Where upon a SAR dog handler got bored

I’ve been a canine search and rescue dog handler for close to 20 years now (good God!! Has it really been that long?). Six dogs through state certification, without a wash out. So, I’ve either been very, very lucky or had good dogs. Or maybe a little bit of both, with great team mates to train with.

I finished off Tally in HRD, she's my 3rd HRD dog,  and thought, “Now what?” I was bored. Training became boring, throw some source out, feed the dogs when they find it. I felt like Fred, the Dunkin Donut baker, “time to make the doughnuts”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f2AGc70Eq9k

Finn, my first real search dog, half of my heart, the dog that I did everything with and he always asked to do more,  had also started his final decline during this time.

A text would come through announcing a search. Live find, HRD whatever, I resented being called out. A sabbatical was becoming more and more promising.

This past April 1st, I posted on Facebook that I was retiring from SAR.  No one took me seriously, but most didn't know how close it was to being true.  I was tired.

Then this thing happened:

Glendair's Celtic Kestral, from my Tally

From the first she ran through life at mach speed.  Nothing and no one got in her way.  If there wasn't door to go through to get to the other side, she made her own.  Or even if there was a door, she liked to make her own.

That's 1/4 inch reinforced glass, with pieces of glass that landed 3 feet out in front of where it was supposed to be.  She didn't die, she didn't break her neck or fracture her skull.  Just two small lacerations for her trouble.  The local TV station was there that day, doing a story on us.  Thank god, they weren't recording...I'm not sure I would want to hear what I actually yelled, after the sonic boom of her head shattering the glass cleared from my ears.

The next week she considered jumping off of a 12 foot high concrete wall to a concrete slab below.

Climbing the pile at 16 weeks

I got health insurance on her the following week.

She helped me rediscover why I started this obsession in the first place.  The joy of getting into the forest, following her as she explores the scent on the air.   With her help, feeling the direction of the wind current (no puffer bottle needed, just the nose twitch that says the current has changed). Learning to understand what her body language was telling me. The concentration in her face as she tries to figure out where that scent went when she dips into the drainage and it floats over her head. Following her as she quarters through the scent cone and watching that cone get smaller and smaller the closer she gets to the subject.

The shear joy as her body starts to wiggle from nose to tail when she's in the strongest scent pool and knows she's about pounce on her subject.

Then trying to think of situations that might confuse her, so she learns how to problem solve.  And watching that brain work as she conquers each goal.  She keeps me on my toes, and figures things out before I even know what goal we are working for that day.

I hope you never get lost. But if you do, this is what you might see just before your human rescuers get to you.

I hope I get to see this for many years to come: