Holly proves why it is National Dog Day!

After Jackie’s trip to the ER this morning we decided to not let it be a completely blown day by taking a drive to Quechee Gorge to go for a wander around the antiques market (well, Crisp and I did, Jackie stayed outside with a book and her ankle elevated) and to get some excellent “private stock” cheese from the Cabot shop.

Then we came back and I decided to take my drone out for some flying before firing up the barbecue to cook dinner. I was having some problems with a loose connection from the fpv camera, so I did some quick and dirty field adjustments to get it working again and then should have re-calibrated the controller board before flying it again, but thought I could get away without- big mistake!

As you will see in the video below I was having real trouble controlling it and keeping it in the air before I lost it and crashed- hard. In the crash the rubber bushings supporting the main HD camera ripped free and the whole camera flew off the drone into the long grass. I went to pick up the drone and couldn’t find any sign of the camera… I searched for about 10 minutes with no luck, so I went in and brought Holly out figuring she might as well get to run around while I was searching (she has to be shut in the house while I’m flying the drone as she goes nuts barking and chasing it). She watched me searching for a couple of minutes and was looking at me quizzically, so I told her to “seek”, which is what I tell her when she can’t find a tennis ball I’ve thrown, and she started sniffing around. Less than a minute later she zeroed in on one spot and looked at me expectantly- I looked where she was indicating, and there was the camera buried deep in the long grass!

The camera was running the whole time- if you look closely at the timestamp where I fade out to black and back again you will see about 15 minutes has passed 🙂

What an awesome dog! Truly worthy of her own day 🙂