British Forces Open Day 2008 - RAF dogs

As promised the dog handling part of the day.

I'm not really into obedience and agility as I dislike the idea of performing animals. Having said that I couldn't resist watching the dogs, and I guess they are demonstrating their performance as working dogs rather than performing for the sake of it.

Some photos of the two GSDs just before they began their demonstration.









The first demonstration was obedience/agility, with the dark GSD. After walking to heel and obeying various visual commands, he went flying through the hoop.



And sat beaming at everyone enjoying his moment of glory. He really looked so pleased at the admiration and applause he received from the crowd.



Next up was Archie. This demonstration was to show that he could tell different colours, despite the fact that dogs have different colour vision to people.

In the tunnel were three coloured objects, blue, red and white. Archie was shown a flag of one colour and shot into the tunnel to retrieve the matching coloured object. Clever dog, he got 3/3.









Next was the spaniel doing his sniffer dog routine. He had loads of bags to check out, but when he got to the offending one, he sat down, with his tail going ninety to the dozen.





And his reward, a tennis ball.



Then we had catch-the-villain. This was Archie's territory and he duly attacked the villain with typical GSD ferocity.



And after that, the other GSD demonstrated a different tactic with villains, where he sat guarding the offender - without attacking him - waiting for his handler to arrive.



Great dogs, and a great display by them and their handlers.