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Submitted by Mona Hand, GTA lead tracking instructor:
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GTA participated in a joint training event with the Alpha Team K9 SAR group
on Saturday, April 7th, at Red Top Park. We did some tracking, learned about
ATSAR, and participated in typical SAR dog training activities. Mark Young,
Bruce Mangan and I met up with Joel Barrett at 7:30 am at Red Top Mountain.
Joel has joint membership in GTA and ATSAR, and he is VP of the ATSAR team.
Joel coordinated the joint training event for us.
We set up a couple of sign lines and went to work while ATSAR conducted their
own preliminary training activities nearby in the park. We had very damp conditions
that often left us wondering about how resilient and pliable the leaves and twigs
were. If we had laid the sign in the afternoon, we would have had a very different
sign line once the sun came up and things were drying out. A little before noon,
we went over to see what ATSAR was doing. I got the chance to follow a couple
different dog teams while they trained. Those dog teams move fast! It was really
fascinating to see the trail dogs in action.
Mark and Bruce got to check out the HR dogs (human remains). There were
several stations set up for the dogs to train on and we followed along on all of
several stations set up for the dogs to train on and we followed along on all of
them. It was a great day to be outside and awesome to get some dirt time in as
well as meet and train with with our K9 folks.
Thanks Joel and ATSAR, for including us in this event.
Mona