The trailing dogs are doing well at the moment with two of tom,s puppies both working in germany with the German red Cross along with another puppy with the German Bloodhound trailing assoc all bred and basic trained at Arthurshiel. Tom went across to Germany and had a very successful basic course and all three dogs have also been on a course with some American instructors who were very surprised and impressed with the standard of the puppies and their breeding. An advanced course is planned in May 2007 in Germany to take the dogs to an advanced level and everyone is looking forward to this course.

At home in the U K SARDA Wales held a very successful weekend with two of their dogs gaining Call out qualifications with Gwen getting her fulkl Search Dog status with a 9 hour old trail which was 1.9 km long and had a totalk of 11 people and 2 dogs crossing it at various times. You can imagine what Tom and the two Simons who went out at 1 o clock in the morning to lay the trail were thinking when just after laying it 8 runners doing a 24 hour marathon came off the mountain and ran along the last part of it at 2 in the morning!!! add to that the two mountain bikers and the two joggers plus the lively elderly gent with his old collie enjoying a saturday stroll and the lady with the poodle who thought she had the forest to herself and there was no need to lay any false trails. Gwen and Rolf coped well with all of this and found Simon Lying under the trees unharmed at least he was till gwen launched herself at him in relief at the find! Ian had a nerve wracking wait for his trail with people coming and going but he made the test for his Novice grade look easy and his smile soon appeared again. It was a great result for SARDA Wales who now have two dogs qualified to the NSARDA standard and everyone is very supportive of this new venture.

NSARDA has now adopted the standards and assessment rules that have been used by Tom Gwen and Iain in their training over the last while and theyh are now the standards for SAR trailing dogs in the U K Anyone wanting info on the standards e mail tom