Sandra & Angela you are both right about sar and bite dogs. Where i live i thought i would give them a hand with my dog. He is a dual propose dog (Drugs,Tracking,building searches,and great obedience). Guess what they turn me down because of his training in BITE work. We go to schools and we show how he will fine someone and he love all the kids and i know some people don't like that.But i don't want him to bite unless i command him too.Thats why i don't care for bark & hold if someone would sratch they get bit.

Jerry, several teams in NC are particularly opposed to bite dogs because David Hancock, formerly of NCSARDA, had is stomach ripped open by a poorly trained bite dog. He showed us all his scar.

I don't think too many people in NC do bark and hold either. I am not a fan of it for many reasons.

There ARE bite trained dogs doing SAR in other areas.

The discussion of whether or not to allow is full of pros and cons and typically a lot of agitation on both sides - and not just from people who don't understand bitework . None of our team dogs are trained in bitework though we do not have a hard and fast policy about it.

The SAR teams here won't work with a bite trained dog. The questions about live find and cadaver is interesting tho because several of the teams I've worked with are trained for both. What would be the problems if any of having a dog trained for both?


Lisa

My shepherd is trained for live search but she will alert on cadaver as well (never knew it until one of our NASAR tests). Many disaster dogs will alert on live and dead finds. The sights are marked and once the living are rescued, they extracate the dead either during or before the building or rubble is removed.

The implication in the first post was this dog would be a disaster dog - "homeland security" - for a disaster dog they would not want to risk a cross trained dog alerting on cadaver when the critical issue is finding live people. The disaster folks here can speak more eloquently to this.

Lots of teams do cross train wilderness dogs to "find" cadaver but finding a whole body in various stages of decomposition or an old shallow grave or a hanging body or a drowning or somebody under concrete or a disarticulated skeleton is a whole lot different than the small amount of training that is put in for most live find dogs. It is also a discipline that involves knowing how to use tools (e.g., soil probes, boat work, etc.) I think many folks, myself included, believe that cadaver dogs should be single-purpose. But the right trainer with the right dog can pull it off.

Live Find Dogs should be exposed to a large cadaver source to be able to "catalog" its response. I already knew that my cadaver dog would NOT hackle at a full body (a common response of many dogs), so when he hackled and backed off in an area with a heavy bear population, we noted the area and backed out - - the area was, in fact, free of human remains.

 Quote: JERRY FERGUSON

”…i thought i would give them a hand with my dog. He is a dual propose dog (Drugs,Tracking,building searches,and great obedience). Guess what they turn me down because of his training in BITE work.”

Jerry:
Don’t feel too bad, the turn-down is very likely more attributable to liability insurance than the fact your dog knows bite work. As a matter of fact; SAR dogs and bite work was a point of contention when CARDA (the nation’s largest contingent of search dogs) and WOOF (also in California) help draft California’s current OES search dog standards.

After some fuss between proponents of bite work and those against, the issue was finally decided by insurance considerations (yup, pencil-pushing bureaucrats; NOT dog folk who know better). The state (California) determined that it was not cost-effective to include a bite trained dog on SAR teams, because additional insurance costs outweighed benefits. It’s my understand, this trend has been mirrored in many other states.

Unfortunately, as others may attest, within the SAR dog community on whole; odd perceptions often equate to reality -- rightly or wrongly so.

Nancy, I agree, the focus should always be on the living, but there are dogs that will alert on both live and cadaver. My air scent dog alerted on cadaver (during a wilderness search) that had been placed there the day before in a small container for only a few hours and removed. With that small amount of scent, she still alerted. It was not her regular response, but I knew she had "something". Should I have ignored the alert or go check it out?

After certifying for Air Scent, Shadow and I are now currently in-training for disaster work. She has dual alerts down and working well on bark boxes and rubble piles. I have had the privilege of working with some USAR and FEMA teams and hopefully this spring, we can start ramping up disaster training again, but maybe we need to just focus on the live find. I really don't want to pursue cadaver training.

I have alot to learn (you never stop learning) and hopefully you and this forum will help us with little aspects along the way.

Sandy

Oh, I agree, there are dual dogs and live find dogs should have cadaver exposure.

I think the point was that training on small quantities of stuff may not prepare for a whole body find. It is the same thing narc folks face if they never train with large quantities of drugs.

It also is not adequate prep for old buried stuff, drownings, etc. I think the goal of cross training for the typical wilderness dog is if your live victim has died so the search is for a recently deceased person.

I have ZERO disaster training, several folks I have talked with on FEMA teams are against cross training but I gather it is allowed.

Ok that makes sense. The dogs I worked with were wilderness search dogs.

Lisa

 Quote: Tammy Wingete

We have the opportunity to buy a 2 year old male german shepherd trained and used by Homeland Security in cadaver and search and rescue.

Tammy,

Don't just walk away from this. RUN!! Who is offering this dog? As others have pointed out there are many red flags and I'll add another. DHS canine program provides dogs for our borders and also in airports for detection purposes...narcotics, currency, explosives. It has been almost 3 years since I have worked setting up training scenarios, so this may have changed but I don't believe the dogs are trained in SAR or Cadaver work. It sounds like a scam.