Capri
New member
Finally I have time to post about the trip I made to New Zealand over Easter to instruct on water rescue.
Here is what I wrote on our website as a story/recap of the waterwork side of the trip:
A trip to the other side of the world for water rescue work, Easter 2012
Everything started when Bettina Salmelin got to know Fiona Robertson (Newflands). Fiona was planning a European tour and was interested in joining us for water rescue trainings. As it happened, the same weekend Fiona was planning to stay in Belgium, we had our annual swimming pool trainings (for trainers) and a lecture training seminar weekend (theory for handlers) held by Karel Mennes. Fiona was positively impressed about the trainings and decided to place an invitation for me to tome to New Zealand to hold some water rescue camps. New Zealand is made up of islands surrounded by sea, but yet water rescue is only starting to make baby steps ahead. It would be important for the trainer to be able to guide the trainings in the right direction so that hopefully somewhere in the not so distant future, there would be the possibility of incorporating lifeguard dogs on beaches.
The trip sounded absolutely fabulous and during the following winter holidays the flights were booked. I would be spending four weeks over Easter 2012 working at local farms (deer, bulls, cattle and horses) during the weeks to get credited for animal husbandry extra mural studies as a part of my veterinary degree. The weekends I would spend training dogs. I was to stay at Fiona's guest bedroom and the flight expenses would be covered by the entry fees. In total I held three one-day water rescue camps (trainings in the morning and afternoon, with a lecture at midday) and I was invited to hold a raw feeding seminar at a local raw feeding shop.
Myself & some of the 1st day participants:
The water rescue camp entries were limited to ten dogs to be able to allow individual attention to every dog. The camp was full the first and last day (sea), and half full the second (lake). The structures, working dog temperaments and swimming abilities were about the same as what you'd normally see in Europe. The biggest difference between NZ training and normal European training is that they mostly train in the sea. The sea water is easier for the dogs, as it gives a lot of buoyancy. I was very surprised at what a huge difference it really does make. Dogs that were used to swimming in the sea were not as good swimmers in lake water as they tended to swim much lower, and their swimming power was much weaker. This made me think back to the proper Newfoundland conformational structure, as the island of Newfoundland is also surrounded by salty sea water. Could the modern Newfoundland structure be more better than what is commonly thought as their swimming techniques only improve with the aid from water buoyancy?
The participants practiced holding the dog still in water
- and saving two people at the same time
The water rescue trainings were modifications on the basic saving people (and multiple), taking objects out and retrieving the boat. The most interesting (and surprisingly also well completed) exercises were a "call off" where you throw a toy, send your dog and call your dog back before he reaches it, and jumping from the boat and fetching a roat from the shore back to the boat. We also did a lot of variations and scenarios, for example tossing a life jacket, boat, drowner and an oar into the water and asking the participants to "solve" the scenario. This was a lot of fun, and seemed to be very productive at teaching the participants to think up of new exercises when they were asked to construct similar scenarios for the others in their groups. Hopefully they will all take this skill into their own trainings.
Saving the drowner and retrieving the boat
The waterwork midday lectures covered basic training, new ILS K9 team lifesaving regulations and general notes on how to set up your own trainings. The local newspaper came to make a front-page coverage about the camps
.
Take out
- Learning how to lift the dog back into the boat.
In addition to the camps I had the opportunity to go and follow the Kiwi Newfoundland Club's trainings after the first two camps. They were planning on having a test day, but the instructors were so enthousiastic about the exercises we covered during the camps that they would rather continue and train those. The club secretary had even written down all the exercises in detail (about 14-ish per day per group), and that's what they were training. I was extremely proud to have had such success with the trainings .
I talked with the group and found out that the tests are much more relaxed than what they normally are in Europe. During the test day as long as the participant successfully completes the exercises in a set class, the judge will sign it off and the participant can move to the next class. It's not a question of counting points or seconds.
