Heaven

I have been wanting to go to the K-9 competition for probably three years now, but somehow I've always been too busy to make it. This year I was able to go and I think I got some great shots. I love German Shepherds, they're probably my favorite breed ever, and I was surrounded by them for 6 hours yesterday. They had three phases, the search phase, the obedience and agility phase, and the protection phase. I'll explain as I go along so enjoy!

Here is one of the dogs during the search phase. There were three cars parked on the field as well as two boxes like the one below. The goal was to find the person who was hiding in one of the items. Turns out the person was hiding in this box (and only 9 dogs found them, probably out of 25 or 30).

I was loving the different ways the dogs wore their badges. Yup, they get badges. Usually it was on their collar but this one was the most obvious.
This next dog and handler were the only ones out of Madera. She was also the only female handler out there. She was AMAZING. Her dog, I think she called him Axel, was extremely calm and his movements very calculated. They completely dominated the competition, if they didn't win overall I'd be very surprised.
This was during the obedience/agility phase. It was a regular obstacle course that you see in a lot of obedience competitions, but the handlers had to bark at them in German to get them to sit, stay, control their speed, and get through each part of the course. I stood by the little window because I knew I'd get some great shots of the dogs hopping through. I know my old German Shepherd/Black Lab mix Dune could easily clear a 6 foot fence at my parent's old house, so these little jumps were nothing to these dogs.

This dog and handler were awesome. They are from Chico and the dog's name is Vegas, how awesome is that? Vegas was a stereotypical German Shepherd in that he was HUGE and fluffy. How these dogs could fit into this little tunnel was beyond me, but Vegas sure proves that it was tough in this picture.
This is one of my favorites. Recently (July 23rd I believe), a K-9 officer was shot and killed in Lathrop. The dog's name was Niko and this was his car. His handler, whose leg you can see sticking out of the car right here, has a huge Niko tattoo on his right calf to honor his fallen partner. The entire competition was dedicated to him and Niko and all the proceeds from the concessions and services at this competition are going towards Niko's successor.
This was the favorite phase. It's technically called "Protection" and not attack, but there was a lot of attacking going on. The poor guys in these suits, it had to be close to 100 out there and they were out there for a good hour in them. Yikes! So there were three scenarios to this phase.

1. There is a domestic dispute and the officer has to send the dog past the victim and take down the attacker. He also has to release when told. Some dogs did really well but most of them had trouble letting go!
2. The second phase is a criminal refuses to turn around and show the officer his hands, so he sends the dog. The criminal, however, has a gun and when he turns around he sprays the dog with a hose. The dog has to avoid the hose while still going forward to attack the man. The funny thing is, the officer in this next shot is from the San Joaquin County Sherrif's office. After the dog successfully attacked the criminal and released, the criminal then sprayed the officer and the dog attacked him again. This went on a few times until the dog bit the guy in the butt, pretty dang hilarious. The dog had already attacked the victim in the first phase so he knew he wasn't going to win, so they gave us all a little show.
3. The last phase really threw off a lot of the dogs. Two guys are supposed to be fighting out in the distance. The officer was supposed to tell them to knock it off and then they pull a gun on the officer. At that point the officer then hits the floor and sends the dog instead. About halfway to the guys fighting, they give up and the dog is supposed to be called off and return to the handler. It was a long distance so some of the dogs couldn't hear but maybe 2 or 3 (including the woman handler from Madera) were able to do it and it completely blew my mind. I love what these dogs can do.
So that was my Saturday, how was yours?