Life and Death

"Well, we try to be anyway..."

Bolt said softly at the statement about heroes as he started to walk again, his pace slow as he walked after the group. It took him a few moments longer, but he got there, and with that he sat down, with a small sigh, before curiosity made him look at the rest of the animals joining the group. A golden retriever that he did not recognize. That was a slight relief. And a... fox? That was a bit strange for a group made of canines, but Bolt had nothing against them. After all, he supposed, it wasn't only dogs that had a good sense of smell. The only people that truly gave the dog a pause was the two adult dalmatians who had come in. Very obviously, they were the parents of the dalmatians running around camp... and one of them whose death he had interrupted. Bolt felt his ears fold back involuntarily at the thought, but they didn't seem to recognize him... or they didn't know, or care. Either way, he wasn't going to be the one that mentioned it.

His attention turned back on Dante, however, when the silver shepherd began to explain the activity. Chocolate brown eyes immediately landed on the dummy, identifying how it looked as Dante explained that it was a cinnamon trail that they had to follow in each area. Taking a small step forward, Bolt carefully inhaled the scent of the cinnamon. While he had already known it from when Penny used to put cinnamon in her hot chocolate when they had been home, it never hurt to have a brush up on the scent. After a few good sniffs, Bolt stepped back, nodding slightly. If he hadn't remembered before, he certainly did now.

The two he was assigned to work with were pups, it seemed. Not fully-grown, but not the little fur-balls that he first saw when he joined the war. And they were the two talking earlier... obviously they knew each other, but he knew nothing of them. But they were assigned to each other, so it wouldn't hurt to make small chat as they looked for the dummy.

"Should we head off now?" Bolt asked, both a question for Cassie and Raine, and for Dante himself as he stepped towards the desert area. While he was asking Raine and Cassie if they were going to follow him, his eyes looked at Dante to ask if they were to start at this moment also.

Lady plopped down on her haunches and watched the silver canine leap atop a rock, turning her head to focus on the directions to each of the individual biomes that had been created for this exorcise. Had she not already been exposed to acts of magic, ranging from Merlin's magical psychoses to cure her amnesia, to the spell that allowed Casey Jr. to move on intangible rails, she might have been more impressed by the scope of the biomes. As it was, the feat was not lost on the graceful spaniel.

Still, she was here for a reason and a task. To which she would accomplish to the best of her abilities. As the dummy was presented, she rose to her paws and slowly approached the form. Standing alongside the white German Shepherd, the heavy scent of cinnamon was more then apparent. Still, she lowered her head, eyes closed, and her little black nose took a few sniffs. Taking in the scent and familiarizing herself with it. While she was not as highly trained or attuned as Trusty once was, her canine senses were still working at their best levels, and being of a sporting dog pedigree bred for the collection of birds, she would have no trouble bounding through the thickets.

She pulled her head up and her tail began to wag as they were pared off into teams. That made the cocker feel confident in their success. She had always liked working with a group. She felt more comfortable, even safer, knowing someone else would be there to catch her should she fall.

Her tail ceased wagging, and her ears perked as she was told were she was to go, and with whom. Turning to the group of canines, she began to took for this Hunter. It was a name she was not wholly familiar with. Although she had heard it spoken once before over the food dishes in the mess hall, and heard it spoken ion relation to a wolf. She assumed that being the only wolf here, it had to be him she was approaching.

“Why hello.” She politely chirped as she padded up to the much heftier canine. Rolling her shoulders in order to toss her long silky ears to each side. “My name is Lady. It would seem we are partners for the time being. I'm a little short on tracking experience. However, I'm a fast learner, and-and I've done some scenting in forests before. Shall we set off then?”

((ooc: Waiting for Perdy before I respond as Pongo; but I figure I can slip a Vixey post in now, all the same ^^))

A small smile danced across her maw as Dante voiced how highly the general spoke of her. An almost shy smile, even; though she did her work in the war camp diligently, patching up the wounded left and right as they were brought in, Vixey wasn't sure she was really anything praiseworthy. That Clopin thought otherwise, and that he thought it enough to have passed it on to someone else too, was quite something to her. She gave a little shrug, her acknowledgement of Dante's words.

Didn't immediately have time to say anything else. The large silver canine had hopped up onto a nearby boulder, and Vixey stepped closer to listen as he addressed them all. Her bushy tail curled gently about her hind legs as Dante spoke, her head tilting ever so slightly as she took in the words; and starting to wonder, again, how well she really fit in here.

She had a sense of smell, of course, but it was hardly as acute as a dog's. From a young age Vixey had been taught that a fox's keenest sense was her hearing, a fact that she had been able to prove true many times back in her woodland home - and one which wouldn't help her here at all. While a real person, trapped or lost and in need of rescue, would be making sounds of some kind, even just the sound of breathing, the dummy wouldn't do anything of the sort. She was at a disadvantage - and though Vixey firmly resolved that she wouldn't give up, she wasn't going to be a lot of use in this exercise.

She took a long breath - catching a whiff of the cinnamon into the bargain - as she steeled herself. She'd already committed herself to this; she wasn't going to back out now. In time, she was certain, would come exercises that would play to her forte; for now, she just had to make sure she wasn't left too far behind by the much more able canines.

All she could do was what she could. It wasn't a competition, after all.

She took another step forward, sniffed at the cinnamon more deeply. It was a pleasant scent, she thought; one that she'd be able to recognise easily enough. Picking it out from a distance would be trickier; but she was a positive individual at heart, enough to know that focusing on what she couldn't do wouldn't get her anywhere.

She turned to regard Dante again; not only the group's leader but her current partner too.

"Say, um, I'm ready to do what I can as soon as you want to start."

Cassie listened intently as Dante began to explain their assignment, her floppy ears perked slightly and her eyes not moving from the silver canine. Her gaze left him and flickered to the dummy that had been dragged out, taking in how it looked and what material it seemed to be made of.

She stepped forward and buried her nose in the fabric, inhaling deeply. This had been a mistake however, as she pulled her head back, not realizing just how strong the scent of cinnamon was until it was too late. She stepped back, sneezing as the smell prickled at her nose. She definitely wouldn't be forgetting that scent anytime soon.

Cassie listened again as Dante split them into groups, her tail wagging slightly as she heard her and Raine being paired together, as well as with another dog she'd not yet met.
Her chocolate brown eyes fell upon another white dog, a shepherd by the looks of him. When he moved towards the desert terrain, asking if they should go, Cassie trotted over and stood next to him, waiting for Raine to follow, and the okay to head out and start the search.

The feeling of Pongo's nose against her cheek brought a smile back to Perdita's face, and she looked back to the other Dalmatian for just a moment to acknowledge his greeting. Under any other circumstances she would have returned the favor, but Dante had spoken up and she knew that meant it was time for them to pay attention to what was being said. It was time for the dogs... And fox, she realized, to be split up into groups. As it turned out, she and Pongo would be paired together with... Oh. The Golden Retriever she had seen barreling in would be working with them. It was hard for Perdita not to cringe a little bit when she realized that Dug would be working with her and Pongo. However, they at least had the seeming advantage of working on the plains terrain. That was a good thing at least.

"All right," Perdita said. She knew she didn't have to motion for Pongo to follow her to the dummy Dante had indicated as the scent holder. When Perdita was close enough, she lowered her head a bit and took in a good whiff of the cinnamon smell. It was a scent she knew well enough. Anita liked cinnamon in a warmer drink she made when it got cold, so at least Perdita was familiar with it. Now she just had to hope that Dug and Pongo could both manage learning the smell in a timely manner. She wanted to get started with the tracking so she could properly learn to search and rescue her fellow heroes.

"Well, at least the scent is fairly distinct," Perdita remarked as Dug strode up to join her. The dopey male looked as blissful as could be about the whole situation. Perdita just hoped that maybe he was a good tracker. Maybe that happy-go-lucky smile was just a facade...?

---

"Oh, boy!" Dug yipped. "I am a good tracker. Yes, I am. I can do this!" His tail wagged in a blur behind him and he soon was sniffing eagerly at the dummy Dante had set up. However, it was hard to tell whether or not Dug was actually taking in the scent or not. His nose certainly was big enough to do that much, but his brain power was a bit... Lacking. There was no way to guarantee whether or not he was learning anything right then. Perdita had every right to be concerned with him being her and Pongo's partner. But maybe, just maybe, the pair of Dalmatians would be able to help him out if something went wrong.

"I think I got the scent!" Dug declared. "It is a good scent. We can do this, my fellow dogs! Yes we can!"

He wanted to start leading the way, but it was clear that he wouldn't be leading anybody anywhere. It would be up to Pongo and Perdita to guide him on this little lesson. Perdita could see that as clear as day.

((ooc: Sorry this took so long.))

His head dipped in a nod as he took in the large silver canine's instructions. A practice dummy in fairly standard terrain seemed a fair place to start; and while Pongo couldn't claim to know how Dante had managed to bring snow all the way out here, he wasn't exactly going to question it. Least of all then and there. The snow, after all, wasn't his concern; he, Perdy and someone called Dug had been assigned to the plains. Perhaps a deceptively simple-sounding task; but after the better part of a year spent in Africa, Pongo knew that the grassland plains were alive with scents that could throw an inexperienced tracker.

And while he was good enough to get by, Pongo nonetheless was under no illusions that he was the best of the best when it came to tracking.

Dug, apparently, was the rather pudgy golden retriever. Pongo watched, not sure if he should be amused or not, as the shorter dog took a deep sniff of the dummy, all the while proclaiming how good a tracker he was. Or... no, that wasn't quite right; it was his collar doing the proclaiming. Pongo blinked slightly at that, but decided not to comment. Not for now.

And time, he supposed, would tell whether Dug was as good as his collar said he was.

Rather, he took his place alongside Perdy, sniffing at the familiar scent. Roger had never used cinnamon much, but he'd become accustomed to the smell once Perdita and her pet had become part of the family; it seemed to be something that Anita liked. A couple of sniffs was all it took to remind him of the scent, and he pulled back to let Dug continue his own almost overeager sniffing.

"And at least we're partnered with each other," he added his own thoughts to Perdita's statement. It wouldn't have been the end of the world if they hadn't been, that much was true; but even so, Pongo was glad for any opportunity to work alongside his wife. They'd been separated for so long when he was in Agrabah that, truthfully, he never wanted to be apart from her for long again.

He didn't have chance to say much more before Dug had spoken up again. Pongo couldn't help a slight raise of his eyebrows, even in spite of his resolution not to judge the other canine's abilities prematurely; and he gloanced at Perdy, who seemed rather less-than-enthused about their third member. Pongo wasn't sure he could entirely blame her there - but all the same, he was willing to give Dug the chance.

"He at least has optimism going for him," the spotted male observed softly. Optimism alone wouldn't do that much good, granted, but it was - as he had said - at least something. Deciding that, at least for now, it fell to him to make the first move, Pongo glanced at his teammates. The love of his life, and the overweight retriever.

"Come on. Perdy, my darling. Dug."

With a nod to each of them, he led the way towards the plains terrain.