Oh that's awesome!
I could TRY calling but only if I feel she is trained pretty well. I still need to work on her temperament. She can be a bit barky at times and high strung.
But I will definitely look into that.
Thank you so much! Means a lot from you![]()
I wouldn't wait until she's calm/you think her training is ready - explain that you're a beginner and just want an idea of where to start. Because you want to train her right from the start, and don't want to accidentally train her in a way that's not quite right for search and rescue, then have to try to un-do that training and confuse her, you know? No dog is perfectly behaved at the beginning of training.
The training is likely to take years, so you just want to learn a good basic foundation to work on with her, aiming to maybe build slowly to being advanced enough to do it, you know? Or google "how to train a search and rescue dog" and see what you find!
Being barky and high strung isn't a downside in a search and rescue dog at all, I don't think! They need to be high energy to work potentially for hours looking for a missing person, lots of them bark to alert when they find them/something they own, and you'd be channelling her energy into a really worthwhile goal! She might end up not being right for search and rescue, but she might well be! Her mix of breeds are really suited to doing that kind f work though, and she's obviously showing promise already! So don't get your hopes up too high, but even if she wound up not qualifying for that, she'd still love the training, would get her "working brain" occupied and burn energy, and you'd learn a lot about how to train a search and rescue dog, then who knows? Maybe a different dog you have later on would be more suited to it.
Before I got Pixie as a pup, I really wanted to train her as a PAT therapy dog. You know those ones that go into hospitals and old people's homes, so they can pet the dog and cheer them up/lower stress? She's super smart and very good at obedience, but as she grew I found she was a bit nervous of strangers, and while she loves a good fuss, she doesn't like it when people put their hand over the top of her head to pet her. So while I would have loved to do PAT therapy, it didn't suit her personality and she wouldn't have enjoyed it, so we didn't. Maybe another dog I have one day will be suited. I'd love to do search and rescue too! I regret that I didn't pursue it when she was a pup. Again, maybe one day!