do that to you. I’m supposed to work the sheriffs dogs again next week, only it will be tracking and bite work. I’ll post some pictures of the sessions when I get back. Read More

Getting ready to go work the puppies on drive building. Three of them are doing great, but one of them spends so much time with his nose to the ground he never seems to see the toy. I don’t think I’m going to fight that, but instead will make him a “Hard Surface Tracker” and sell him as a single purpose tracking dog. Common in Europe, but not common here in the US. Read More

Pascale is training for the Harris Marathon with her friend Kate. Pulling herself up from the couch and her TV and Bon-Bons is probably killing her, but she is doing it. This will be her third Harris event and the first after her leg injury. I know the leg injury was really bad, so it’s pretty impressive that she is doing a full marathon after her owwie. She is taking at least two dogs out for every workout, so a side benefit is all of our dogs are in killer shape. Not many dogs can hang for a 17 mile outing and then do 8 miles the next day. N’Zo and Doc seem to be the steady training partners, but she is trying to rotate all of them into the workout. Probably just to tire them out, since we don’t have any tread-mills for them any more. I wish I could be there to root her on, but I’ll have to do it from here. Read More

Sky is a trained explosive detector dog and she is also the foundation bitch for my kennel, Reve des Loups. She had her first litter in 2009 and they were beyond my expectations. Due to some problems with my training center and a relocation, I only sold one puppy to a new friend named Paul, who will use him for Mondio Ring. I kept 4 males and the rest went to friends. Sky just appeared out of the blue one day by someone who couldn’t handle her. She is a lot of dog; sweet, but very intense and always on the move. She has ball drive like you have never seen and I have seen her hunt for a thrown stick for over ten minutes. It would have gone longer, but I gave up waiting for fer to find it. Read More

U is my personal dog and he is trained as a dual purpose K9. He started out in IPO, then I trained him in Mondio Ring, but after his Brevet I didn’t have any time to compete with him. He was my training dog at Alpha K9 when I went through the Trainers course and he did great. Here is a video of U doing some protection work at my old training center. My son made the video for a class in school and gave it to me. Get the Flash Player to see this player. Read More

Asterix is named in honor of another dog I used to own with the same name. The first Asterix is now in Oregon with his new owner, but he’ll be leaving soon for Alaska. Asterix is the second dog I’ve owned that is now in Alaska. Mimi his half sister is also in Alaska now. Asterix reminds me a great deal of his father, U Ot Vitosha. He has the same coat and friendly attitude, but more important he has the same crazy drive. He work me out yesterday playing with the puppy sleeve, bottles, plastic bags, tennis balls. You name it, he was chasing it killing it and trying to eat it. Read More

Arok is my tracking fool. He spends his whole time out of the kennel running with his nose to the ground looking for who knows what. I can hardly get him to play with anything he is so focused on sniffing around. I already started him on tracking in the parking lot near the raining center. He is being trained using the HITT method by Steve White from Seattle. Seems to be working well for him so far. I’m new to this method so I expect to have some bumps in the road with it. Arok is so food motivated though it should work out fine. Read More

Akira is the big boy of the litter. He has a dark brown coat with a lot of black on his face, chest and feet. Akira will play until you drop. He spent most of yesterday chasing a tennis ball and playing tug on the puppy sleeve. I’m starting to get a sweet spot for him. Maybe he’ll be staying on permanently and I’ll get him started as a Mondio dog for Pascale. Read More