Police and SAR Tracking - Page 1

Hey guys,

What is the proper way to start a dog in police style tracking or man trialing? For an older dog...if that makes a difference.

Thanks
Kelly

The best way is to train them in drive.  They need to always find a person at the end and get the reward  from finding them.  Leerberg has a good  video for police and search and rescue tracking. 

.  Agreed! A ball, toy, food have no place in training a PSD to track criminals. The dog either has the drive or he doesn't.! From the very first training track until his last, there should "ALWAYS" be a quarry or quarries at the end. There must be no doubt in the dogs mind that there is someone at the end who may do him harm.

I disagree with deacon ...... on always running tracks with aggression .....  even in police work it will leave room for civil liability. In my 12 years with 4 differant dogs on the road ..... I would have been sued if my peaceful finds would have gotten bitten. And as far as giving instruction to KellyJ is difficult to coach or brief on what she asked because the subject matter is so broad.  Regards ....  Greg 

If you plan on doing SAR work most SAR teams will not accept a dog that has bitework training.  I've heard many stories of SAR dogs out in the field searching for elderly/mentally impaired  when the dog went in to find them the dog was either hit or had sticks/rocks thrown at it, the dog cannot be aggressive!  It really depends on what you want to train just get in with a group and learn from them. 

>  My dog teams only track criminals. We also track exclusively "off" lead. For lost persons the county or other volunteer organization tracks them. In 32 years of working and training PSDs, I have had 2 lawsuits from tracks, both thrown out . Both were by persons located by the K-9 and grabbed!
> As a rule of thumb on all my search training scenarios, I only allow 1 bite in every 5 to 6 trials. I am as much interested in the "alert" as I am in a possible fight at the end of any find! The dog must know however to engage if the subject located attempts to escape or intends to do him harm!

Thanks for the information guys. Im just trying to find all the info on this type of tracking as possible. Its easier to find info on sport tracking, but I am interested in training this type. All training ideas help....

Thank you.

How are police k9s trained to alert on an article? Is it by a down?

Some are trained to lie down beside the article, some are trained to stand. Due to the advancement in DNA technology, leaving the article untouched is the preferred method now. There are still agencies that train the retrieve method however.

SAR tracking can be both tracking and air scenting. Some of our K9's have been trained to track as well as air scent. Both are effective in locating a subject, evidence or HR. Even the K9's who have not had official tracking training use it. They are smart animals, and will follow scent on the ground leading them into the cone. We typically don't take dogs with any bite work. Just too risky, and when we are deployed, we are never certain how our subject is going to react to an alerting K9. Indeed, there is that danger that they will lash out at the dog, and we can't take those chances, that a dog will retaliate. We do train the dogs to be exposed to the "dangerous" subject, since they have to be conditioned to handle those types of scenarios. In terms of evidence/articles...the dogs are never to touch, since it could taint anything admissible in court. Of course, this goes with HR as well. The "No Touch" command is part of the imprinting process. In terms of drive....play (and prey) absolutely have to be there.