Mensa?

I don't believe I have ever seen such an adept puppy.  I am not trying to pat my own back or toot my own horn.  I am simply commenting on how often my jaw drops to the ground at the next thing that Raezor does.  I feel almost like I don't have a hand in it.  Like Kristi doesn't have a hand in it.  Like we're just along for the ride.

Which probably means I should just enjoy it.....

That said....  She did a problem with a brand new subject on Saturday.  It was a cold, blind start.  But one mistake was made.  The subject was not given a radio.  We had no communication with him for him to let us know when she found him, or to even talk to him about anything.

This had disastrous potential consequences.  What if she found him and didn't want to leave him... perhaps he would do something, inadvertently, to scare her in an attempt to make her leave to go back Kristi.  What if she found him and did indeed leave him..... to go off and explore the world on her own... thus discovering SHE could make the problem last longer if she didn't come back. What if HE didn't go where he was told to go.... how would we ever make this successful....

All these thoughts were racing through my head as we walked out to start the dog.  What I SHOULD have done was stop everything for 10 minutes and walk a radio out to the subject and my worries would be over.  My blood pressure would come down.  The swelling blood vessel in my brain wouldn't burst.  And all would be right with the world.

Oddly enough, that thought never occurred to me.  In fact, that thought didn't occur to me until right now as I wrote it.  

Instead, I ranted over and over to Kristi as she set the dog off with the 'go find' command....' how is this going to work?!  This could be a disaster! This is going to be awful...' and we notice that Raezor was ranging about 100 feet in front of us, obviously working a scent cone and set to disappear across the creek.  I pushed Kristi off and said, you NEED to catch up to her or this is going to be horrible.

There was no catching up to Raezor.  She had scent, she was GONE... across the creek and beyond.  

Before Kristi could get to the creek, I saw something that I flat out couldn't believe.  From the other side of the brush and creek, here came Raezor, just as hard and as fast as I had ever seen her, and she was intent on getting to Kristi in the most expedient way possible.  Kristi read her correctly that she had been into the subject,  and set her self to cue the alert, but she never had a chance because Raezor was in the air launching before the request was made.... contact was made and she did a flying kick turn and headed into the subject long before the "E" in SHOW ME was yelled.   Back to the subject she flew... and to top that off, Kristi STILL hadn't caught up, so she spun back around and back to Kristi she ran... and the sequence played all over again.

Now, my tune changed from "how horrible this could be" to "You are so f-ing lucky"  but inside, I was marveling at what I had just witnessed.  I had just witnessed a 5 1/2 month old puppy do an entire search problem, with all the elements intact.  No hesitation on her part, all concentration and joy.  She did exactly what every mission ready search dog does, without cues, without radios, without all the 'crutches' we should have had.  This she did with less than a handful of trainings where the alert/refind sequence of trainings had occurred.

Now, I am not saying "poof" at 5 1/2 months, she is a trained search dog.  Far from that.... she absolutely needs to work, be worked, and be trained to make her rock solid bomb proof.  What I am saying is that this puppy has put all these pieces together and when we were pressured and worried and concerned, she did the job.  This should predict a high probability of success for her as a search dog in the field when OUR stress level is so high because of the situation, she will be well driven to perform correctly.