I would like to add that our evaluator for AkioYodasan's Mission Readiness Evaluation was Mary Berry, President and Founder of Sandia Search Dogs in Albuquerque. Mary is an esteemed and highly respected member of the SAR community and has been a K9 Search Specialist for 20+ years in both Urban and Wilderness SAR, also serving as the K9 Unit Leader for Task Force 1. She responded to the Pentagon during 9/11 and Katrina and has been on hundreds of wilderness search missions. We were deeply honored to have Mary evaluate us!

AkioYodasan received his Mission Ready Status as an Area Search K9 on 3/30/2018. He will now be serving his community through Taos Search and Rescue, which deploys all over the State of New Mexico and beyond.

The evaluation for Area (Air Scent) Search consisted of finding 1-2 subjects (unknown amount) in 120 acres of medium to difficult mountain forest terrain in 4 hours. AkioYodasan found two subjects in 2 hours and 15 minutes. We are evaluated on 36 areas of competency in the search response. We received five scores of 4 (good) and thirty-one scores of 5 (excellent) for a total of 175 points out of 180 possible points. We are very grateful for such an excellent outcome! K9 Teams are required to receive 140 points or higher to pass to Mission Readiness Status, with several other basic requirements which, if not met, also constitute a fail no matter the scores received. These requirements include: must alert (give final indication) on find, must find all subjects within the search area, must not give a "false" alert (final indication) without actually having found a person, must complete the task in the allotted time.

AkioYodasan's training and Mission Readiness Evaluation in Area Search was delayed for 1.5 years due to my own illness. I have now recovered and had been training him with enough consistency for a specified period of time for him to be eligible for the Mission Readiness Evaluation. He is a wonderful dog, very quick and eager to learn despite the interruptions life has presented. We will be continuing to expand his search abilities through further refining and challenging of his area response along with continued training in other modalities: Track/Trail and Human Remains Detection. He is currently at a medium level of competency in these other modalities, and is fully expected to reach Mission Readiness in these response areas as well.

AkioYodasan is now available for stud service to acceptable, vetted females for those breeders wanting strong working qualities combined with friendly, solid temperament. Health clearances are required.

Thank you,
Delinda VanneBrightyn
President & K9 Unit Leader
Taos Search & Rescue
Handler & owner, K9 AkioYodasan

10/2017 - AkioYodasan is a wilderness/urban search dog in the last stages of his training for Taos Search and Rescue. He is being cross-trained: for both Live Find and HRD, in Air/Area Search and Track/Trail. Additionally, he is being exposed to finding under snow and water. In this way, he will be prepared to best serve his team in any situation, as was his predecessor before him. His work-ability and adaptability through all these modalities and environments has been exceptional. He learns quickly and has excellent work drives.

AkioYodasan has a very happy countenance and is super friendly with everyone he meets. He is strong-willed and driven to succeed. He exhibits such a nice balance of the qualities I needed, as he is quite independent, yet he also thrives on attention and affection. This has given him the ability to readily work and range away from me to make a find, yet is very eager to go into a new person he has never met. The breeder worked with me very well to ensure both certain temperament qualities and exposures through development.

He is a very good problem solver. I have already put him through many paces with puzzle toys that he must figure out solo or take my direction to figure out, so we work as a team. He loves each challenge and approaches them with zealous vigor. His skills at problem solving scent scenarios is improving monthly as he slowly gains more experience in different terrains, situations, and weather conditions. By year's end, I think he will have adequate experience to face many of the situations and problems required, although you can never prepare for everything.

AkioYodasan is extremely athletic and took to all agility obstacles right away. He is excellent at jumping, even from a standing position and has always had a natural inclination to lift his hind legs to easily clear the jump. He likes to tunnel into small spaces and I am currently working him on getting better with foot placement for ladder climbing.

He has not shown any sensitivities to sound or movement. He never flinches in the least at things such as slippery surfaces, movement under his feet, or loud noises of any kind. He has had no problem with gunshots, dropping objects, thunder, cars back-firing, etc, even when in super-close proximity. He loads the Blackhawk helicopter very well when in full rotation, so rotor wash or aircraft noise are no issue.

He never met a toy he didn't love. In fact, it has been a challenge to find the one toy for his search reward because of this fact. Dogs usually have a favorite, but I cannot seem to identify any favorite with him. He seems to be equally crazy over a ball, a frisbee, a puzzle toy, or a tug. I have chosen tug for his search reward because of the personal contact, focus and bonding that tugging can bring, along with the tighter control it gives in sometimes perilous or sensitive settings.

He currently assists and demonstrates for me when I teach obedience, agility, behavior modification, K9 enrichment and nose-work classes. He has always done well with this, but is getting even more fine-tuned and sensitive to what I need of him with other people and dogs as time goes on, as I would expect.

He currently does not seem to have any stomach issues, sensitivities to food, or does not have an issue of loose stools when stressed.

AkioYodasan is temperamentally very well-rounded and exhibits excellent health at this time. I have been more than pleased with him personally and his performance as a working dog. Parson's did an excellent job in breeding this fine male.

After his final Evaluation as a search dog, I would consider stud service to a few select females.