All the SAR books I have read so far have really been into air scenting and not trailing. What is your personal experience with air scenting and how well have you seen it work? Should I transition my new puppy to air scenting is my big question.

Dale

Patricia,

Air scent training is a wonderful tool. However, it depends on the dog, terrain, type of search, if there is a point last seen (PLS) or if it is just a general area.

A good idea is to talk with your local SAR group(s) and see what types of dogs they have, what type they need to balance out the team.

I have a trailing dog, an air scent dog and a cadaver dog. Each is used in a different way depending on the scenario.
There is absolutely no reason that you cannot train the dog to be dual purpose, and add in cadaver.

Myself, personally, I like to have a dog that is single purpose that is REALLY good at that discipline. However, Ajay, my new boy, will be trained for trailing and cadaver. He loves to do both, so right now we are concentrating on trailing and once we are advancing there I will start the serious training of cadaver.....right now we are introducing him to the cadaver scents and doing some light training with it.
I do it this way so that he always has something different as I don't want him to get "bored" just doing the same stuff.

He is learning rapidly and actually the "light bulb" gets brighter each time we work.

Well the closest SAR team is 150 miles away. I would be working in conjunction with 1-2 K-9 units that are trained in Trailing. I have been working my puppy at trailing and he loves to track. I bought the Leeberg video on how to lay tracks. I also bought

Search and Rescue Dogs: Training the K-9 Hero, Second Edition and

The Training of the Search and Rescue Dog by Bulanda, Susan

If you have any other suggestions I would love to hear them. My goal is to be a valuable resource that is badly needed in our area. I work for a Fire Department and so I do have a ton of training and resources available for this.


Thanks,
Dale

I would discuss it with the people you work/train with, and see what they feel would be most beneficial to your area.

If there are already two good trailing dogs, then maybe an airscent dog would fit the bill.

Are you rural or urban, a mixture of both? and if a mixture, what do you have more of?

Let me research my library and I will get you some more avenues for information.

Where are you at?

Thanks a ton for your help. We live in a mostly rural place about 90% of the searches out in the woods and about 10% would be urban from children and Alzheimer patients. I live in Soldotna Alaska.

Thanks,
Dale

Thanks a ton for all your help
Dale