Search & Rescue Dogs

Mojo

Reading between the lines re the period you were involved in the search Im assuming the misper was deceased when found ?

Lowland SAR Dogs and SARDA are trained to find "live" human scent. Whilst these dogs have had success in finding deceased casulaties it is not primarily what they are trained for.

Without going into the nitty gritty on here if a handler knows they are potentially looking for deceased misper then a "tighter" search pattern would be employed than would be used for a "live misper". Therefore from a search managment point of view this aspect should be included when briefing the dog handler.

Good luck with your knowledge gaining !

Cheers

Searcher

Sorry just another thought.

How would the rain affect a dogs ability to search? I'm thinking in terms of 'Air-Scenting'?

Hopefully I'll experience all this first hand in March - just thinking out loud again or having a 'craft' moment x

Without going into it too much.

The scent being airborne would become saturated in water forcing it to the ground. Although you would expect this to drastically reduce the dogs ability to find the scent it can still be found on the surface water. Also not all scent is grounded some does continue on as air scent, thankfully rain usually comes with wind which helps to carry it further.

The worst conditions to search in are still wind and hot days as the scent behaves in many different ways an example of this would be looping - This is when the scent rises into the air moving on thermal currents until it finally cools and falls back to ground some distance away. When this happens the dog finds the scent however as there is no workable cone the dog cannot follow it in to the Misper. Under these circumstances it is down to the handler to use his/her abilities to find the scent cone for the dog.

Hope this helps,

Pete.

I have found a presentation here that you can look at - if you download it and look at it in powerpoint you will be able to read the explinatory notes.

http://www.disasterdog.org/manual/Oct_2006/Unit%2010%20Scent%20Theory.ppt

Even though it is American and deals with disaster work, there are some items that you will find interesting!

Thanks for the above.

Your both a star x