Hi, my name is Linda and I live in a village on the Lambourn Downs near Hungerford with two GSD's - Murphy and Kasha - I took Kasha in just over a year ago at 14 months of age, she has a very gentle nature, but had never been socialised with numbers of people and dogs so when I first took her to dog training she was unable to concentrate because she was so concerned about everyone and everything around her. Work commitments made it difficult for me to attend classes at the beginning of this year, but in May I took her to a local village fete to socialise her, there I met friends from agility many years ago, doing a demonstration. They persuaded me to bring her to agility and back to obedience classes. On the same day, as part of the fund raising, there was a competition organised by the estate gamekeeper for the fastest retrieve of a dummy - Kasha had never seen one previously let alone searched a hide - she was allowed to play with it for a minute before it was hidden, to my great pleasure she rushed down, found the dummy, brought it back to me and won the competition in which were local working gundogs, she is so quick! This made me realise my black fluffy streak had hidden abilities so I signed up for the next agility course and this has been the making of her. She has the speed, but not as yet the accuracy or control! However she was good enough to participate in the agility display team at Newbury Show in September for two days with no worries about the crowds.
She is very play orientated and if one of her toys is hidden she keeps working until she finds it, (in hedgerows or a crop of rape). A few months ago I passed the site where the Search and Rescue Dogs were based for one of their tests - my hobby for many years has been Working Trials (I am qualified to judge at ticket level) and the other dog in the photo is Murphy, whom I bought with the intention of competing in Working Trials - I briefly attended SEBV in 2001 with him until he became reactive to other dogs following two weeks in a boarding kennel -
which obviously curtailed all search possibilities - he is however a registered PAT dog and he and Kasha are great friends, he has never shown any aggresion to her from day one. I thought this could be Kasha's job in life, however she could come as a bit of a surprise to any mispers she might find in the dark!! - so we are going to try again - Murphy will have to stay at home as having other dogs around is too stressful for him.
- Murphy and Kasha
