K9 Search

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K9 Search RescueOverview

• Introductions

• Behavior Around Dogs
• Body Language
• What can SAR Dogs do?
• Why Dogs?
• Scent Theory
• Collecting Scent Articles
• K9 Team Training
• Search Partners Dog and Handler
• Area Search and Trailing
• Acting as a K9 Team Flanker
• DEMO Trailing HRD

• OES K9 SAR Resources

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Introductions Background

• Lisa Lee
• 6 years in K9 SAR
• Member of CARDA, CSST, AlCoSAR, ISRG
• K9 handler, flanker, overhead (plans logistics)
• Perdido
• Yellow Lab
• Trailing / scent discrimination
• Food slut Frisbee maniac
• Joseph Kral
• HRD K9 handler
• Member of CARDA, CSST
• Overhead / plans, communications specialist

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What are CARDA, WOOF, MBSD, CSST

• California Rescue Dog Association, Inc. (CARDA)
• Wilderness Finders (WOOF)
• Monterey Bay Search Dogs (MBSD)
• Canine Specialized Search Team (CSST)
• are groups of volunteers with specially
  trained dogs dedicated to assisting in the search
  for missing persons. Teams are available 24
  hours a day, 365 day a year to respond to local,
  state, and federal law enforcement, as well as
  other specific public agency (park fire
  department) requests. All these teams can be
  requested through California State OES.
• The handlers and their dog(s) are a team. The
  dogs are owned by the handlers we train, certify
  and search together as a team. Its not like 4H
  were handlers train puppies and then give them
  up.
• State-wide we represent
• - over 130 mission ready teams
• - approximately 200 teams in training

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Behavior Around Dogs

• Always ask before approaching any dog, including
  working dogs.
• Dont mess with a dog on a down-stay, tied out,
  or in the back of a vehicle. Dogs in these
  positions may act defensively.
• Ask before feeding a dog. Feed a dog as if it
  were a horse put the treat on your palm with
  your hand flat or flexed.
• Ask if and how the dog likes to be pet. Do they
  have any spots to avoid touching? Dogs like to
  be stroked, not pat. Do you like being thumped
  on the head?
• Dogs have prey drive they chase things that
  move.

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• Body Language
• Dogs are very social animals. The ancestors of
  todays domestic dogs lived in packs.
  Communication among the members of a pack is
  necessary for the pack to cooperate to hunt,
  raise the young, and to get along. We can see
  pack behavior when watching two or more dogs
  together.
• For the most part dogs communicate through body
  language, that is dogs use their bodies to
  explain their moods and thoughts.
• A dog basically uses five parts of his body to
  communicate. These are the tail, ears, mouth and
  teeth, eyes and the fur along the dogs back
  (which are also called the hackles). A dogs
  posture, that is whether it is standing, crouched
  or lying down, is also very important.
• Baseline Posture normal posture for a dog when
  relaxed

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• Body Language (cont.)
• FEAR
• A frightened dog can very easily become an
  aggressive dog, and many people have been bitten
  by dogs showing signs of fear.
• DEFENSIVE THREAT POSTURE
• fear-based posture
• may bite if cornered
• may be growling
• may urinate and/or express anal glands

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• Body Language (cont.)
• SUBMISSION
• This is the way a dog explains that he is not the
  boss, that he is less dominant than those
  around him. It is often used when a dog is afraid
  of punishment and is trying to appease his more
  dominant pack members.
• ACTIVE SUBMISSION
• may urinate
• may be whining
• avoids eye contact
• tail may be wagging held low
• OR
• tail may be tucked completely under body

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• Body Language (cont.)
• PLAY
• May look like submission in some aspects, but the
  dog will be active and excited. It is the way he
  says Play with me!
• PLAY BOW
• an invitation to play!
• front end lower than hind end
• tail up and wagging
• may bark run in circles
• ears up or slightly back
• hackles smooth
• STRESS

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What can SAR Dogs do?
Area Search / Air ScentThese
dogs work off leash (or on-lead in dangerous
situations.) They grid across a designated search
area assigned to the canine-handler team, as a
ground pounder would, but they are trying to
detect the scent of any live person. The dog
learns to follow hand signals from the handler
directing them to go right, go left, go up the
hillside, check behind that rock outcropping, or
any other nook or cranny in which a person could
be hidden. The dog is trained to obey these
directional commands up to the moment when they
smell a scent source that is live human. Then
they are supposed to disobey, go into the human
subject to confirm a person is there and
pin-point their location(s). Then go back to
their handler and tell the handler they have
found someone by performing a trained,
recognizable alert. They then lead their handler
back to the location of the subject. Area search
dogs can help in situations like an overdue
hiker, a lost hunter, or a child missing from a
campground. Trailing
These dogs are trained to look for the scent of
one particular human to the exclusion of all
other humans or other interesting scents. They
are sometimes called scent discriminating dogs,
and are typically asked to start working from a
place where the subject was last seen (PLS).
Their objective is then to work the scent trail
left by the subject until it takes them (and
their handler since they are usually worked on a
long lead) to the place where the subject
currently is. Most people have a mental image
from television of bloodhounds as the most common
example of this discipline. Trailing dogs can be
used to locate an alzheimer patient who has
wandered away from their care facility, a child
missing from a playground. They can also be used
to confirm whether or not that an article has
been worn by a subject, that a subject has been
in a car, or that subject has been in an
area. Disaster This
discipline trains dog and handler to navigate
confined spaces and rubble piles, take
directional commands at extended distances and
look only for live human scent in a collapsed
structure. Although some disaster teams may be
used initially in a local disaster (e.g.
earthquake), the best-trained and equipped teams
in this discipline are associated with the
Federal Emergency Management Agency teams located
throughout the country. These are the canine
teams you saw on TV working the Federal building
in Oklahoma, WTC, and Pentagon.
Avalanche The goal in this
discipline is for the team to quickly locate
people who have been buried by an avalanche.
Quick response, thorough searching, and safety
are all important elements of a response to an
avalanche accident. Avalanche search dogs are
one tool used to find lost persons buried in snow
slides. Probe pole teams and transceivers (if
used by the buried person) are about the only
other options used to find slide victims until
the snowpack melts. The sense of urgency during a
search for a person buried by an avalanche cannot
be understated. Survival statistics tell us that
90 of slide victims are alive at the fifteen
minute mark. After 35 minutes the survival rate
is at 30 and quickly drops after that.
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What can SAR Dogs do? (cont.)

• Water These dogs are trained
  to identify the presence of, and help locate,
  possible drowning victims in bodies of water.
  They may work from the shoreline or from a boat
  depending on the situation. When humans drown, it
  is usually too late to save a life by the time a
  water search dog can respond. But since some
  drownings are unconfirmed and bodies may stay
  submerged for 1-2 weeks, the family and the
  authorities need to know if a body is present
  and, if so, where it is so that it can be
  recovered. The dog is able to work by detecting
  the by-products of decomposition as they start to
  rise slowly to the surface of the water. Once
  this odor reaches the surface, it fans out on the
  breeze and the dog helps the handler identify
  where it first comes to the surface. This surface
  location is then used to direct divers for body
  recovery. Water search dogs can be used to find
  drowning victims in a lake, bay, stream, etc.
• Cadaver / Human Remains
  Detection (HRD)This discipline borrows from area
  search in that a dog is given an assigned area in
  which they are to determine if a body is present.
  Unlike area search, they are to ignore the smell
  of live humans and animals. They focus only on
  the by-products of human decomposition. These
  dogs are used for presumed suicides in wilderness
  areas, some law enforcement investigations if a
  body has been disposed of in a particular area,
  and some limited applications such as following
  structure fires to determine if a persons
  remains are present in the debris. HRD dogs can
  be use to locate human remains in an area in
  situations like suspected suicide, buried, after
  a fire, air or train accidents, possible homicide
  scenes. They can also be used on archeological
  digs to locate historical gravesites.

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Why Dogs?

• SCENT - a dogs reason for being!
• A dogs sense of scent is comparable to a humans
  sense of sight.
• Odor Sensitivity
• Dogs olfactory system is more than 10 million
  times as sensitive as humans.
• Dogs have about 220 million scent cells, compared
  to about 5 million in humans.
• 12 of a dogs brain is dedicated to scent.
• Odor Lock - In the human being, the brain
  decreases or eliminates the stimulus of smell to
  the brain after about ten to fifteen minutes. If
  you walk into a room that smells strongly of
  bleach, after a few minutes you do not small it
  anymore, regardless of whether it is present for
  five minutes or five years. Dogs do not do this.
• Olfactory Direction Location - A dogs brain is
  able to discern which nostril has the greatest
  concentration of odor. The greater amount of odor
  is in the dog's left nostril it knows that
  whatever it is searching for is off to its left,
  and visa versa. When the amount of odor is
  balanced in both nostrils then the animal knows
  that what ever it is searching for is in front of
  it.
• Odor Layering - When one first goes into the
  kitchen and someone is cooking chili, they can
  smell the chili. When the canine goes into the
  kitchen though, it can smell the hamburger, the
  beans, the tomatoes, the seasonings, etc. The dog
  can break the chili into individual layers. This
  is probably why narcotics dogs are not fooled by
  coffee grounds or other destructors. As long as
  the odor is present, the dog smells it.
• Agility
• Endurance

