From the category archives:

Team Lore

Anything can happen, and it will

by kdanzig

The following is a post Kate Danzig wrote in May. A cautionary “tail” about trusting your dog…

I had been waiting for this day for a very long time and it was finally here,test day. I was ready, but better yet Scout was ready.

Coonhounds are referred to as independent hunters and Scout is just that, independent hunter. I rarely get those looks from him asking me for help. Matter of fact I don’t think I’ve ever been asked. So on that Thursday when asked by the IPWADA tester, Deb Palman, to see him work prior to testing,work he did. It was flawless. I was filled with confidence for the actual test on Friday.

It’s time, we drive up to a meadow, I park my truck and I get Scout out of the back. I walk about 100 yards up to the meadow from the road  and I ask him to go to work. He takes off in his usual style. A slow cantor and then he stops, I ask him to go to work again. Nothing. He just stands there staring at me. I can tell already this is not going to happen. I might as well have been asking him to knit a sweater. That look of, “You want me to do what?”  After about forty minutes of pleading and prodding, I call the test. It’s hot and I know my dog. Something is bothering him. I say to myself maybe it’s the heat. First hot day and it’s to much for him. I’ll try again tomorrow.

Tomorrow is here. Back to the meadow, up the road, out of the truck, ask him to go to work. The same response.  Again it’s hot, and again I know something is wrong. Is he responding to my now lack of confidence, or the heat? Does he have a headache? After about forty minutes I again ask to stop the test. It’s over. We didn’t do it but I will try again. Chalk this one up to a learning experience. I’m still confused.

It’s Sunday and I’m ready to go home. The team gets a call out for a missing person in Copake, NY. Off goes most of the team except for Rita,Sarah and myself.  We stayed back due to some mechanical trouble with Rita’s truck.

Missing person is found, mechanical trouble is over and I’m on my way home calling my family to break the bad news about Scout not making the cut. There’s always next time.

It’s Monday. I’m home on Long Island and it’s morning. Busy getting kids to school, making lunches, packing school bags. Everyone is gone and it’s just me Scout and my little dog Holly. Take the dogs for a walk and when I get back everyone gets a treat. But they must sit first. Holly sits but Scout won’t. I ask again I get no response. Just a partial rear almost touching the ground.

I start to examine Scout’s hind quarter and there it is. The base of his tail is twice it’s normal size. Off to the Vet we go. After a brief exam it’s time for x-rays. It’s not the heat, it’s not my lack of confidence. It’s a compression fracture at the base of his tail.

I waited a very long time for test day and for awhile I never thought it would happen. All I know is he’s ready.

_________

Scout’s tail got better and he went back to work. Katie and Scout tested successfully with the Eastern Police Canine Association in June.  Scout is now our team’s only single purpose, Human Remains Detector dog.

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In opportunity, crisis

by Jana Martin

Dispatch from Jana, part 1: The morning of training day yesterday at the Family School, a boy goes missing — hightails it off school grounds and heads towards home on the very same day as we’ve got all of our certified dogs and handlers present and raring to do. Suddenly we are training the dogs and at the same time engaged in a search. The radios are screeching back and forth, it’s freezing, and we’re all thinking about the subject a little differently. As I’m out there in the cold I wind up thinking about what the kid might be thinking, what he’s feeling as he’s on the move: Are his feet frozen? What keeps him covering mile and mile, despite the fact that about 7 hours into it, that he’s no doubt broke into a sweat? Since he doesn’t have any other clothes to change into, as he’s on the move, are his clothes starting to cling to him, in that clammy way most of us only experience as a kid sledding all day?

The kid, his own issues and feelings and drive to run having come to a boil, seized the opportunity of his own internal crisis and took off. But so did our Kyle and Maya, Eagle Valley’s speed demons (Maya is often compared to a Ferrari, one of Kyle’s nicknames is Billygoat). Instead of running a 24-hour old trail created the day before, the team raced to the point last seen (PLS), picked up the boy’s trail and followed it for a total of 10.2 miles. On foot.

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How we got our name

by chief

Our membership lives mainly in the Catskills and along the Upper Delaware at the Catskill’s western edge.  Eagle Valley reflects something of our region but it also says something about our team.  Eagles are common sights along the rivers and in the valleys where we live. And the Amercan Bald Eagle stands for the pursuit of excellence. We are commited to excellence in the services we provide. Our teams are trained and certified to the highest recognized standards available in our particular disciplines. 

 

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