CadiWaterDog

I'm just going to write a little bit before I go to sleep - I'm so tired, and my head is battered with thinking too much!
As you know, we've just had a training weekend, and I've had such a challenging time - but great fun because I got the ball lots and lots of times.
Yesterday was very strange. We went a long way in the car first, picking up new girl Alex on the way - she's just been accepted as a DogsBody with SARDA, and Sian was giving her a ride in our car - very brave considering how smelly our car tends to be. The pig was 4 weeks decayed - so you can imagine how bad it was! Sian couldn't smell it, but the rest of us could!!
She left me and Ellie (who came along for the ride) in the car, then we had a long long drive to a strange bit of water - not quite a river, but it was moving, had high concrete sides, and had very strange, long boats going on it! I found the pig smell a few times, but on the whole, it didn't really smell very much, until they put the pig juice in the water too, and then it was brilliant - found it from a long way off! they had to do some small quick things with me so I recognised the smell - and then I was fine - had some good finds before lunch - sausages - then off again. Lots of the long boat things around after dinner, and I found some smelly holes in the ground - rabbits they reckoned, and I got a bit distracted - don't come across them very much really.

We went back to Rhyd Ddu then for the humans to watch the rugby - woo hoo!!! Cymru am Byth!
Came back home for a proper warm sleep and a dry, and then back again this morning. We had a bit of a lie in this morning - except that Bobby and Ellie will insist on barking like mad dogs in the morning - embarrassing when you've got neighbours - who sometimes have loud parties, and it's ok to bark loudly then, but not when it's a peaceful Sunday morning when dogs want a lie in!

Sian then took just me along to the lagoons in Llanberis, and we had a very peaceful morning, just her and me, doing a few searches, which all went very well. We then sat in the car for ages, listening to the radio, when all of a sudden, Phil, Gareth and Richard turned up. Turns out that I was getting staged! That means when someone comes along and watches what you do, and decides what stage in the training you're at. They gave me some really good ones to do - the last one was really cool cos I knew that I found it before Sian did - she had no idea where it was until I told her, and even then she couldn't find it - but at least she believed me!!

Anyway, she was very proud of me, and gave me lots more sausages!

So after all this, I'm shattered, and falling asleep on my little legs!

Thanks to everyone who came along and helped with my training this weekend - Big Uncle John yesterday, and Richard and Gareth and Phil today!

Good fun - when are we going again ?? zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Yay!!
Training tomorrow! I hadn't realised, because Sian's been working for ages and ages - and we've hardly seen her. Tonight she came home from work and she's been busy getting the car organised, putting my cage in the back, and the search box, and I think I could smell a new pig in the basement - she also had lots of tennis balls in her pocket!

Yippee!!
I wonder where we're going to go!
She and Phil have been really busy with the mountain rescue team, and with SARDA searches - the air scenting dogs have been going out on the mountains to look for missing people - and finding them too - which is good news. All a bit sad and stressful though - the look on Celyn's face in the photo I told you about - I bet she's going to be even more miserable looking by tomorrow - sometimes the dogs and handlers get bad dreams - that's if they can sleep at all ...
Sian was telling me about the risks of that when I qualify - I guess we'll be seeing some pretty gruesome things, but if we're prepared for it, and can talk to someone about it, and understand that it's normal to react to that kind of thing we'll be ok - the problems start when people - and dogs - try to be heroic about it - and try to pretend that they don't react, and it doesn't affect them - Phil calls it the "John Wayne syndrome" - I think he was in school with John Wayne or something ...

Anyway, we have sausages in the fridge ready for the weekend, so here we go - I'll let you know how things go!

Cadz xx

You know how labradors eat everything - I think Flash ate everything and it died inside him and the gas is now coming out - what a smell! and it's been going on all day!!

Did I tell you we got the training stages from Yoda Neil? Well, we did, and Sian asked him what he wanted to do about staging me - that means when someone takes a look at what you're doing, and decides whereabouts in the list of stages you're at. It's quite important to do really because it gives you something to aim at, and it sort of sets in stone where you're up to. I think - and Sian agrees - that I'm at stage 7 - which is shoreline searches, and working towards stage 8 - which is where the target is up to 10m out in the water, and somewhere along a 500m stretch of shoreline. Actually, I'm probably at stage 8 really, but we don't have a 500m stretch to use - the lagoons in Llyn Padarn are very broken shoreline, but I guess in total we manage to search 500m. Lockwood is less than that, but you can manage more than 10m out. Sian's going to ask some more people if we can use their lake - that's got nice clean edges so will be good to use for training. She's done risk assessments for everywhere we use so far - I do dynamic risk assessments myself - goes a bit pearshaped when I get new experiences, but I guess that's the dynamic bit of it!!!

Anyway, Sian's asked Richard if we can go for staging at the next training weekend in a couple of weeks - maybe use Llangollen Canal and go for the Stage 8? What do you think?

The boat engine has arrived, we're just waiting for the cheque to clear. Once we get that, we can start on the boat stages - can't wait!!!

Sian showed me the photos of Celyn and Teal on the Llanberis job yesterday -it looked awful weather, cold, windy, snowy. The look on their faces was classic! Sad as well though - I'm glad I do water search - we can't go out when the wind is too strong, the waves too slappy, and the water too cold! How good is that !!! We can justify waiting for nice weather!! Sian's talking about doing a poster to show people what the water searching is all about - that'll be good! I don't think people generally have a clue what we do!

I'm ready for my tea - just off to nag a bit!

See ya x

Way hay!! what is this white stuff that's cold and such huge fun to play in!! We've had a quiet day today - this morning, Sian took us to Nant Peris, and we sat in the car for ages, watching everything that was going on. There were people coming and going, some very mountainous looking people, and then lots of policemen, and then some telly types. Eventually, Sian came out, and we headed back home. Hung around at home for a while - she went to bed, because she'd been working all night before going to this Llanberis MRT job.

Anyway, she got up when Phil came home - he'd been away ages too - and we had tea and went up to the woods - I couldn't believe what it was like up there - fairy wonderland - all white and fluffy, cold, but wheneve I ran it was fluffing up around me - so I ran faster and faster, and got the white stuff stuck under my chin, and in my paws! It was such fun! The other dogs said they'd seen it before, but Bobby was certainly having fun in it! Flash said it just makes things smell a bit different, and he had his nose in mouse holes all over the place. Ellie just complained about the snow getting stuck under her belly and between her toes - she had to keep stopping and chewing them, so got a snowy bottom! Me and Bobby found some really cold sticks to take home.

It's been a while since I did any writing - Flash has been really poorly - nasty sick and runs for two days, and he lost loads of weight - you could see his ribs! He had to go to the vet on a Sunday, and had medicine and an injection, and got better thank goodness! the vet said me and Bobby would get it too, but so far so good!

We've got Ellie staying with us this week - that makes it 4 dogs in our house - yay - at last we outnumber the people! I think she's here until the weekend.

We went training last week on Sian's days off, did well, found piggies every time. I think we're going to be doing some training with the boat soon - yippee! Trouble is, the water will be SOOOOO cold!