Water Rescue Training - Newfoundland

On sunday jess and i joined a group of instructors and newfoundlands to learn her how to do water rescue's.

I was a little nervous, but ended up having a brilliant day. This group do tv shows and regatta's shows and they demonstrate how newfoundlands can rescue people from difficult situations in the water..

It will take us a year of training before we can do a show in public, but we had to start somewhere and this was our first day.

Jess hasn't as yet been in the water (i am ashamed to say) but this was her first attempt at swimming and she loved it.



2 of the instructors helping her start off. They held on to her coat to get her floating and swimming in the correct position. And also just incase she panicked.


As part of the "rescue" she will need to leap from a boat, so it was now time to get jess into one and see how she coped.





At first she was quite nervous of the boat, but they gave her lots of praise and attention and on the second time round the lake she looked quite relaxed about the whole thing.

Next sunday is day 2 of training, so hope it all goes as well.,
thanks for looking.

Brilliant... looks like a lot of fun for her and a useful thing too... good luck with the training

Wonderful thread. Great pics, and something really interesting to read about. can we have a weekly update?

Saw something about this when Crufts was on TV, thought it was amazing, please keep us posted on how things go, great pics, thankx for sharing, I always enjoy seeing or hearing about dogs doing what they were originally breed to do!

Excellent. I hope her training goes well and she goes from strength to strength. Hope she didn't take too long to dry off lol!
Becky

I would be more than happy to do a weekly update on our progress

I found out about this group, when a whole page article was in our local bristol paper showing a HUGE newfoundland stood next to a irish setter. The article told us how the setter had disapeared on a woodland walk and it was getting dark and the owners where frantic. The came across the guy (instructor of this group) and his newfie "whiz" and they helped him try and find this setter. They came across a huge resevoir/tank and the setter was exhausted and trying hard to keep afloat after he had fallen in about an hour ago. David commanded his dog to rescue and all 13st of "whiz" jumped in, grabbed the setter and got him out of the tank.

It was a big story in our newspaper and i just thought it was brilliant to read, newfoundlands love the water and were used many years ago for rescue's.. I was told that around the 2nd world war most lighthouses had newfoundlands on hand purely incase a rescue situation of people was needed. There is currently 1 newfoundland working ( i think its porthcole (sp?) beach, a lovely brown that works with the lifeguards today to pull people from the water if needed. These dogs are incredibley strong, excellent swimmers and very very gentle. It is such a brilliant thing to see a 13stone huge newfie, flying through the air from a boat and pulling a person from the water.

This week the photo's weren't that good, but i will try and get some next week of the experts at work.

Glad you found it interesting.

Weekly update sounds good.... very interesting topic

I am on a roll now.......sorry put up with me i am so enthusiastic about this, i forgot to add...

This group (here's there website - hope i am aloud to add it)

http://www.pugnewfs.dircon.co.uk/NFF_contact.htm

lots of pictures and details on there.

Also the most important thing to add, is that all money raised goes to childrens charities, they have been running for 16 years and raised nearly half a million pounds. Which i think is an excellent achievement in itself.

What a fantastic thread!

I have loved seeing and hearing all about this, it is such a worthy cause I am sure you will love training. I cannot think of anything more worthwhile than training your dog to become a potential lifesaver, I am really looking forward to hearing your progress, well done you xxx

Oh WOW - seems fantastic! What a lovely story about the dog rescue too!

Look forward to many more pics and updates!