Maya’s Trails | Kyle Warren Dogs

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A SALUTE TO THE MOST BELOVED DOG OF MY LIFE

Posted in Kyle's Family, Maya's Trails, Search and Rescue, Trailing Dogs on November 23, 2012 by kwdogs

My beloved Maya, my ever so amazing Maya— passed away on Thanksgiving night, formerly my favorite holiday …. Many of you know that this dog was my world. I love all my dogs so much, so much — I would die for anyone of them. But this dog was truly extra special. She was, is, and will be the most incredible dog that I ever have had the pleasure to care for. Maya was the anchor of our pack and all of us will be truly sad and lost without her for quite some time. She was the one dog of the pack that every other dog in the pack without question would protect and that was clear. It had nothing to do with her social status, as she had a live and let live attitude. It had everything to do with the pack knowing that she was our precious gem.

Thanksgiving morning, Maya was happy and running around. She ate her breakfast and then hung out with me while I did home chores for the better part of the day. Come 3 pm, I took a shower before heading off to dinner at my aunt’s home. Jana commented that Maya seemed kind of bummed, and I agreed. Because she knew we were leaving?? We wanted to feed the dogs on the early side, before we left And Maya — who has a ravenous appetite — was uninterested in food. I knew then that it was the beginning of the end. I’ve always joked the day she doesn’t eat is the day she’ll die. Terrible fore-shadowing.

Instead of going to Thanksgiving dinner, Jana and I went to the emergency clinic. Upon getting there they did an x-ray and an extensive blood panel. The x-rays showed a large stomach with some unknown stuff inside. The rest of the x-ray looked clean, but showed that there was nothing passing in her intestine — indicating a blockage around the stomach. Knowing Maya and her endless appetite, I thought perhaps she had ingested some bedding material that had dog food residue on it. That’s all I could think of, but??? All the blood work was all right, except her white blood cell count was thru the roof at over 51,000 (normal is 5,000-11,000) and a few other enzymes showed up that indicated infection. The only option was to do exploratory surgery.

So the doctor boosted her up supportively as much as she could prior to surgery. When the doc opened her up she couldn’t believe that the dog was still alive, let alone had walked in the door of the clinic and behaved normally all day. Maya had gone totally septic and there was a lot of necrotic (as in dead) tissue that had to be removed. In addition, there was a small sized mass tucked up near her stomach that had ruptured and that was what apparently caused her to go septic.

The vet did all she could, and did a wonderful job. She couldn’t believe that Maya survived the surgery, and couldn’t believe she would live another 8 hours after that. I said to her, “Well you don’t know Maya and her iron will.” The vet called me at 2am to give me the update that she was not improving, and that they hadn’t had a blood pressure reading on her in hours: it was so low the machine would not register it. I knew I had to go in and spend time with my love. Upon sitting down next to her, and placing my hand in front of her to sniff (though in all other regards she was non-responsive), her heart rate and blood pressure rose immediately. I stayed with her for a couple hours, and during that time her heart held strong. But her blood pressure was up and way down constantly. The doctor said she has never seen this before — strong heart rate, non-existent blood pressure!

Maya wanted to stay with us, she was a Lionheart. But sadly, around 4:30am she just couldn’t hold on any longer. I held her close and for the millionth time told her that she was truly the dog-love of my life. And that’s how the life of a dog deserving to be honored on all levels ended her very short life of 6 years.
For those of you who knew Maya, you knew what a primal joy she was for all of us. And you know the bond I have with this dog. In my entire career of breeding, raising, training and owning dogs, I never thought it possible to accomplish with a canine partner what I accomplished with her. Her talent in search and rescue trailing was admired by so many of us. She never gave up, no matter what the weather conditions, no matter how long the search. She truly had the heart of a lion. Even when I wanted to give up she wouldn’t let me.

