Doug Goodman

I struggled with what to put for my 100th post.  I wanted it to be memorable, yet something pertinent to the website.  I won't say that I lost a lot of sleep on it, but it definitely preoccupied my mind during a couple of meetings when I probably should have been paying attention to something else.

I even got to asking my wife for any thoughts or ideas.  She told me just to do what I've already done.  I wasn't satisfied with the answer, but she was right.  It's funny how these things tend to work themselves out. 

I have a great announcement for my 100th post:  Mojo has been cleared to do human remains work with my SAR team!  When I was first given the news, I didn't realize what was going on.  It took a while for it to sink in.  I was given the news halfway through Saturday morning's training, and it wasn't until when people were leaving that I actually started to figure out what had happened.  Then I couldn't stop smiling the rest of the day.  Mojo is a human remains dog.  It's really nice not having to add "in training" to the end of that.

I did not think this day would come to be honest.  Mojo, as I have mentioned in this blog post, has his own brand of personality.  It took about 4 or 5 years to work through that personality, but for the past 6 or 7 months, he has been a very consistent search dog when it comes to field work.  Saturday was no exception.  It was a blind set up, meaning I was not given the locations of the scent items, which were scattered along a trail - some up in trees, others on the ground.  Mojo found every one of them.  In almost every case, he led me to the article, and with his back to me, laid down on the ground.  His head arched back as he looked to me and ask "you coming yet?"  It was a really cool feeling.

After that blind search is when I was given the feedback and told that my mud dog could do field work.  There is still work to be done.  Things I need to polish up, but he was finding scent items without my help.  I also need to work now on getting him to clear an area.  Moj needs to be able to say that no scent item is in an area.  For today, though, I will be happy with our accomplishments.

We did a second blind search later in the day to work on the new scent items (the rib and vertebra).  The rib had been placed next to a sand pit that was covering something really, really foul.  I couldn't believe Mojo could walk up to it, but he had no problem finding the vertebra.  Again, he led me in, and he took directin sto search certain areas. 

Okay, so I'm still smiling about this.  That's my 100th blog post.