Life in Australia

[Trackerdog]

Hello,

It has been a while since I joined this group and I did make a promise to let you know a little bit about myself and the Search and Rescue dogs in Western Australia.

I will give you a short rundown of myself. I was born in Tasmania and moved to Western Australia in 1959 with my parents. It would have been a long trip for a small child otherwise. Always had this love of German Shepherds and finally got my first GSD when I got married. For those that do not know, the German Shepherd was banned from entering Western Australia, unless sterilized and appropriate documentation issued by the local government right up to 1976, then the ban was lifted.

I commenced training my first shepherd, Sabina, and soon got disillusioned by when I entered my first club trial with somebody telling me that my dog was not under control and I failed miserably. Time seemed to be a healer as I plucked up the courage to return and have another go some time later. Bad move, failed again. Time again slipped by and Sabina passed away. She had a cyst as big as a grapefruit on her spleen which was inoperable.

A few years past and I purchased my second shepherd, Mahlah. This led me to joining our local GSD Club and after a couple of years training I was asked to become a trainer. Passed the exams, did the hard yards in learning the modern methods of dog training and really enjoyed it. Mahlah succumbed to the horrid arthritis around the age of 6 and so I purchased my first boy, Drum.

Drum was a human dog, he loved all types of humans and especially those that had food and fed him. Yes, you cannot put three bits of food in your pocket and give him two, as mentioned on this site. We started to obtain titles and travel around the countryside getting them. This led me to try tracking. Mahlah was put down and so it was just myself and Drum.

Drum was not the world’s greatest tracker, in fact he was a plodder but he did love finding the person at the end of the track, he was a person dog and loved his hugs from the tracklayers (Bodies) and his food reward of course. Along came my next boy, Cade, as I was used to owning two dogs I just had to get another. Cade was introduced to tracking at 8 weeks of age and obtained his tracking title at the tender age of 6 months. Just when you think all is well with the world along comes the good ship doomsville. It wasn’t long after I got Cade that Drum developed secondary cancer of the spine and had to be put down, the hardest day of my life that was.

By the time Cade was 18 months of age, he had obtained his Tracking Champion Title with nowhere else to go from there. At that time I was lucky enough to have a friend in the State Emergency Service, Tracker Dog Section who invited me along to see if I liked what I saw.

I have now been with the SES Tracker dogs for three years and have no intention of leaving.


I will give you a run down about the SES in another nail biting story. Its taken me all of 5 weeks to get this done,but you have to remember that we are in our winter period and we are required to undertake and perform storm damage duties as well as Tracker Dog duties and try to watch the Olympic Games.

Regards
Michael
Perth Australia

[Drew]

Hi,

Nice story. I look forward to the next instalment.