Post by oksaradt on Jun 15, 2010 10:09:38 GMT -5
My first test in testing puppies is noise and I like to do it with two metal pie pans thrown up in the air over the puppy where they clang together in the air then drop to the ground(missing the puppy of course). Sometimes hitting the ground makes as much noise as their collision in the air.
If I'm not tasked with testing each puppy all the way through for the breeder, then this test can quickly weed out many of the litter for me.
What I look for in a puppy is one that startles (as in not deaf), it can even run a bit, but it returns to investigate the pie pans on its own in a timely manner....cautious but curious.
Over the past ten days, two experiences proved the testing is a solid predictor.
On June 6th, the local SAR team trained at a state park lake that we have privledges to go into non-public areas to train. It turned out that the Army National Guard was training not a 100 yards away. Their training that day was running three helicopters over the lake to fill huge water sacks which they'd practice fire-fighting water dumps with. As ticks had been bad in this area as of late, I decided to use this wash ravine full of miniature canyons to hide skeletal in. The area is all sloped, so scent can travel down channels for the dogs to investigate up to the sources with the twisting ravines sometimes 3-4 feet deep.
It's Thorpe's turn to work and he's gotten onto scent. He's working upslope towards a source when a helicopter flies not 80 feet overhead in a slow bank such that looking up I could see the occupants of the back area. We were cooled with blade wash. I looked to Thorpe, who had never been around helicopters. He looks up, notices the chopper, does a sigh of irritation, and then goes right back to work locating the source.
Murphy had a similar experience when searching for decomp, but the chopper was so loud that he couldn't hear a direction from me and just decided to walk back to me until it passed; Where upon we just went back to work.
The past couple of days have been extremely busy with my investigator job, so I hadn't gotten to work a problem set I put out on Saturday. I was determined to knock it out last night. So, each dog got their turn while thunder is crashing all around us. Neither dog gave the thunder a second thought and worked great.
My point is not that I have great dogs. My point is that they are both true to their testing unlike what so many others like to claim, that a dog's character can not be determined at such an early age.
Of course, as I'm want to do in a lightning storm, this was a great excuse to dance a jig in the lightning and thunder, winking at Mother Nature in my own way. She promptly rewarded me with another down pour.....no sense of humor.
Regards,
Jim
If I'm not tasked with testing each puppy all the way through for the breeder, then this test can quickly weed out many of the litter for me.
What I look for in a puppy is one that startles (as in not deaf), it can even run a bit, but it returns to investigate the pie pans on its own in a timely manner....cautious but curious.
Over the past ten days, two experiences proved the testing is a solid predictor.
On June 6th, the local SAR team trained at a state park lake that we have privledges to go into non-public areas to train. It turned out that the Army National Guard was training not a 100 yards away. Their training that day was running three helicopters over the lake to fill huge water sacks which they'd practice fire-fighting water dumps with. As ticks had been bad in this area as of late, I decided to use this wash ravine full of miniature canyons to hide skeletal in. The area is all sloped, so scent can travel down channels for the dogs to investigate up to the sources with the twisting ravines sometimes 3-4 feet deep.
It's Thorpe's turn to work and he's gotten onto scent. He's working upslope towards a source when a helicopter flies not 80 feet overhead in a slow bank such that looking up I could see the occupants of the back area. We were cooled with blade wash. I looked to Thorpe, who had never been around helicopters. He looks up, notices the chopper, does a sigh of irritation, and then goes right back to work locating the source.
Murphy had a similar experience when searching for decomp, but the chopper was so loud that he couldn't hear a direction from me and just decided to walk back to me until it passed; Where upon we just went back to work.
The past couple of days have been extremely busy with my investigator job, so I hadn't gotten to work a problem set I put out on Saturday. I was determined to knock it out last night. So, each dog got their turn while thunder is crashing all around us. Neither dog gave the thunder a second thought and worked great.
My point is not that I have great dogs. My point is that they are both true to their testing unlike what so many others like to claim, that a dog's character can not be determined at such an early age.
Of course, as I'm want to do in a lightning storm, this was a great excuse to dance a jig in the lightning and thunder, winking at Mother Nature in my own way. She promptly rewarded me with another down pour.....no sense of humor.
Regards,
Jim
??
