The One

So how do you choose? How do you chose your next canine partner? The one that will be sharing your adventures for the next 10 years?  Especially when there is an entire litter of extraordinarily cute, pick me pick me, pups in the whelping box in front of you.

Deacon's Litter

 Teagan's litter

Tally's litter

I didn't pick my first two search dogs,  they picked me.  Ben was found wandering the streets of Harrisonburg.  When he showed up in my life, I just made him my search dog.  Never realizing in my neophyte naiveté, that rarely ever works out.  My second dog, Finn was given to me by a team mate, and he has done everything I ever asked of him. From cold cases in Virginia to New Orleans after Katrina even to the jungles of South America.  Luck out number 2, for I dog I didn’t pick.

Then I decided that I can breed a better search dog.  I’ll have my pick of the litter and can take the greatest one.  But first I had to go find the right bitch.  Didn’t pick Cora out either; she was just the last one left.  She made it too, as an HRD dog with several finds.  So far I am three for three (can you find the theme here?)

It’s up to me then to carefully pick the sire of these super SAR dogs, to combine the best genes I can find in a package that I want to look at.  I tirelessly scrutinized the pedigree of countless dogs, nag friends for their opinions and when I still don’t like what I see, I bug them for more suggestions then finally settle on a sire. 

And agonize that I might have picked the wrong one and play the game of what if.

The sire of Deacon's litter, I loved on sight.  He was sweet, smart, gentle and a real go-getter.

Ch Ransom's Armbrook Indigo Hue, CD MH

Problem is, I kept a boy out of this litter, which really isn't conducive to keeping your line of dogs going! So on to the next litter.

For Teagan's litter I picked a show dog.  Liked him because even in the make-out suite at the kennel where Cora was bred to him, he still wanted to play ball.  Didn't hurt that he was yellow and gorgeous too.

Am BISS GrCh and BISS Can Ch Gateway's Nothin' But Trouble

Then last year my heart was broken, when Teagan, the pup I kept from this litter, suddenly passed away.  She was almost everything I wanted in a SAR dog, but her independent streak was bigger than she was.  

For Tally's litter, I reached way back in time to a dog that had been long dead, and the collection I used was 16 years old.  Ed had an old fashioned pedigree that had everything I wanted.  He was able to compete in the Field Trial arena, basically unheard of for a breed ring champion.

Ch Topform's Edward MH, QAA

Got the genetics down, wait for the puppies to be born and then the real fun starts.  I try to do everything right, early neurological stimulation the first 16 days of life.  Keep careful notes on each pup, expose the pups to as many different people, places and surfaces as possible.  There is something called the rule of seven developed by Pat Hastings, that I try to follow.  The pups get exposed to seven different surfaces, played with 7 objects, gone 7 different locations, exposed to 7 challenges, eaten from 7 different containers in 7 different locations, and met and played with 7 different people. 

I put an incredible amount of work into each of my litters.  They start with baby agility courses on my kitchen table.  I set up a tunnel for them to crawl through.  Little cones for them to cruise around.  I make them climb little “A” frames.  I think I am the only person that will wander through Bed Bath and Beyond, looking at the bath mats or the shelving units or rugs and think “that would be a cool thing for the pups to walk across”. Or under, or around, or through… I even bought them a child’s play slide for them to climb up and slide down.  When they were weaned, the pups graduated to big dog stuff.  I have modified weave pole I got them to cruise around and they learned to climb my wood pile.

And watch and worry over every single sniffle, loose stool and stumble.

At 7-8 weeks, it is time for the temperament test.  Here’s where you find out what your pups are made of. This is where my evaluator picks the smartest, most out going, bidable pup in the litter. There are many temperament tests that can be done, but the most popular is the Volhard Puppy Apptitude Test.  I’ve done it with all of my litters, the same evaluator each time.  So she knows what I like in my pups.  There are other tests that SAR dog handlers that have different ways of testing, most will see about ball drive and comfort levels when walking across unusual or unsteady surfaces.

My friend spends hours testing my litters for me.  She is usually exhausted by the end of it.  Especially this past litter since testing took place in July. She’s usually dripping with sweat and legs cramping from crawling around on the ground with the pups.  She does an amazing job for me.  We talk about each pup and I get a written report on all the pups both good and bad.

So alot of work goes into each litter and each pup.  

After all of that hard work, I promptly pick the pup that picked me. 

They usually pick me long before I ever think about picking them.

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Glendair's Devil's Preacher JH VDEM HRD, he takes after his daddy, Digs.  The sweetest, hard working dog I have.  Born in snow bank behind my wood shed.

Glendair's Teagan, if she could do it her way, she would.  And give me the paw while she's doing it.

Glendair's Tullamore Dew, high hopes for her, I'll see how she turns out.  But she was climbing storage bins to get to the cadaver source at 5 weeks old.