Maya defined survival to me. She represented life. I learned as much from this dog about life as I have from all dogs and humans combined. She certainly was my most spoiled and privileged dog (as many of you know). She was a force of nature, and a spirit that wouldn’t be tamed or molded. And though being a trainer and loving it, I loved her wild spirit and the respect she demanded from me in a completely non-violent way. She would voice her opinion every time she felt I was wrong. She made sure that she gave me respect and so clearly in return wanted the same from me. Most of the time this was such a mutual relationship that this dog made me melt. She was daddy’s girl no doubt about that.

She was so soulful, so connected, so….. My-My as I always called her. I believe that dogs are an extension of our souls and today certainly mine is faded and broken. This dog changed my life, made me grow and words cannot describe how sorely missed she will be. I just have to believe in what I always tell my students and friends when they lose their loved ones — time heals.

I love you Maya and though gone you will always be remembered and loved.

6.5 hour old night trail in High Falls, NY

Posted in Maya's Trails, Search and Rescue, Trailing Dogs on May 23, 2009 by kwdogs

6.5 hr. old night trail .85 miles, High Falls, NY. Subject = blue and Maya = Red

This was a really interesting trail! It was a 6.5 hour old trail laid at 4:30pm and ran at 11:00pm at night. The subject sat out at the end for 1.5 hours and made a scent pool that was about 3-4 acres in size. There was a little north wind about 1 mile per hour that you could hardly feel at all. You can look at the weather report above. I have placed circles on the chart when it was laid and when it was ran so you can see the weather during the time it aged. Really amazing. This shows that trusting your dog is ever so important once she has a solid foundation. I don’t know a handler that wouldn’t of turned their dog around if this was a known trail. The more trails I do the more I just believe that it can be 200 plus yards in any direction no matter what the weather conditions. This trail makes sense when you look at the terrain and weather but it is still looked at as alien by non-believers. She dragged me through this trail in 20 minutes. What had happened was that once we started to head south we were in heavy mountain laurel on a logging road. Maya stayed very committed to the logging road with constant headchecks to the west at least a dozen times. Where you see on the map that she cut west for the first time is where she got off the logging road (that was gradually starting to veer southeast) and we went through terribly heavy brush in the middle of the night. She hit a nice little scent pool that took us a good 4 minutes or so to figure out. Really amazing stuff. At our most distant point from the actual track we were 180 yards…. seen far more incredible just this one looks odd because she really had no crossover the track at all given the variables. The subject left and re-entered directly from the west from a far distance.

16 hour old trail in Hancock, NY

Posted in Maya's Trails, Search and Rescue, Trailing Dogs on May 20, 2009 by kwdogs

16 hour old trail, .99 miles in Hancock, NY. Subject = blue and Maya = red

This trail was a 16 hour old trail laid at 9pm and ran at 1pm the next day. It was one mile long and I went 1.56 miles to complete it in 42 minutes.

My scent article was a headlight. The start was contaminated by 180 students constantly walking about the school grounds for the entire time this was aging. The winds were varied but 75% of the time the trail was aging the wind was coming out of the southwest. Where Maya’s trail starts to head north, we were on a logging road and the whole time as it turns out the actual track was about 100 yards away to the west where she gave three head check during that time. She stayed on the logging road and then where you see our track start make circles 100 yards on both sides of the subject’s track— you’ll notice that the contours start to spread out east and west and therefore the scent picture dispersed. I believe that the logging road earlier in the trail served as a very definitive line for Maya to ride on until that point. She was behaving as if it was a turn so I casted her 100 yards on both sides of the logging road and she would not commit? So I rested her for 5 minutes and then casted her again to the east, she then worked it out, with no thanks to me. I didn’t think to surge her farther forward because she ultimately gave me a negative but what happened was the scent spread out. I should of made one large circlular cast rather than to side-logging road casts and I would have been out of that mess 15 minutes faster. But a nice job. At our most distant point we were 130 yards off the actual track.

1.5 hour old trail of contamination-mania

Posted in Maya's Trails, Search and Rescue, Trailing Dogs on May 16, 2009 by kwdogs

1.5 hr. old trail .65 miles heavily contaminated. Subject = blue and Maya = red

This was an amazing contamination trail! Granted it was only 1.5 hours old but around the start area is where everyone at the conference was camping; totalling about 25 people; including Maya’s subject. Most of the 25 people had walked back and forth within the black track circle that I drew on the map several times. The most recent was within 20 minutes of when the subject laid his trail. The other trails on the map were on trails that where ran before Maya’s was. The yellow trail was laid by Nelson at 10am. Marnie’s trail is dark green and that was laid between 11:30am – 12:00pm. The dark blue trail was laid by Ryan at 12:50pm. The light green trail was laid by Hal at 12:50pm. Sally’s trail is light blue (Marnie, Wayne, and me all went out on that one too); that was laid between 1:15pm – 1:45pm. The large black dots on the map is where they hid at the end of the trails.

I ran Maya’s trail at 2:20pm; our trail is in red. At her furtherest point from the actual track she was 25 yards off of it. Winds were mostly out of the WSW 5-10 mph. She was very studious and mega-focused! She sorted through all the contamination around the camping area, which included the subject’s scent from camping there and all of the days earlier activities. She wizzed through all of the contamination without difficulty. When we popped out onto the road she quickly gave a negative past the turn and cruised up the side of the road with tremendous excitement. She gave two headchecks to the west side of the road then cut into a 1-2 acre scent pool in really nasty brush that is difficult to manuever through. Maya did great! This trail was .65 miles, we went .87 miles in 29 minutes.

20 hour old trail in Gardiner, NY

Posted in Maya's Trails, Search and Rescue, Trailing Dogs on May 13, 2009 by kwdogs

20 hour old trail, .72 miles in Gardiner, NY. Subject = blue and Maya = red

This trail was 20 hours old, .72 miles long with no registerable wind until the last 5 hours of aging and then it was predominantly a south wind up to 5 mph. I had one person contaminate the start about 20 minutes prior to running the trail. This person went 100 yards up the trail then veered to the road and back to the vehicle. It was cleared when Maya and smelling that person and she immediately came off of it all on her own. My scent article was a shoe sole that was two weeks old. I never used an article that old before…. we also had a poor idea of where the PLS actually was so I’m not sure if the dog had to adjust to the dramatic age difference of the article to the trail or if we had a hard time getting started because we were a good distance from the actual starting area. Rita was my spotter on this one and the subject had not saved her track at the start of her track so where she entered the road was an unknown all around. I just kept casting Maya until she committed. Every place she was right on the actual track was an area that is shaded 100% of the time and all other areas were open woods. The wind seemed to drag the scent uphill despite the overnight aging with no wind…. one would assume downhill drag. As we progressed throught the trail the road eventually sucked the scent down. We traveled 2 miles and completed the trail in 60 minutes.

21 hr. old trail in French Woods, NY

Posted in Maya's Trails, Search and Rescue, Trailing Dogs on May 6, 2009 by kwdogs

21 hour old trail, 1 mile, French Woods, NY. Subject = blue and Maya = red

This trail was 21 hours old just under a mile in length. Maya and I traveled 1.58 miles in 40 minutes to complete. At our most distant point we were 195 yards off the actual track. The winds were variable up to 8 mph during the time this trail was aging. The start was contaminated by a handful of people, as it started at a daycare building.

K-9 Maya passes IPWDA Trailing Tests

Posted in Maya's Trails, Search and Rescue, Trailing Dogs on April 22, 2009 by kwdogs

This week Eagle Valley Search Dogs hired Deb Palman, a retired Maine Warden, who has been involved for 30 years in K-9 Search and Rescue. She is a master trainer for the International Police Working Dog Association (IPWDA). Today Maya passed the IPWDA Search and Rescue trailing test. The testing standards can be viewed by clicking on this link. IPWDA.

Maya did a nice job. At her most distant point she was 228 feet from the actual track. The wind was mostly from the South 3-7 mph but as you can see from the chart below it became more variable throughout the day. This trail was laid at 9:30am and ran at 2:30pm. You can see where the scent traveled up hill and where the Coxing Kill Creek sucked the scent towards the water. It took us 64 minutes to complete from start to finish.

IPWDA Test 5hr. old trail, 1.2 miles, Subject = blue, Maya = red

IPWDA Test, 1.2 miles, Subject = blue, Maya = red

Scent Movement for trailing dogs

Posted in Maya's Trails, Search Dog Training, Trailing Dogs on April 1, 2009 by kwdogs

***This text and maps may not be used or reproduced with out the author’s permission. This text is copyrighted material.

Here is the truth about scent movement — at least in the northeastern section of the United States.

Scent movement. Scent can move hundreds of yards away from the actual track of the subject. In over 500 trails I have done with my own trailing dog, I have seen scent regularly travel over 100 yards from the track very often; over 200 yards several dozen times; and up to 300 yards a handful of times. Most of the time my dog is between 0 and 100 yards from the actual track.

Weather has everything to do with how long scent lasts,
and where it goes.

Wind is a nightmare for trailing teams. If you have a 3mph wind or greater and the subject walks through an open to moderately dense area, the scent could possibly travel hundreds of yards.

Rain will move scent great distances down sloped terrain, but not much on flat vegetative terrain.

Moisture / humidity in general prompts better scent conditions. Therefore, dew, shade, nighttime, rain, etc. can enhance the scent picture for the dog in most cases.

Terrain features affect scent movement.

Slopes with no prominent wind occurring during the aging time will follow some general rules:

Hot air rises. So scent drifts uphill. In flat, sunny areas during the daytime hours, it may rise inches or more above the ground (especially on urban surfaces).

Cool air sinks. So scent drifts downhill during evening hours. Depressions, water and shaded areas in the terrain — swamps, ravines, ditches, evergreens, to name a few— will draw and collect scent. Logging trails, roadways and other features act as funnels, channeling scent in a linear fashion — great distances, at times.

Scent pools and scent cones. A scent pool is when there is an area of saturated scent that could be one to tens of acres in size depending on weather, terrain, time of day and how long the subject has been sitting out there. I feel that this is a very under-practiced item with trailing dogs, because our subjects don’t stay at the end of our aged trails too often, if at all. But the handler and the dog really need to know how to work a scent pool. The subject could be: in, around or has been in that area for quite some time, and then have moved on. The trailing team needs to be able navigate and work through these conditions. The dog will most often air scent, which I have no problem with as long as it’s the subject’s scent the dog is smelling.
If the dog is not advancing through the scent pool, then the handler will have to attempt to find the perimeter to assist the dog in finding its way out, and determine if the subject is present or has continued on to another location.
Scent cones are very simple for dogs to figure out and the dog will often air scent in these scenarios as well. In latter scent contamination training, once in a while I will take a distracter person and place them along the trail — but nowhere near the end. I will have it set up where the dog will likely smell the decoy. This is a great opportunity to correct the dog verbally through asking the question in your line handling. The dog will often be very enthusiastic about being in a scent cone of a human in the woods when they have been working for a while.

Surfaces. Scent is better preserved and holds onto surfaces that have any or all of the following characteristics: porous, moist, in shade, vegetated. Dogs will gravitate towards surfaces that offer these characteristics.

Other than what the dog communicates to us, where the strongest scent path lays is an unknown to the handler. This is why it’s the handler’s job to know where scent has the potential to move.

Examples: many of these still need detailed reports.

: 7.5 hr. old trail 1.29 miles in French Woods, NY

March 18th, 2009: This was a training trail ran entirely blind. It was 7.5 hours old and 1.29 miles long. Maya and I traveled 1.81 miles in 50 minutes to find our subject. My scent article was a t-shirt. The start of this trail had 180 students coming out of a chapel. The environmental conditions were as follows: a large boarding school’s grounds, woodlands, logging roads, drainages, fields, a highway, old large stone walls and a pipeline that was recently widen to 300-400 feet. The subject’s track is blue and Maya’s is red.

This trail was laid at 5:40am and ran at 1:15pm. There was much observed on this trail— the winds were east for the first 4 hours of aging then variable at 3-7 mph during the remaining time the trail was aging. I feel that the first leg of the trail, the dog was fairly true to the actual track because of the slope of the terrain, in this area it was heavily wooded and shaded, wind has a hard time getting into here other than night time movement downhill. Once we started to move west and the terrain started to level out and become less densely vegetated, the scent started to disperse over a wider area. You can see how the scent pulled into the woods from the center of the first small field. This was a very sunny day so the scent got blown to the tree line of the field and existed well in the shade on the border of the field. The new thing learned for me on this one was when we were on the Rte. 97 heading west and the shoulder of the road was continually getting higher and higher in relationship to the grade of the road. When we got to the point where the shoulder of the road was above my head, Maya instantly popped a negative, casted herself back 30 feet and cut south into the woods towards the track. This made total sense in that the scent was moving up hill, which I would expect since it was a warm sunny day and that fact that roadways often serve as scent vacuums. 160 yards was our most distant point from the track, when she headed down the hill.

Once the subject walked in up the pipeline to his location the scent sprawled southwest to the edge of the pipeline and into the tree line about 50-100 feet as she skirted around the perimeter of the pipeline. The subject was sitting out at the end point for about 90 minutes. Maya did a great job! This kind of trail is one that defines what a trailing dog does.

: 7 hr. old trail .88 miles Kilawog, NY

November 1st, 2008: This was a training trail ran entirely blind. It was 7 hours old and .88 miles long. Maya I traveled 1.5 miles in 35 minutes to find our subject. My scent article was a shirt. There was a total of 12 people who contaminated this trail throughout the day and 4 fresh crosstracks just prior to running the trail. The environmental conditions were as follows: pavement, mowed grassy trails, high grass, gravel, and a dry mud flood plane. The subject’s track is blue and Maya’s is red.

This trail was laid at 9am and ran at 4pm. The wind was blowing out of the west and northwest all day. You can clearly see how that effected the scent picture on this trail. Also the terrain overall was very flat and relatively open for scent to move though she stayed within 100 yards of the track the entire time. She overshot the subject by 100 yards before she ran out of scent and circled back at which time we got 30 yards away and Maya air scented the very end.

8.5 hr. old trail .52 miles French Woods, NY

There were 10-15 mph winds that were variable and about a quarter-inch of rain during the aging of this trail. At our most distant point we were 160 yards off the actual track. This trail was ran totally blind.

22 hr. old trail 1.36 miles in Woodstock, NY

The scent moved with the wind in some places and clinged to the creek in others. This trail was ran with a gps map known to me.

18 hr. old trail .71 miles in High Falls, NY

This scent movement is classic overnight scent picture. This trail was ran before a snow storm where 3 inches of snow fell on top of the trail. At my most distant point Maya and I were 220 yards from the actual track. This trail was ran blind.

18.5 hr. old trail .90 miles in High Falls, NY

There was a quarter-inch of ice on the ground. At the end she air scented into the subject. This trail’s route was explained but not exactly known.

4 hr. old trail .75 miles in High Falls, NY

We started on the east side and the areas where Maya went north were on prominent logging roads. At our most distant point from the actual track we were 200 yards. This trail was completely blind.

51 hr. old trail .49 miles in Olivebrige, NY

This is the oldest trail to-date that I have tried running with Maya. This trail was 100% blind.

11 hr. old trail 1.1 miles in High Falls, NY

20 mph winds and 3 inches of rain fell while this trail was aging to top it off we ran this completely blind in the dark. We were always within 110 yards of the actual track.

30 hr. old trail .37 miles in the village of Hancock, NY

This trail had 2 inches of snow on top of it. This was difficult because I was always anticipating a turn in an urban environment. One of my hardest trails ever and it was only .37 miles. It started on the west end at a pharmacy parking lot. This trail was ran completely blind.

