Nancy,
I am proud of you guys also. It is an awesome story and I bet Misha feels absolutely WONDERFUL!!!!!
It is great to hear that we can "chalk one up for the dogs" so to speak.
I think that all of us in K-9 SAR are proud and thankful to Misha AND Gandalf. It just goes to show that dillegent, dedicated training pays off.

Chris is AWESOME. I cannot wait until June to see him again. We will have Jonni Joyce, Bart Wilson and Janet Wilts out here also.

Chris is going to be teaching me some decoy work as well. (NOT with a search dog of course) hee hee

Nancy,

Congratulate Misha & Gandalf for me. Great Work! That mission is what SAR is all about.

Nancy, you have every right to be proud of Misha, Gandalf, and the whole SCSARDA team. What an incredibly satisfying feeling you all must share.

 Quote: Jan Williamson

Nancy, you have every right to be proud of Misha, Gandalf, and the whole SCSARDA team. What an incredibly satisfying feeling you all must share.

All I can say it, DITTO! You guys are wonderful.

We are all pretty happy.

The dogs and handlers have been through an intensive 1 year program, meeting with Chris for a full weekend about every 2 months. Some will go onto advanced trailing training and others will focus more on airscenting** (our next project). But they all(current dogs) now have a foundation in trailing.

The year before that we put three of our dogs through about a one year water program with Jonni Joyce.

Our cadaver dogs have had a mix of training. with Jonni, Andy Rebmann & Marhsa Koenig, Chris, and South Carolina Search Dogs who has Mickey J, a retired K9 Officer and NAPWDA Master trainer.

We have also had invaluable help from NCSARDA who is across the State Line and has GREATLY mentored us with a wealth of experience that goes back over 20 years.

I cannot stress how much it helps to do this with one on one help from people who have been there. It costs some $$ but saves a lot of floundering and undoing mistakes from a mish mash of bad training!

We realize that any good dog and handler team would probably have suceeded in Misha's sector and that the without negative areas, search managers cannot focus the search. So good training, good dog, good flankers, and luck of the draw.

**all our dogs are scent specific, though.

Nancy,
Congratulations to your team member Misha and Gandalf..you guys must be so proud. I was so excited to hear that a SAR dog was used and was successful.
Carol can't wait to meet Chris in June :-)) It should be a really good seminar!
Take care Nancy and maybe someday we'll meet up.
Regards,
Karen Nesbitt

Hey Karen,
I am excited also. Chris is awesome. My favorite thing about him is he will literally "draw you a picture"......to explain things. I better make sure I have a small erase board and some markers.....

Congrats to your team, Nancy! Great job!

Makes it all worth it, doesn't it?

I wish I could say I played a part in this search. How many have we been on where all you get is sunburned, scratched, and sore, and you just spent $50 on gasoline and took a day off work? But we do know that provides useful information too!

Instead, I was at home catching up on work, having used all my PTO for the year helping care for my parents who got a double whammy - Dad, lung cancer + successful major surgery, Mom-massive stroke, now in rehab - MAJOR life changes ahead. They are also 10 hours away, with no support system nearby, so we are working on getting them near us.

But I am very proud of how our team has come together and how serious and professional our members truly are.