VMD 513: Pet animal Breeding, Management, Nutrition and Health Care (1+1)

THE USE OF DOGS IN SEARCH AND RESCUE (SAR) [web link....]

• The use of dogs in search and rescue (SAR) is a valuable component in responding to law enforcement requests for missing people.
• Dedicated handlers and hard working, well-trained dogs are required in search efforts to be effective in their task. Search and rescue (SAR) dogs detect human scent.
• Although the exact processes are still researched, it may include skin rafts (scent-carrying skin cells that drop off living humans at a rate of about 40,000 cells per minute), evaporated perspiration, respiratory gases, or decomposition gases released by bacterial action on human skin or tissues.Search and rescue dogs are typically worked by a small team on foot.
• From their training and experience, search and rescue dogs can be classified broadly as either air scenting dogs or trailing (and tracking) dogs.
• They also can be classified according to whether they "scent discriminate" or "non-scent discriminate", and under what conditions they can work.
• Scent discriminating dogs have proven their ability to alert only on the scent of an individual person, after being given a sample of that person's scent.
• Non-scent discriminating dogs alert on or follow any scent of a given type, such as any human scent or any cadaver scent.
• SAR dogs can be trained specifically for rubble searches, for water searches, and for avalanche searches.
• Air scenting dogs primarily use airborne human scent to home in on subjects, whereas trailing dogs rely on scent of the specific subject.
• Air scenting dogs typically work off-lead, are non-scent discriminating (eg, locate scent from any human as opposed to a specific person), and cover large areas of terrain.
• These dogs are trained to follow diffused or wind-borne scent back to its source, return to the handler and indicate contact with the subject, and then lead the handler back to the subject. German Sephard, Labrador retrievers, Border Collies are known as good air scenting dogs.

  

• Tracking dogs follow ground scent
  • Trailing dogs are scent discriminating and require a scent article from the subject
  • Work on-lead or off lead to follow the subject's path.
  • Tracking dogs follow ground disturbance using non-human scent (eg, crushed vegetation, disturbed earth) in following the subject's movements.
  • The effectiveness of tracking dogs is highly dependent upon the terrain (some surfaces, such as grass, retain scent better than others, such as pavement), the age of the trail (fresher is easier to follow), the path (the dog is most likely to lose the trail if there are sharp turns or changes in direction), and the number of contaminating paths that cross the subject's path.