Kevin, if you or your team is called to court for any reason, without a training log, you are dead in the water. All the certifications in the world don't mean squat because there is no universal standard for SAR. Even going to a search, if the LE in charge isn't familiar with your work, and they know what they are doing. they will ask for proof of your training ability. Just showing up and saying we have search dogs is a MAJOR problem in this are.
Be as honest as you can on your training log.
I think they are operating under the assumption that we will get called out, show up and search, go home and that's it. It may of been like that in the past but not any more.
I was at a cadaver seminar recently and one of the insructors told us about a court case coming up that she was going to have testify at. She later said that her training logs, records, etc. were all scrutinized in court. If any of my teamates were in this situation they would thrown out of court. I've also been told that that in addition to the handler being called to testify that the training officer could be called also.
I've recently been made training officer of my team and I made a request for permission from my captian to view everyone's training logs. As usual I was stonewalled and it became clear to me that my own captian had no such records.
We have a team meeting coming up soon. I think I will have to stand firm on this one.
It depends really on the type of searches that your team does.
If you are mainly a Wilderness airscent team, sent for live find only, with the occasional cadaver find (a live person that did not make it) then the logs are not the biggest deal. ( i still have them and so should everyone else but...)
The logs are going to to be important if the LEA ever calls on your team for any type of probable cause or HRD search. Any search in which a case against a criminal my hinge in some way on your dog, you better have a heck of a good and thorough log, including setbacks, training techniques, everything. If those logs are not up to date then the LEA is going to see you as a liability instead of a help and I guarantee that your unit will not be called on again. To continue to be called out and trusted by LEA then we as civilains must NOT be the weak link in a case. We must have all of our logs, certs, training classes, everyhting documented and accurate.
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Training logs
#81198 - 08/03/2005 05:17 PM 
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