Thank you to those that have continued to take an interest in Sirius' (and my) life as we've transitioned into SAR retirement and have been following our posts, adventures, and thoughts on my new private blog.  If you haven't gotten the invite link to that and would like it, message me! D&S

Retired - Last Post

Sirius' first walk as a civilian

TIME TO GO

When looking at when a search and rescue dog retires, it's usually when the dogs body is no longer able but the mind is very much still willing.  That can also be the case with the handlers that face the same decision.  And on the flip side, just like a dog that is no longer interested, yet physically able to, gets pulled from training, a handler no longer motivated must also go.  That was the decision I made for Sirius and I on July 11, 2013.

DRAGGING MYSELF
It was certainly not a quick decision.  I'd been thinking about it for a long time now.  After Hero died in 2008 that's when it started.  But I had set a goal to do volunteer search and rescue for ten years and I hadn't reached that with him, having only done eight.  So I got another dog, Sirius Black, which committed me to his time span.  And now facing my fourteenth year, and dragging myself these last few, I wasn't really looking forward to it.   The many hours and searches had taken it's toll on my relationship.  My job questioned how dedicated I was to SAR compared to it.  Tons of money was spent.  And work around the house was being neglected.

Don't worry Sirius, your
new life won't be as slow
as this turtles

OBLIGATIONS
I had obligations to the team; too many to list it seemed.  And I had an even greater obligation to the missing person which I would be searching for.  Having a qualified search dog that was very good at what he did was a resource I didn't want to keep from a response if able to.

THE FUN STOPPED
But with personal issues over the last year on the relationship front, and a promotion at work at the same time, I did not attend trainings as much as I could have and should have.  And I was not motivated to hop in my car to travel three hours away to a search.  My mind was no longer on search and rescue.  What I used to be very enthusiastic about was becoming an nuisance.  Basically when the fun stops, it's time to go.

SIRIUS WILL GO ON
I feel bad that Sirius won't be doing something that he was great at, especially since he's still able to with both mind and body.  But he'll have fun doing other things because his love of life and people was not limited to just search and rescue.


LOOKING BACK
I documented:
13 years (8 Hero / 5 Sirius)
1 person found (deceased) with Hero
4,661 volunteer hours (2,585 Hero / 2,076 Sirius)
68,328 miles driven (47,829 Hero / 20,499 Sirius)
63 searches responded to (43 Hero / 20 Sirius)
99 demonstrations (57 Hero / 42 Sirius)

Sirius still loves to range out and explore

Pavlov's Search and Rescue Dog

Every so often I'm watching a TV show and someone will have one of those old Alpha-numeric pagers that go off for some reason or another.  Beep-beep, Beep-beep, Beep-beep...hearing that always reminds me of the numerous years that I carried one of my teams call out pagers.  Back before cell phones with text and email alerts, I had to carry a pager on my belt the size of a cigarette pack (so it seemed to me).  That, with my work pager, and my cell phone and sometimes my multipurpose tool/knife, I felt sort of like Batman!  I was very happy the day that we were able to reconfigure our teams search call out notifications in regards to searches and have the alerts come through to our cell phones/email and I could say goodbye to the pager.

But just because it was gone, it was not forgotten.  One other in my household that remembers those middle of the night pages is my dog, Sirius!  While I'm watching the TV and some important persons pager goes off, Sirius wakes from a deep sleep and gets up expecting me to jump up as well and start the whole process of phone calls and packing up to hit the road for a search.  If he's in another room than I'm watching in he'll come running to make sure I'm getting up.

Maybe one day he'll forget about this sound, but for now he's ready even in his sleep to go to work.