Meet Sirius Black

This handsome gentleman is Sirius Black, the dog which this blog is named after.  He is a 2 yo German shepherd.  A lot of people think he's something else, maybe along the lines of a black lab.  But German shepherds can be all white and all black in addition to the more common black and tan coloring.

K-9 Sirius Black

This post will be about the story of how I came upon young Sirius.  He didn't come to me grown,  but rather a size so little that it was easy to just carry him in your arms.  His first SAR vest was a size small, and even that was baggy on him.  But he quickly outgrew it.

A small Sirius in his small vest shortly after I got him

The plan with search and rescue was that I was going to work Hero until he retired and then retire from it myself as well.  I was expecting him to continue working until he was between 10 and 12 years old (the later years just doing water recovery work) and have a nice easy transition.  I figured that after he was done, he could have the nice life relaxing at home and I'd have time to spend on things that had otherwise been taken up with SAR.  But with his untimely (and quick) death before he even reached the age of nine canceled all those plans.  I was not thinking I'd be stopping volunteer SAR so soon, but I wasn't thinking I'd run out and get another dog to continue on either.  I was at a crossroad...End SAR earlier than I thought, or continue on with another dog.

One of my team mates took my fiance and I out to dinner shortly after our loss, and I was explaining my thoughts about all this.  I did say that if I did end up getting another dog to continue SAR, it would have to look nothing like Hero, so would get an all black one.  We then added to the conversation that we should name such a dog "Sirius Black" after the Harry Potter character.

Sirius about to do a runaway with a recall/refind indication

Well the next day, my same team mate had me go out to Colonial K9 with her to scout out an area for our teams agility course to be built.  After parking we walked across the lot in the direction where the course would likely be built and low and behold, off to my left was a pen set up outside in the shade filled with lots of little black German shepherd puppies.  I steered over to take a look at them and quickly sized them all up.  I seperated the males from the females, seperated the obnoxioius barkers from the quiet ones, seperated the curious from the non-caring, and made eyecontact with them all.  One stood out that I was interested in.  We pulled him out of the group to see how he liked people..he loved us...we threw a ball and engaged him in play...he liked to play...he seemed perfect!  He even had a hunter orange string around his neck for his identifying color...truly a sign!

Sirius runs to the hiding person after being given the "find" command.

I left him there that day questioning if it was too soon to get another dog.  Another team mate in attendance gave these words of wisdom, "It can never be too soon, but it can be too long" before we all left.  I returned the next day with my fiance and her and I took him for a little stroll around the property.  We were very impressed that for his little size he was keeping up with us on some steep embankments...he really wanted to stay with us.  He did not care whatsoever about leaving the pen filled with all the other pups behind...he liked being free of them and hanging with us.  We "borrowed" him and took him to the shore of Leesylvania (where Hero was put down) to see if there would be some sort of sign maybe that we should take this new bundle of fur.  We feel close to Hero there, and we felt that it was right to take young Sirius and make him ours.

Since then, Sirius as grown to be a fantastic dog.  He's smart, funny, and a happy go lucky kind of dog.  He just wants to be with his people.  He loves his work as a search and rescue dog.  He has his own nicknames, such as the Stealth Bomber, the Ninja, and Cereal.  He's building his reputation and making his mark.  Heck, he has his own Facebook page, team Trading Cards, and even his own team email!  Looking back on it, we're believing that I was "set up", and that my team mate knew there was a litter of little black GSD's at Colonial K9, and that's why I was asked to go the next day there with her...but she has never admitted it to this day!

Sirius has found the person and returned to me performing

his "jump" indication to say he's found them.

The original plan for search and rescue was that I at least do it for ten years, which was up last October, and if Sirius didn't seem to take to it or enjoy it, then I would call it quits and decide what to do next.  But if he were to really take off with it and in a sense decide himself that he likes it, I would keep doing it for as long as he liked.  Search and rescue has become fun for me again (after two years of staring at a crossroad), and our team has lots of good people and dogs that make it all that much more easier to keep coming out to trainings for, but what really is keeping me in the game is a great dog named Sirius Black.