Hi I am new to these forums and a new Malinois owner. I have a 16week old male who I plan to use for volunteer search and rescue. Do any of you have any suggestions for educational games I can play with him to get him more prepared for his work? I already play the "find it" game where I hide food around the room and he searches til he finds it all. We don't start formal s&r training for awhile.
I can give more puppy information if it helps.
thank you in advance!

First, your pup needs to have an obsession for a particular toy. It can be a ball on a string, tug toy, anything that excites the devil out of the pup. Ed's tape on building drive, focus and grip is a great one to teach YOU how to do this. From there, teaching the pup to find you WITH the toy is easy. Have someone hold the pup while you run, keeping the pups attention with lots of excitement. Just a few yards and first. The holder gives the search command, lets the pup go, and you get excited as hell and reward with the toy. It's just a simple progression form there. As the pup starts to "get" the game, add distance. Once you have distance, hide behind trees, etc, but only a step or so out of sight. When the dogs "gets" this game, start hiding is slightly harder spots. This is when the pup starts using its nose. This a simple answer to just one of the many aspects of SAR. Find a good SAR team in your area, watch and ask LOTS of questions.

Thank you Bob! I really appreciate you giving me the advice. I'm excited to try that game with him. I'm ordering the tape you mentioned as a Christmas present for the pup and I. We are doing training with the local highway patrol k-9 handler/trainer but he doesn't have specific s&r experience so I will also look for a club so I can start observing.
if anyone else has other games/exercises to do I'd love to hear them too.
thanks again Bob.

Bob gives good advice.

I would add tons of socialization and desensitization. Get the dog used to lots of people and expose puppy to unstable surfaces, the environment you will be searching in, fire trucks, noise, other animals, etc etc etc. Every new experience should be great fun for the dog. Don't overwhelm but be positive with new experiences. It pays off.

Disaster or Wilderness makes a diffence how you need to raise your dog.

Get on a team - NOW - there is a LOT in SAR not involved with the dogs that you need to master (but working with LE is very good for knowledge and contacts) - check into state requirements for SAR handlers too - some states have statewide standards, don't know about California)

California has some pretty tough standards from what I can recall talking with teams from there.

I may be wrong, but I don't believe that any State actually has K-9 SAR certification standards that must be met prior to deployment (ie, REQUIRED by the State as is the case with Police Dogs in many States).

California, for example, does not have a State Standard/Certification requirement, I believe. CARDA (California Rescue Dog Association) DOES have high standards/cert requirements for its teams. However, I do not believe that CARDA is run by the State and you certainly do NOT have to be a member of CARDA or certified by them to work a dog in SAR in CA.

I know that a National and/or State testing standard and certification requirement for K-9 SAR teams is a subject of much debate in the K-9 SAR community. Some people (myself included) feel that a K-9 SAR team should NOT be deployable unless they have passed a State or National level certification (which doesn't exist yet.) Others feel that a team should be able to deploy if they only meet their own teams standards (which could be anything.)

It is highly variable.

I *think* NY and VA both have state standard requirements and NC has a SAR advisory council.......but is mute on K9 Standards.

There are some National Level Certifications for dog handlers but they are not mandated to be used:

NAPWDA for trailing (but it is geared for urban police trailing) and area search (but it is a fairily simple test) and

NASAR Certifications.......which are pretty similar to the standards most teams set internally, but can be hard to actually get set up.

For Cadaver you have NNDDA and LETS

IPWDA does all of the above, but I don't know how many people are members of IPWDA; it is hard enough to find NAPWDA members and most LE around here seem to be USPCA which does not certify civilian dog handlers.

It is a big topic of discussion. I think there will always have to be regional expectations due to terrain and climatic variances. (e.g., we require teams to be able to certify in mountainous terrain at night as one condition as that is a reality for many searches-but that would be silly for folks who deploy only in Florida - where they might require teams to certify under some other local conditions)

I think more and more teams are aware that they might get pulled into court and are pretty rigorous about training records, certifications, AND demonstrating and maintaining proficiency. Any team should be able to share their standards with an agency requesting help.

I'm aware of the various organizations (such as NAPWDA, CARDA, etc) that have certification standards and testing. I guess I was trying to say that in many States, Police Work Dogs *must* be certified by the *State* prior to working the street. Not just any organization, but the State's law enforecement accredidation agency itself, such as POST.

I don't *believe* this is the case with K-9 SAR in most, if not all, States. Certain SAR organizations and/or LE agencies may require you to be certified (through any or a specific organization) before you can deploy for them. But I don't believe the *State* itself requires this, anywhere. If I am wrong, please list the State(s) that *do* mandate State certification (not outside certification, like NAPWDA or CARDA) and please point me to a source (such as the State OES office) that lists what the States certification standards and requirements are.

Best regards

Scott, unfortunatelly, your correct about the different certification standards. Most of the teams out their set their own standards. Those are only as good as the team leaders want them to be. that's also the reason I left the (supposidly) top team in Missouri. To many double standards in the standards. I visited a FEMA team a few months ago and was impressed with their training and dogs. Unfortunately, I don't want to get involved in FEMA's ongoing BS. As of now, I'm an independant with a couple of good handlers/trainers, with good dogs that I can call on or be called by. I'll probably keep it that way.
Schtzhund doesn't have the same types of rewards, but I'm loving it.

I thought VA and NY but I could be wrong.

I live in a state (SC) where volunteer SAR is not even recognized yet (we don't get state insurance and tax breaks) and the few teams have to do much legwork to earn credibility.

Fortunatly we are cooperative and not competetive (actually in a few days, 3 of our teams will be working together on a search) and are trying to keep it that way ....

...but that does not address the problem of REQUIRING standard certification within a state. I guess the FEMA Wilderness categorizations were a *step* in that direction, but they are very sketchy and nothing near certification.