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Scent theory

• What is scent
• Particulate matter, usually referred to as
  rafts
• Dead skin cells constantly exfoliating (150,000
  cells / hour)
• Oils
• Sweat (exocrine / apocrine)
• Exhaled breath
• How does scent behave?
• Raft 10 500? in diameter, not effect the same
• Rafts rise when they are warmer then their
  surroundings.
• Poikilothermic (changes to temp of its
  surrounding)
• Carried easily by wind water
• Hydrophilic (likes water)
• Rises and floats in water (salt fresh)

Fig1 Everyone is Pigpen shedding scent.
wind
Fig2 Scent rises from a warm person and
then falls in a cool atmosphere.
direction of travel
wind
SCENT
Fig3 Scent follows the wind, its not
necessarily on the footprints.

























Fig4 Scent sticks to things, especially moist
things like green plants, puddles, and
dew.
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Collecting Scent Guides / Articles

• What is a scent article / scent guide?
• A scent article can be defined as
  something that has the scent of the subject you
  are looking for. It is the single most important
  factor in scent discrimination. Note that scent
  articles are often evidence and chain of custody
  must be followed.
• What makes a good scent article?
• A good scent article only has scent
  of the person you seek (and only that person.)
  That allows the dog to know whom to follow.
  Scent articles can be various items
• Pillowcase.
• T-shirt.
• Hat.
• Key, Wallet, checkbook.
• Sterile gauze swabbed on scented item.
• Shoe inner sole (there is come argument about
  this.)
• Garments, preferable inner not outer clothing,
  but not panties.
• Porous is better than nonporous.
• What make a bad scent article?
• A bad scent article doesnt have the scent of
  the subject you are looking for, or has been
  contaminated with a competing scent that confuses
  the dog. This contamination could be from
  residual sources, scent falling from the air or
  transferring from another article, or direct
  meaning someone other than the person you seek
  touched the scent article. Example of bad scent
  articles
• Clean laundry.
• Shared clothing / linens.
• Item handled by someone other than the subject.

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• Getting Started in K9 SAR
• Choosing a dog
• breed
• working dogs are often chosen for ethic
• sight hounds do not work
• size coat are considerations
• (labs are best!)
• age
• health
• Teaching the Find People! game
• motivate your dog
• puppy run-aways
• alert
• adding difficulty
• Skill test / sign-offs, then Mission Ready test
• It takes about 2 years to train and certify a SAR
  dog!
• How do we train?

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• Search Partners Dog and Handler
• Handlers Job
• Train the dog and him / her self
• Search strategy - get the dog in the right place
• Dogs Job
• Use sense of smell to detect and locate a
  specific thing
• Alert handler to the presence of that thing

• Area Search vs. Trailing
• AREA SEARCH Dogs job is to find a person and
  report back to the handler (alert) then lead the
  handler back to person .
• Different methods of alerting
• bringsel
• bark
• jump / body slam
• come to sit or heel
• whatever behavior the handler can read
• TRAILING Dogs job is to follow subjects scent
  trail from PLS (place last seen) to subject.

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wind
AREA SEARCH - step 1 - defined search area - not
necessary to start on subjects footprints -
dog off-lead - dog is looking or any live
person
Scent cone
search!
search boundary
subjects path
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wind
AREA SEARCH - step 2 - dog grids area - dog does
not stay with handler - dog finds scent cone
and zeros in on person - handler make sure dog
covers the area and uses wind to the best
advantage
search boundary
subjects path
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wind
AREA SEARCH - step 3 - dog goes back to handler -
dog ALERTS - handler asks to be taken to the
person
did you find someone? show me!
search boundary
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wind
AREA SEARCH - step 4 - dog leads handler to
person - handler rewards dog - dog may continue
to work to find other people
good dog!
search boundary
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wind
TRAILING - step 1 - dog usually on-lead
(harness) - dog is looking for specific person
- must start on persons footprint (PLS) -
dog samples scent guide
other persons path
sniff!
subjects path
PLS
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wind
TRAILING - step 2 - hander starts dog (fire)
Track!
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wind

• TRAILING - step 3
• - dog follows scent trail to
• lost person (leading handler)
• dog ignores all other people
• and their scent paths

good dog!
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Acting as a K9 team Flanker

• Always, Always, ALWAYS ask before interacting
  with the dog, especially a dog on a down-stay,
  tied out, or in the back of a vehicle. That
  means no food, no petting, no toys / sticks
  without permission. Some dogs dont like the
  attention others find it hard to get back to
  work once they are in party mode.
• Things top know before you accept an assignment
  with a dog team
• K9 handlers often devote the vast majority of
  their attention to their dog, and so can be a
  bit less aware of the rest of their surroundings.
  You will need to be extra aware, both for clues
  and for hazards.
• Meet greet the K9 before your assignment
  starts. Are you comfortable with this dog?
• Dog teams tend to cover lots of ground. Only
  accept a flanker assignment if you are physically
  up to it.
• Before starting an assignment
• As always, decide who will be responsible for
  radio comm, land nav, documentation, etc. Know
  your skills and limitations. Dont take a job,
  like land navigation, if you are not expert in
  it.
• Communicate with the handler what your strengths
  are. Are you a man-tracker? How can you make
  best use of your combined expertise?
• Ask what the handler needs from you, as a team
  member. How close should you stay to the
  handler? Some handlers want you stay right with
  them. Others want you to act more an another
  member of a ground team and search beside them
  (usually within sight.)
• Ask how the K9 works (what kind specialty, how
  they work, alert, etc.) and what the search
  assignment strategy is.
• Work out a communication system with the handler
  (handler may be in front of the flanker and may
  not hear the flanker clearly. (Work out a signal
  like, 'thumbs up if you heard me' or 'wave if you
  heard me.')
• During an assignment
• Record where you went AND where the K9 went, as
  well as times, temps, wind direction and
  strength.
• Watch out for K9 specific hazards
• heights - dogs have bad depth perception
• poisons - rat bait and others contain an
  attractant Radiator fluid is sweet

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• Acting as a K9 team Flanker (cont.)
• Some basics commands - they can vary from dog to
  dog. Ask the handler whats appropriate. If you
  are asked to handle / watch over a dog while the
  handler is busy, make sure you know some of that
  particular dogs commands. Heres some general
  ones, with variations.
• Leave It means get away from that.
• Halt, Stop, Wait mean stop locomotion.
• Come, Here mean go to the callers location.
• Off means get off that. Down means lay down. (So
  if a dog is jumping on you, say Off.)
• Out, Drop, Release mean spit out whatever is in
  your mouth.
• Heel or With Me mean different forms of stay with
  the person giving the command.
• And the all at around useful Aaaaaaaaaaachk is a
  very general thats bad, knock it off. A
  translations might be NO!
• Also, when you give a command, say the dogs name
  first, then the command, Perdido, Come.
• Some Emergency Situations
• Dog fight - yell like a big bad alpha dog who is
  unhappy about the fight. If that doesnt work
  pull dog away from other dogs by the tail (at the
  same time.) Keep all parts of your body away from
  the front 3/4 of the dog bites from reflex
  actions hurt just the same!
• Dog First Aid is very similar to human
• ABCs and severe bleeding, in addition regulate
  body temp
• Normal K9 Values

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• Emergency Muzzle short term
• An injured dog or an animal in shock may not
  recognize you. Your own dog may bite you out of
  pain or fear. Muzzling the dog may be necessary
  for your safety. It is very important to talk to
  the dog in very soft and reassuring tones.
• A muzzle can be life threatening to a dog
• If the dog is having trouble breathing or
  panting heavily, do not put a muzzle on it.
• Make sure the dog can not get away from you
  while muzzled.
• Insure the muzzle is easily and quickly
  removable from a panicked dog.
• If a muzzle is placed on the dog it must be
  monitored at all times and removed at the first
  sign of overheating or vomiting. Muzzles prevent
  a dog from panting. Since panting is a dogs
  primary method of cooling off, putting on a
  muzzle can cause a warm dogs core body
  temperature to sky-rocket. If a muzzle is
  necessary for your protection then out it on, but
  remove it as soon as possible.
• 1) A Hasty Muzzle
• can be made with
• a leash and collar -
• if you have an extra hand.
• Put the collar on the dog.
• Attach the leash to the collar.

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