Tell that to the mother of a lost child! A SAR tracker should be able to move quickly. I don't know about where you live, but the wilderness here is rough enough that you can't run even if you wanted to. Keeping the dog from dragging you through a mud bog or patch of stinging nettle is challenge enough.

Parker--
Just to clarify your last post. Are you saying that a handler should RUN behind a SAR dog?

If the terrain permits, and if it is a hasty search. A hasty search, if you don't know, is a search where certain factors are taken into consideration, such as the subject's age, experience, equipment, and medical conditions, or any number of things, and it is determined that every second could be a matter of life and death. Say a small child has wandered off near a river, then yes, I would run if I could do so safely. The safety of the search team must be taken into consideration as well. I just don't think there should be a blanket rule regarding running behind your SAR dog.

Are there any other police officers or SAR members who also agree you should run behind your dog on some SAR missions?

I'd really like to get an idea as to what the majority of people are doing.

This is in reply to Rosep's query above.

I am not a breeder, but if I was, this is the policy I would adhere to:

Dogs that are "extreme" in any fashion usually do not contribute much to any breed. The exception might be when you are trying to compensate for a potential problem in the progeny of a bitch you are breeding to (i.e. super high drive stud for a low drive bitch). But then the question would present itself to me: Why do I want to breed this bitch? I think you can see where I'm going here.

Obviously, experienced breeders are going to know a lot more about this than I do.

I don't think I would personally want a dog with such extreme prey drive that he would be unable to calm himself and focus on a task when necessary.

Pete Felknor

p.s. and let me make myself perfectly CLEAR here: I do not intend to debate prey drive in dogs... prey drive is a good thing and I'm all for it. I believe and will always believe that any dog starting protection training for any reason must be started in prey drive. I referred above only to the sort of balance I like to see in a dog that I would consider training personally.

Pete Felknor

Kevin S.,
I can't speak for police officers, but I will say that my understanding is that if a suspect is running away, how the heck are you going to catch up with him if you're walking behind your FST style tracking dog? You're not. The suspect will get away.
In SAR, there are categories for the condition of the subject, such as responsive/mobile, unresponsive/immobile, respsonsive/immobile, etc etc. An alzheimer's patient could very easily be mobile, and can be capable of moving through rough terrain pretty quickly. You have to move fast if you want to catch up with them before they fall off the big cliff they're heading straight for; then it's a body recovery and not a rescue.
I'm not clear on why you're so concerned about this. Are you involved in police work or SAR? Do you plan to be? Do you do tracking with your dog? Or are you just curious?


Pete, I agree with you completely. Let me add that I believe that dogs have one main drive, which is survival. All other drives stem from that. That is not to say that that is all that makes a dog, they are more than that, which is obvious to anyone who has had a dog for a best friend. But, a good balance of drives is important, which should go without saying. I've seen a few really hyper dogs, and one of them in particular is a really excellent SAR dog, when working. But when not working, he just can't seem to settle down, and tends to go bonkers instead of waiting his turn patiently. He's from sport lines, BTW. I like a dog who can settle down when it's time to settle down, yet can get out there and work when it's time to work. Is that what you mean by "balanced"?

I'm not clear on why you're so concerned about this. Are you involved in police work or SAR? Do you plan to be? Do you do tracking with your dog? Or are you just curious?

I'm concerned about LEO's running behind their dogs and risking their lives unnecessarily.

Yep, I'm a Sheriff's Deputy

Yes, I track with my patrol dog....very successfully and have done so in both law enforcement and S&R functions for more than a decade now. I don't run behind my dog. If you are into running you might do the math. If you show up :20 mintes behind a suspect how long will it take to capture that individual if his average speed is 10min. mile and yours a blistering 8? If you study the behavior of criminals it doesn't work this way. They either have a place to go, go to a populated place and call a friend (or just use the cell phone in their pocket), or are too drunk to run more than 150 yards. Or, and this is the way good police work is done, containment is set up by the field troops and the K-9 handler comes in and hunts the suspect. Slowly, carefully, and successfully. This is the way the real world works.

Thanks Kevin, I learned something new today.

Kevin Sheldahl,
In that quote that you took from my post, I was talking to Kevin Scott. I suppose I should have made that clearer. I know who you are, but I don't know who he is, and didn't know if he was really someone who has a reason to know, or if he was "just curious".

I don't track criminals, so criminal behavior isn't a huge concern. Lost subject behavior, on the other hand, is. If the subject has a firearm or is suspected of being suicidal or dangerous in any way, they don't send in SAR, they send in Law Enforcement. At least that's the way it works here, in the real world that I live in. If there is a known safety concern with the subject, I won't be there, unless they have already succeeded in taking their own life. Another difference between us is that I live in the Pacific Northwest. I don't know if you've ever been to the wilderness here, but it's very rough terrain, and you really can't run most of the time anyway.

Which brings me back to running; I think you're envisioning some sort of windsprint or something. What I'm referring to is more of a jog, or trot. If a relative of the subject is around, which is often the case, I am certainly not going to walk along like I have all the time in the world. I won't argue with you about whether or not to run behind your dog. I will agree to disagree, however. There is just way too much conflicting information coming at me from knowledgeable handlers that I just can't take one person's word for it. Just one of those things that I will have to learn from experience and decide for myself. Thanks for your opinion, though, it will be taken into consideration. Yet another thing to have to worry about, as if wind direction, humidity, terrain, etc etc, are not enough! <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />