I woke up Grumpy this morning.

She didn't seem to mind though. Me, I woke up with Sarah Brightman, but I had to turn her off before the buzzer sounded. We both got on the go pretty quickly. Piqa knew there was something up. She was too excited/concerned to eat her breakfast. We thought we left in plenty of time to get to Shallow Bay by 10:00 am.  It didn't quite work out that way, but there was little we could do about it.

Carol packed lunch (and just about everything else). I cut the bread and buttered it.  Sigh!

We had to stop in Deer Lake for gas. Coffee. Then we made our way up the Viking Trail. Vikings would have had enough sense not to drive on that this morning.  Well, it wasn't absolutely terrible. On a scale of 1-10 of the WORST winter driving days I've had, this was about a six. It was very windy, with some heavy flurries. The road was a little greasy. We don't have snow tires on, but we have a fairly new set of all seasons with an aggressive tread. I knew we'd be OK. We were. But it was very slow. We had left at 8:20; we got there at 10:20. Twenty minutes late. Sigh! Sorry!

It's a great place for a training exercise. The cook shed has been turned into a winter shelter; Herbert and Bettina had arranged for a small generator, so we had light, and Herbert had his notebook.

What a great day they had prepared for us. Along with our dogs (Isabelle with Kate, Lisa with Cypher and Presto, Herbert and Bettina with Yaksuk,  Christine with Mythos, and Carol with Piqa), we were training with the Bonne Bay Search and Rescue Team. Nice folks all!

Today focused on compass and GPS training. There were six or seven chore sheets that rotated through the groups, so that each group got to do each task sheet. One of the task sheets was quite long, involving about 40 minutes and maybe a three or four kilometer trek. Along the way of this final task (for us), we had to set GPS coordinates several times and do several sets of measurements. You learn by doing; I learned more today than I did in the three of four months I've had the GPS. We're also all getting very comfortable with mapping, map measurements and coordinates, and reading... you know the whole map thing.

Piqa walked all the tasks with us, and Carol had additional chores to do with Piqa at each stop. Some of those chores included taking her pulse (Piqa's), having someone else lift Piqa up on a picnic table, having Piqa do a down/stay while we did our chores. On the last long task Piqa got to run free and "search". The only thing she found of interest was a rabbit. She had a little run. Actually, she did a lot of running on this last chore because she was tired of being on lead all day and getting progressively more excited.

Then we had our wrap up session in the shelter (that smelled of caplin). (Carol had bought a bag of dried caplin and put them on the stove to warm up. They all disappeared, so I guess someone liked them.)  At the wrap up session we all compared the results of the various chores we had been set. Everyone did quite well. But also everyone missed a few of the things we might have observed had we been more attentive. (Let me apologize here for being so ignorant and taking all those pictures. It's an obsession with me. I  should have asked.)

What did I learn today:

After the wrap up session, we did some quick training sessions with the dogs. What a pleasure it's been watching those dogs progress. We've only been at this since April, and we've averaged about one training session a week. (We all try to work with our dogs between training sessions.) The only dog I got to watch work today was Mythos. He's become a black ball of enthusiasm; he's got the game down pat now, going full steam between the victim and his handler (Christine). He flies. Wonderful.

I always back off a little when Piqa does her sessions, because she gets a little confused when both Carol and I are nearby. It's her habit on our walks to run back and forth between us, so if I'm around during the training session she tends to do the same thing.

Piqa had a difficult search set up for her today. It was a totally blind search, with the victim being some distance away and Piqa having a full section of the campground to search. I don't know how long it was supposed to last. It lasted about three or four minutes. Piqa did her search beautifully. I think she may have picked up the ground track before she picked up the air scent, but once she picked up the air scent, bingo. Off she went. Back and forth. Treats. Jackpot. She's doing quite well.

Then we folks from Pasadena/Corner Brook were excused so we could get off the highway before dark. The trip home was much better. Moose. Caribou. High wind and waves. Very nice. No picture opportunity missed, even though it was getting dark and the pictures had to be boosted quite a bit to be presentable.

It was a wonderful day. Thanks to all!