Working Dogs

Visiting Tucson And Support A K9

I’ve been pretty busy the past couple weeks. Two weekends ago I was at a wedding in San Francisco and last weekend I met up with my college buddies in Tucson, Arizona to reminisce and have fun at our old hangouts. We even caught a football game in the middle of rain and thunderstorms. I looked up at the banners along the stadium and thought back to our glory days and some of the great players on our football team during our college years. Most football fans have heard of Tedy Bruschi who just retired this year after a stellar career with the New England Patriots. Also, a big part of our Desert Swarm defense was standout defensive tackle Rob Waldrop. I don’t remember too much about his NFL career so I decided to look him up on Google.

After Googling “Rob Waldrop” I found out he did have a short pro career however one thing that came to my attention was his involvement in a program called Support a K9 and decided to write a quick post about it since we’ve been talking about K9′s quite a bit over the past few weeks. Here’s some information on the program:

Support A K9

21 AUGUST 2007 TUCSON, Arizona — A little over a year ago, two local businesses purchased a trained police K9 for the Pima County Sheriff’s Department … A unique donation for sure, but the intent was to be far more reaching …

A trained police K9 provides long-term value — seven years to be exact — to the community and department far beyond the price tag of $11,500. In the time since the donation, “Rudy” (The K9) and Sgt. Greg Bargar (The Handler) have combined to accomplish the following:

They’ve recovered over $735,000 in drug money … Seized over 40-lbs of Cocaine; 25-lbs of Methamphetamine; 2-lbs of Heroin; 7400-lbs of Marijuana; And been involved with the search and arrest of numerous felony suspects for various crimes ranging from: Car Jacking, Kidnapping, Auto-Theft, Robbery, and various others.

One of the two local business men mentioned in the article was the aforementioned Rob Waldrop. After the success of the first K9 “Rudy” Waldrop is attempting to duplicate donations in order to purchase another K9 for the Sheriff’s department. For more information on how to donate to Support a K9 visit the website at http://www.supportak9.com. If you click on the “I’m Interested” link in the horizontal navigation bar you can fill out the form with your information and the amount you’d like to contribute.

Thank you Mr. Waldrop for all the great football memories during the early 90′s and thanks once again for supporting your community with the Support A K9 program.

Great Video Of Gin The Dancing Dog

Have you ever seen a dancing dog before? A couple days ago I received an email from Carole about Kate and Gin the dancing dog from the TV show Britain’s got talent. I watched Gin, a border collie dazzle the judges panel and the audience as well.

The original link that Carole sent me apparently has been moved from Youtube. Hopefully they’re not having copywrite issues, but if they are then the video below may get disabled eventually as well.

Here’s a video of Gin on YouTube:

Gin The Dancing Dog

Dogs Are Amazing

It’s pretty amazing some of the things you can teach a dog. Stetson, my guide dog puppy in training will (hopefully) be a full-fledged guide dog in about 6 months assisting his blind companion to move around more freely. Gin the dancing dog obviously has a different talent. It’s great to see all of her energy channeled into such a great act.

I’ve seen many other working dogs including Arson Dogs, Service Dogs, Search & Rescue Dogs, and Therapy Dogs. Every one of these working dogs is very talented in their own right. It’s definitely my pleasure to be able to work with Stetson (hopefully) a future guide dog.

Ralphie The Wild Animal

My parents dog has a similar energy level and is probably just as agile as Gin the dancing dog. However, I don’t think they’ve channeled his energy in quite the same way. If you’ve ever seen him (his name is Ralphie after Ralphie on the Simpsons), you’d think he had springs in his feet. He bounces around and can walk on his hind legs (I haven’t seen him walk backwards yet). If only they could channel that energy into something positive he could be the next contestant on Britain’s got talent (if we were in Britain).

Have you ever seen a dog like Gin the dancing dog before? What other talents do dogs possess?