27 hr. old trail 1.5 miles in the village of Hancock, NY

This was an incredible trail! Ran completely blind in this very busy, intense environment at night on Valentine’s day this year. Maya and I were in the zone and did this is 52 minutes. Rita, who laid the trail— had 5 members of EVSD, including Jana (whom are all high value frequent subject’s cross the trail at multiple points only one hour prior to running it.This will always be one of my most memorable trails. It can be done!!!

***This text and maps may not be used or reproduced with out the author’s permission. This text is copyrighted material.

8 hr. wilderness trail that aged me 10 years…

Posted in Maya's Trails, Search and Rescue, Trailing Dogs on February 28, 2009 by kwdogs

Blue track is subject's, red is Maya's, yellow and black are Jana's and Sarah's

This trail was very abusive on my body…. it was 8 hours old, 1.1 miles long, the terrain was moderately to densely wooded with pines, the snow depth varied from one inch to one foot and there was an crazy scent pool at the start in this creek and drainage area that had steep sides and very rocky. It took me 47 minutes to complete this trail. Anyone that thinks that they want to do trailing should of been on this one with Maya and I… I had my sidekick Liz that kept up with me here. Poor Rita had to take it easy bringing up the rear due to her sprained ankle. My ankle didn’t feel so hot either but I had a GSD with jet fuel up her ass to move me through the woods. The most interesting part of the trail that I only find interesting now… haha — is we had a woman, Stacey along for the trail…she hung back with Rita, but there was one time when I waited for Stacey and Rita to catch up with Maya, me and Liz. After that rest for a few minutes, I sent Maya back to work and she was obsessed with not going anywheres. Now, this trail was laid at 8:30am and at that time most of the trail the subject was walking on top of the snow. I had identified the subject’s footprint that was just visible on top of the packed snow, Maya keep sniffing it then going back to where we came from but frantically in scent not casting looking for scent…. I was confused — until…. Stacey asked, “would it confuse her if I was wearing the boots that Jen (my subject) wore on the way down to training today (they were Jen’s extra boots that she had worn the same day) ….. I kept my cool and said, “you stay hear until we are several hundred yards ahead of you.” Yep, that’s what is was… Stacey wasn’t Jen but Maya was obsessed with going in circles in this one area and backwards a bit, like I never have seen before? Jen’s shoes were still emitting odor of her that were relatively the same age as the trail with fresher crushed scent of the shoes. That was a first AND A LAST time for this scenario. Live and learn I guess. It took me about another minute to get Maya back on track then she cruised to the end with ease. The objective for this trail was to have two hot crosstracks of people that Maya always trails pretty much on a weekly basis in Jana and Sarah. The more Maya trails a person the more she associates that person as high value in terms of reward. So I will try to use these individuals as crosstrackers occasionally too. As it turns out —Maya thoroughly investigated Jana’s trail but pulled off. When doing this exercise it is best to really make 90 degree intersections from the subject’s trail in hopes that dog will be fairly true to the trail for this experiment. Make the crosstracks pretty hot… these were less than one hour old.

A Happy Valentine’s Day – 27 hr. old urban trail

Posted in Maya's Trails, Search and Rescue on February 14, 2009 by kwdogs

Blue track is subject and yellow is Maya

This was certainly a wonderful gift from my number one four-legged girl on Valentine’s Day! This blind trail was 27 hours old, 20 mph winds, in the village of Hancock, NY. It was 1.5 miles long. Maya and I cruised through this one. There was a smoothness and confidence between us on this trail that will rarely be repeated …. truly unforgettable. We completed this trail in 48 minutes. I couldn’t be more proud of my dog than I am today. She flowed through the entire trail… if she overshot a turn we casted back towards the last intersection and worked all roads until she hit the trail again. We often were right on top of the actual track but never more than 80 yards at our most distant point.

Kyle Warren Dogs