Memories of a four-legged friend and colleague

A stern dog, wary, distrustful, brave, I picked him up on the street, already an adult, but clearly young. At that time, I worked in a pre-trial detention center as a cynologist and thought that he would become my partner, but they said that “they don’t take such astronauts”, that a mongrel doesn’t belong here, and even showed an order that spelled out a list of breeds used for service .⠀⠀⠀

So the Hobbit became domestic, and I was left without a job. ⠀⠀⠀

Two years later, I got a job as a cynologist at the Ministry of Emergency Situations, where they gave me a golden retriever puppy, and we began to learn the basics of rescue work. The hobbit went to work with us, and one day I decided to conduct a training to find a person and with him, rather as an experiment, since we remember that he was serious and distrustful, and a rescue dog seems to love people very much. But, as it turned out, the Hobbit understood the rules very quickly, yes, he did not like hugs with strangers, but he knew that, having found a person, he would get his favorite ball, for this he climbed through the thicket, went down into dark cellars, made his way into hard-to-reach sites of demolished buildings. ⠀⠀⠀

Two years after the start of training, Hobbit took second place out of 12 participants in the Regional competition of search and rescue crews of the canine service of the Russian Ministry of Emergency Situations in the Far East region. And the first place in these competitions at the stage “Search in the technogenic blockage”. He was at that time 7 years old. ⠀⠀⠀

In total, the Hobbit served in the Ministry of Emergency Situations for 6 years, retired at 11 years old, much later than the generally accepted one, but even in retirement he helped train young rescue dogs for a long time. By this time, he was no longer harsh and distrustful, he completely forgot his hard street childhood, which taught him not to trust the world. The hobbit knew kindness, felt his importance, learned to work in a team, and he himself climbed to caress even strangers.⠀⠀

The Hobbit left us last year, but his memory will forever remain in the hearts of those who knew him during his lifetime. And in the footsteps of the Hobbit, a new young shaggy rescuer Volt is already following.