Shotguns and dogs, match made in heaven 🤙
Gaston - Mantrailing - 28 Nov 24
Tracking in the heat 🔥
Just before the rains have poured in recent days, I took Gaston out for a suburban track on a particularly hot day to see how he would perform. I have been working on his fitness in general to ensure his resilience is high for such conditions, and he didn't disappoint.
Cosmo off leash tracking 🐕🦺
This is a short snippet of Cosmo working a recent track. Full video is on my YT page, with voiceover remarks, for those interested. It is pretty cool so definitely worth watching.
What is really cool to see is how dogs can naturally find odour and work it successfully without the use of articles etc on hard surfaces. The goal here wasn't surface transitions, this was more of a Bob Ross happy accident (in terms of track design) that was great to see at this level of training.
Gaston Grip Development
I am a massive proponent of training dogs to bite, who were bred to do so 🐕🦺
These dogs when trained well can become incredibly stable, clear headed, and safer to be around as they learn to contextualise when they can and should exhibit a behaviour, and when they should not.
These dogs also find complete genetic fulfilment through this training, which to deprive them of is cruel in my opinion. Depriving a retriever breed of a regular fetch game is equally unkind to the animal.
Gaston is a great example of what I am talking about. Extremely social and stable, he goes everywhere with me, and often off leash (his obedience is exemplary). He does possess the inherent genetic traits to bite when it is time to do so, but having developed this from a young age he clearly understands when it is appropriate to do so. He also plays beautifully with my 2 year old (she loves playing house with him).
I have worked at Domestic Animal Services specifically dealing with dangerous dogs, and never encountered a dog in my time there who had bitten a human that was even remotely comparable to a well-trained dog like Gaston. Those dogs were typically backyard bred, neglected, often abused, who bit out of fear and uncertainty.
Finally, this work relies on skilled decoys. Luca, seen here being bitten by Gaton, is a phenomenal decoy and I am always so grateful for his time and energy he gives freely to others.
Hans - Fire Trail
K9 Hans in South Africa
Hans has been working in South Africa for over a year now, and has had some great successes on operational tracks. He has adapted very well to the conditions, and I am incredibly jealous of the things he sees as part of his duties (I am lucky to get many updates which cannot be shared publicly due to operational security reasons).
This video shows Hans doing a simple maintenance fire trail of several hundred metres. You can see the terrain he operates in is hot and difficult.
I have said it before, but to everyone who donated money to get Hans to SA, your money has been well spent and Hans is contributing well to conservation efforts on his reserve.
Gaston - Mantrailing - 01 Oct 24
Introducing Gaston to evasion tracking 🏃♀️➡️
Whilst I have trained others dogs in this type of work, I have had minimal time to develop these skills in my own dog. However, I am now turning my attention to this area and look forward to having Gaston be able to solve extremely complex problems on a track.
Errol - Playschool
Always time for some play 🛝
Errol is happily living and working in Victoria and has been for a couple of years now. When I was raising him though, I had a lot of fun getting him ready for a working role.
Hard surface tracking 🐕🦺
I like the GAK9 approach to tracking in different environments. The concept, in very brief summary, is that we allow the dog to learn through self discovery all the different places it can locate productive sources of odour.
At first we make it easy; long grass is ideal versus starting in urban environments. There is an eternal debate about what way works better, but it really is just about what system you are using.
Gradually we add in new locations in a very deliberate manner enabling the dog to discover new sources of odur; short grass, dirt, gravel, bitumen, gutters, footpaths, and so on. We design the track to enable the dog to learn what we want them to learn for themselves.
Gaston hadn't actually tracked in completely urban terrain for over a year at the time of filming this video, but he still remembers where he can find odour. Lessons learnt through self discovery just seem to stick better, and take significantly less time to teach (no articles or food to phase out).
Bit of work on the table with the bois 🤙
Thanks Josh for being a great human chew toy 😘
Nuti - Mantrailing - 23 Sep 24
I had the absolute pleasure of handling Nuti for one the tracks during the recent GAK9 workshop on the Sunshine Coast.
As an instructor, I am happy to get stuck in myself when the occasion calls for it. Sometimes handlers tire out before their dog does, or the terrain is too difficult, or a handler may get injured but the dog still has work to do.
Luckily I know what I am doing so it is fun to sometimes work an attendees dog and show that I can walk the walk and not just talk the talk during a workshop.
