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Becoming a SAR Dog - that's a Search And Rescue Dog - was always my dream, and my handler Bob knew it. Bob always took me to different places and around lots of people. We went everywhere together, which helped us become great partners and later a great SAR team.
My training started when I was just 8 weeks old. The first thing I had to learn was obedience. There were simple commands at first, like sit, stay and come and lay down. I learned fast, because when I did the command right, I got a treat.
Of course, too many treats weren't good, so exercise became a big part of what we did. Bob and I would go jogging together. I was always faster. And we did some swimming. I think I was a better swimmer than Bob - I knew how to doggy paddle.
Bob also set up special backyard courses. The boxes were the most fun, jumping over them, crawling through them and trying to get out of them.
Sometimes we would go out to the beach, or the fields, or even in the woods. The weather didn't matter. We went out in warm weather and cold, day and night. It could be raining or even snowing, but we still had fun. It was all a part of my training so I could get used to different places and all kinds of weather. Mostly, it was so I could experience all kinds of new challenges.
There was a lot of trust between us. Bob took care of me and knew just what I needed. I learned his voice commands and also his hand signals too. When we were in the rain, it was really noisy and hard to hear sometimes, so Bob's hand singles really helped.
I remember the first time I saw fireworks. Wow, they were loud and I jumped with each bang. But I could see Bob wasn't afraid of the noise, so I figured it was nothing for me to worry about either. I got used to loud noises, like fireworks, motorcycles, kids yelling and even car horns. Getting used to these sounds was yet another part of my training.
Not too long after that, we went to a special training facility... More coming later...