I was wondering if anyone had a step by step on how to teach my puppy the recall refind since I will be training him to air scent for wilderness and avalanche rescue. I want my dog to bark when he finds the victim and come back to me and take me to them. I know this is a long process and many steps put together so I would like to start working on it now while he is young.

I also need a step by step help with bark notification and the recall refind. Any help would be greatly appreciated. I have 4 SAR books but for some reason this is not in there. Does anyone know of a step by step SAR book that is written that covers these things from the day you get your puppy to the day your dog becomes an active team member? I do have this book coming: Ready! The Training of the Search and Rescue Dog by Bulanda, Susan. And I have hope it will be in there.

Thanks for any help you can offer,
Dale

We start by doing short visual runaways. Requires two people, one who runs a short distance and you, the handler.

We use a high, high value food reward.

You hold the dog, the "victim" entices the dog and gets them excited and then runs from them and drops down in the tall grass or behind something and you let the pup go, the pup runs in and the "victim" gives ONE piece of food and then stops interaction, you call the dog back and reward with food and give a "show me" and walk towards the victim....you can have the "victim" call out the first few times to bring the dog back to them....

Make sure that there is only one piece of food given at a time, make them short....once you and the dog are both at the "victim", the dog gets the "jackpot" reward of multiple pieces of food or their favorite toy (we use food for the training and the toy for the jackpot reward, unless the dog is more food motivated than toy).

Once you see the lightbulb go on and the dog is reliably doing the short runaways, you can make them a little longer and maybe make the dog wait a short time before turning them loose.

Make sure you are using your search command when you let the dog loose.

We are big on the "victim" rewarding the dog as it helps build victim loyalty. You want the dog to WANT to go find because the person is REALLY SUPER FUN. We usually have the victim reward the dog in the jackpot phase for 45 seconds or more. If the do tries to go do something else it is up to the victim to be more fun that anything and get the dog back to interacting. With puppies 15 to 30 seconds is what we use as pups have way shorted attention spans than older pups and dogs.

I hope this makes sense. I will see if I can download the puppy videos I have so you can see what I am trying to explain. Sometimes I am not great at typing what I am trying to say.

Nancy and Konnie might have some great ideas too.

I am not big on the bark alert, so I will let them explain that one.

Thanks a lot I'll begin this training with helpers today! I really appreciate you taking the time to help me

Dale

Patricia/Dale,

Are you already working with a SAR group in AK? Sorry if this has been covered in a previous post. You should make sure that the alert you are teaching meshes with your group's philosophy.

For example, no dog may perform a refind for an alert in the avalanche profile in Canada. Digging is the only acceptable alert (if dog wants to bark WHILE it digs, great, but a bark and no digging is not allowed either). I can show you some video of what our alert looks like if you are interested, but unfortunatly have no experience with the refind.

That said I have trained with a handler from ASARD (Alaska Search and Rescue Dogs) once and she did use a refind so perhaps that is the norm there, but I know that there are different groups around. Just want to make sure you know what you will be examined on so you train it from the get go.

A refind for wilderness should be no big deal and perhaps even ideal in your terrain. Sorry I can't help you on how to train it. Sounds like Carol has started you off in the right direction

 Quote:

Does anyone know of a step by step SAR book that is written that covers these things from the day you get your puppy to the day your dog becomes an active team member?

It is so tough to train from books and there must be some great SAR dog handlers up there that can give you a hand in person? A book that covers such things as puppy to certification for SAR dogs would not be possible in my opinion. There are too many different SAR profiles that require differing training, not to mention how many different certifications/standards that there are for the same profiles in some places....

I know that when I joined my avi dog orginization in my country I was given a binder with some milestones, training tips and the certifications and obedience examination standards in it and I was STILL dissapointed. Like you I wanted a step by step guide, but it is just not like that. Lucky, because lots of dogs learn differntly, and there is often more than one way to train something! Sorting through all the differeing opinions even within my small orginizations was a real struggle for a beginner! You know..the old:

"the only thing three dog trainers can agree on is that the fourth doesn't know what they are talking about!"

A good local mentor can go a long way.

Aw crap. Just saw on another thread that you live far from a SAR group and have gotten some advice on that already.

Sorry.

No problem thanks for the post

Trish Heldmann of TASK-9 in Connecticut wrote a very nice article on backchaining the alert sequence. You may google them.

http://www.task-9.org/id29.htm

Definitely agree you need to be on a team as there are many ways to get there and many different training philosphies, down to the different types of alerts the team will accept.