This is Nikita, who was purchased by Doug Steel, from Trailrunners in 2008, and at the time of ths picture, is now 15 months old.  She is well on her way to becoming fully certified as a Search and Rescue dog with the SAARDA organization in Edmonton. This is Doug pictured here with Nikita at a recent Trailrunners public event. 

It is very good for these dogs to be in an environment where they can be touched and greeted by many people of all ages, which is the case at this event.  We at Trailrunners want the Public to see what a well bred and trained working dog looks and acts like.  This is why we get out to as many public events as we can.  People stop to pet the dogs and to ask questions about their work.

Doug is an active member of SAARDA and is a great trainer and handler for Nikita.

Below you can see Nikita with her "thinking face", with the wrinkled brow she gets when she is working on a search.  Search and rescue dogs with the ability of Nikita take countless hours of work and preparatioin. The morning of this demonstration she had worked for four hours finding articles, and she is being trained to also find live "missing" people.  Dogs with the aptitude to even begin training for this type of work are hard to come by.  That is why we breed working dogs at Trailrunners. 

Here is a public event where the training of a puppy to retrieve is being demonstrated

Muskeg Maze, a Trailrunners 10 week old working yellow Labrador Retriever puppy is demonstrating his training natural talents for the audience at a recent event.

Here "Keg" is getting ready for his first retrieve.

Here he is retrieving his first mark.

Going for his second one!

Yay! He brings it back!  2 perfect retrieves in a row is not bad for a 10 week old pup!

Woahhh! Here goes the decoy!  Well he is a puppy and they have a short attention span!

At Trailrunners we do demonstrations like this whenever we get the opportunity in order to both entertain and to educate the public about proper training and socialization of puppies. 

Trained dog demonstration

Here is a demonstration where we show a variety of dogs performing in various obedience and hunting tasks,  for their handlers.  An obedient dog is a happy and safe dog.

Here Trailrunners Jazz, a 10 week old chocolate Lab puppy, who is learning to focus through "the food drill".  We do not use treats to train dogs, this is training her during her mealtime.

To have Trailrunners dogs put on a demonstraton for your group, give us a call at 1 866 939 8008, or email info@trailrunners.ca

We breed specifically to keep alive the working lines of labs, dogs that are intelligent, trainable, and genetically sound. Their work can include the work of being a "pet".    One of the jobs of any well bred and socialized dog is to relate well with children.  We like to bring the dogs to events where we can let children pet and get to know the dogs, as well as to learn about relating properly to dogs and being safe around dogs,  from our handlers.

Here is a Fox Red Lab, Trailrunners Autumn Gale at an event. Children are able to get up close and personal with our dogs.  Gale is a certified Therapy Dog with St John Ambulance, and is owned by Trailrunners.   Gale also has her Working Certificate Excellent (WCX),  Junior Hunt (JH),  and Companion Dog (CD) obedience titles.  She can be relaxed one minute and working hard in the field the next. These are the type of dogs we breed, "on - off" dogs. 

This is Trailrunners Birdy Brune, who is a Chocolate Lab.  She is also a Certified Therapy Dog with St. John Ambulance, and holds hunt test titles and obedience titles as well.  To be qualified to breed at Trailrunners, our dogs must be able to be certified in these various fields of service to show that they are worthy of being called working Labs.  There are as well many working dogs in each of their pedigrees.

A well trained dog stays obedient at all times.  Here is Trailrunners Autumn Gale on a stool waiting patiently for her next command.

The Golden Retriever in the picture below (Basil)  is actually a client's dog that we trained at Trailrunners.  This was a dog who was fearful and anti-social when he arrived at our training center for behaviour rehabilitation, and  we have brought him to this event at the end of his training to show how far he has come in the 30 days.  He never would have been able to do this a month ago!

Here is a small Trailrunners Chocolate Lab puppy (Jazz) getting socialized by the children at the same time that the children are learning about puppies.  They are learning from each other!