Western Missouri Correctional Center Dog Team wins 1st Place at competition

On Oct. 4-5, 2017, Western Missouri Correctional Center’s Dog Team competed at Camp Clover Point, Lake Ozark State Park. The competition consisted of a night run and a day run. Each team included one dog, one dog handler, one backup dog handler and a three-person support team in the woods, with a dog team leader and a time keeper in a van. The tracks, which were aged for two hours before the 9 a.m. competition start time, include four white flags hanging in trees throughout the track, indicating the location of the person laying the track. Each team has 1.5 hours to find the person laying the track. Each flag found takes one minute off of the total time at the end of the track. One the second day of competition, flags were lying on the ground instead of hanging in trees. Western Missouri Correctional Center’s Dog Team was the only team to complete a night catch, with a time of 59 minutes. Their day catch time was 45 minutes.