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Michele,
Well, since my name has come up in two posts I guess I will throw in my two cents worth. The good news is that you could not live in a better place to get into SAR. California has a gold mine of SAR resources including sheriff/law enforcement, FEMA USAR(8 teams) and volunteer.
Because SAR is both diversified and specialized I would recommend that you contact and visit different teams so that you can decide which discipline that you would like to start with. All will generally require two types of certification. The first is for you as a SAR technician and the other is for the use as a canine team. The later is a team certification specific to a handler and a dog. If you want to certify multiple dogs you have to test with each one.
There are a variety of disciplines that canines are used in both scent (tracking) and non-scent applications. All require specific training and can take anywhere from a year to two or more to certify in. Additionally some disciplines such as USAR (Urban Search and Rescue) require recertification every two years. As to what are the best training methods…there is no one best. You get the best training by having consistency and multiple training resources. The best FEMA USAR teams have multimillion dollar training facilities.
Certification requirements for the individual vary as much as the do for the canine teams. Some USAR teams require that all of their handlers be paramedic/firefighters with technical rescue training and three to five years experience. A volunteer team that searches for missing persons may only require NASAR SARTECH III, communications training and first aid to be an active responder.
Being a good canine handler is a major life commitment. It is doing tons of research to find the best possible dog for the discipline and training several times a week for as long as you are using the dog for search. The dogs that are the best at it are dogs that want to work. It is their reward. It is possible to train a single dog in multiple disciplines such as USAR and wilderness but remember it is also twice the training. In USAR you can go 10 years and never be called. Local teams that look for missing persons tend to be call more often. Where I am at we do about 25 searches a year for missing person of which about half are what we call evasive searches such as runaways.
Make no misunderstanding about it; if you are going to be good at SAR you will work hard. It is some of the most dangerous and demanding work that you can do. It is also some of the most rewarding. I have listed some resources below to give you some guidance. I wish you all of the best in your endeavor.
Mike & Cara
CARDA: http://www.carda.org/
NASAR: http://nasar.org/nasar/
FEMA USAR: http://www.usar.org/teams.html
California Office of Emergency Management for SAR: http://www.oes.ca.gov/Operational/OESHome.nsf/0/A3F586FD13D795C788256B7B0029BBFF?OpenDocument
World wide K-9 SAR information: http://www.the911site.com/911k/sar_50.htm
Best FEMA USAR K-9 information: http://www.disasterdog.org/
Well, since my name has come up in two posts I guess I will throw in my two cents worth. The good news is that you could not live in a better place to get into SAR. California has a gold mine of SAR resources including sheriff/law enforcement, FEMA USAR(8 teams) and volunteer.
Because SAR is both diversified and specialized I would recommend that you contact and visit different teams so that you can decide which discipline that you would like to start with. All will generally require two types of certification. The first is for you as a SAR technician and the other is for the use as a canine team. The later is a team certification specific to a handler and a dog. If you want to certify multiple dogs you have to test with each one.
There are a variety of disciplines that canines are used in both scent (tracking) and non-scent applications. All require specific training and can take anywhere from a year to two or more to certify in. Additionally some disciplines such as USAR (Urban Search and Rescue) require recertification every two years. As to what are the best training methods…there is no one best. You get the best training by having consistency and multiple training resources. The best FEMA USAR teams have multimillion dollar training facilities.
Certification requirements for the individual vary as much as the do for the canine teams. Some USAR teams require that all of their handlers be paramedic/firefighters with technical rescue training and three to five years experience. A volunteer team that searches for missing persons may only require NASAR SARTECH III, communications training and first aid to be an active responder.
Being a good canine handler is a major life commitment. It is doing tons of research to find the best possible dog for the discipline and training several times a week for as long as you are using the dog for search. The dogs that are the best at it are dogs that want to work. It is their reward. It is possible to train a single dog in multiple disciplines such as USAR and wilderness but remember it is also twice the training. In USAR you can go 10 years and never be called. Local teams that look for missing persons tend to be call more often. Where I am at we do about 25 searches a year for missing person of which about half are what we call evasive searches such as runaways.
Make no misunderstanding about it; if you are going to be good at SAR you will work hard. It is some of the most dangerous and demanding work that you can do. It is also some of the most rewarding. I have listed some resources below to give you some guidance. I wish you all of the best in your endeavor.
Mike & Cara
CARDA: http://www.carda.org/
NASAR: http://nasar.org/nasar/
FEMA USAR: http://www.usar.org/teams.html
California Office of Emergency Management for SAR: http://www.oes.ca.gov/Operational/OESHome.nsf/0/A3F586FD13D795C788256B7B0029BBFF?OpenDocument
World wide K-9 SAR information: http://www.the911site.com/911k/sar_50.htm
Best FEMA USAR K-9 information: http://www.disasterdog.org/
Time and pressure will always show you who a person really is!
Also the reason I started working on this with Sherpa was just to keep him busy, Michelle is right Malinois are nuts and he is the king of them....actually he is fairly calm for a working lines Mal.
Michelle, Sherpa has been the most incredible dog I have ever owned, he is so much fun, training him has been so rewarding, and now that he is getting older he is becoming the coolest dog ever. Heck last weekend at Derek's adventure race by the end of the day everyone knew him. He was that happy dog that bounced in the air next to me rather than walk like a normal dog, on the sweet side he was also known as that really cool dog that didn't mind kids hanging on him all day. Don't get me wrong it has taken A LOT of work and training to get him to where he is today and honestly I wouldn't recommend a Mal to anyone, because he needs a ton of exercise, if he doesn't get 30 minutes of training a day or doing some kind of work (I've gotten pretty creative with jobs) that works his brain he is a basket case that starts to invent new things to do.
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