During the last day we did some fun exercises: a newf saving six people
and a lab pulling some leonbergs and newfs
The rest of the photos: http://watercubs.kuvat.fi/kuvat/Events Tapahtumat/Bettinas New Zealand trip/
Here is what I wrote on our website as a story/recap of the waterwork side of the trip:
A trip to the other side of the world for water rescue work, Easter 2012
Everything started when Bettina Salmelin got to know Fiona Robertson (Newflands). Fiona was planning a European tour and was interested in joining us for water rescue trainings. As it happened, the same weekend Fiona was planning to stay in Belgium, we had our annual swimming pool trainings (for trainers) and a lecture training seminar weekend (theory for handlers) held by Karel Mennes. Fiona was positively impressed about the trainings and decided to place an invitation for me to tome to New Zealand to hold some water rescue camps. New Zealand is made up of islands surrounded by sea, but yet water rescue is only starting to make baby steps ahead. It would be important for the trainer to be able to guide the trainings in the right direction so that hopefully somewhere in the not so distant future, there would be the possibility of incorporating lifeguard dogs on beaches.
The trip sounded absolutely fabulous and during the following winter holidays the flights were booked. I would be spending four weeks over Easter 2012 working at local farms (deer, bulls, cattle and horses) during the weeks to get credited for animal husbandry extra mural studies as a part of my veterinary degree. The weekends I would spend training dogs. I was to stay at Fiona's guest bedroom and the flight expenses would be covered by the entry fees. In total I held three one-day water rescue camps (trainings in the morning and afternoon, with a lecture at midday) and I was invited to hold a raw feeding seminar at a local raw feeding shop.
Myself & some of the 1st day participants:
The water rescue camp entries were limited to ten dogs to be able to allow individual attention to every dog. The camp was full the first and last day (sea), and half full the second (lake). The structures, working dog temperaments and swimming abilities were about the same as what you'd normally see in Europe. The biggest difference between NZ training and normal European training is that they mostly train in the sea. The sea water is easier for the dogs, as it gives a lot of buoyancy. I was very surprised at what a huge difference it really does make. Dogs that were used to swimming in the sea were not as good swimmers in lake water as they tended to swim much lower, and their swimming power was much weaker. This made me think back to the proper Newfoundland conformational structure, as the island of Newfoundland is also surrounded by salty sea water. Could the modern Newfoundland structure be more better than what is commonly thought as their swimming techniques only improve with the aid from water buoyancy?
The participants practiced holding the dog still in water
- and saving two people at the same time
The water rescue trainings were modifications on the basic saving people (and multiple), taking objects out and retrieving the boat. The most interesting (and surprisingly also well completed) exercises were a "call off" where you throw a toy, send your dog and call your dog back before he reaches it, and jumping from the boat and fetching a roat from the shore back to the boat. We also did a lot of variations and scenarios, for example tossing a life jacket, boat, drowner and an oar into the water and asking the participants to "solve" the scenario. This was a lot of fun, and seemed to be very productive at teaching the participants to think up of new exercises when they were asked to construct similar scenarios for the others in their groups. Hopefully they will all take this skill into their own trainings.
Saving the drowner and retrieving the boat
The waterwork midday lectures covered basic training, new ILS K9 team lifesaving regulations and general notes on how to set up your own trainings. The local newspaper came to make a front-page coverage about the camps
.Take out
- Learning how to lift the dog back into the boat.
In addition to the camps I had the opportunity to go and follow the Kiwi Newfoundland Club's trainings after the first two camps. They were planning on having a test day, but the instructors were so enthousiastic about the exercises we covered during the camps that they would rather continue and train those. The club secretary had even written down all the exercises in detail (about 14-ish per day per group), and that's what they were training
. I was extremely proud to have had such success with the trainings .I talked with the group and found out that the tests are much more relaxed than what they normally are in Europe. During the test day as long as the participant successfully completes the exercises in a set class, the judge will sign it off and the participant can move to the next class. It's not a question of counting points or seconds.
During the last day we did some fun exercises: a newf saving six people
and a lab pulling some leonbergs and newfs
The rest of the photos: http://watercubs.kuvat.fi/kuvat/Events Tapahtumat/Bettinas New Zealand trip/
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