Search and Rescue.

[bethany.cole2013]

I was wondering how you could go about telling if your dog has search and rescue dogs in its pedigree?

[jocoyn]

Since SAR certifications do not appear on titles you would have to ask the breeder for documentation if you were not sure. Most folks I know nationally certify their dogs and keep copies of those certifications. The requirement for most national certifications is an annual or at least every two years recertification under a competent master trainer.

The only one appearing on pedigrees is an IRO title but the vast majority of SAR handlers in the US do not pursue IRO [which is a whole 'nother discussion that can get quite heated.]

The same can be said for working police dogs who also don't often have "titles" on their pedigrees. Though a lot of departments certify police K9s either internally or to some state, not national requirement.

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It doesn't necessarily matter, though. For Grim I was looking at a 2 year old dog so whatever potential he had was in front of me.

For Beau, I knew on his mothers side his mother was a working/certified trailing dog, aunt 1 was a certified detection dog, uncle 1 was an operational police dog, and uncle 2 was a certified cadaver dog....plus I knew several folks personally who had SAR dogs through his grandfather. For the sire, I just knew he had excellent hunt drive and was a sensible focused dog able to control his drives. The lines in the father were well known Czech lines (cordon-an-sat linebreeding).

Pretty easy to find the SAR dogs if you are already doing SAR and have met a bunch of other SAR folks and talk about who has what where......

[Mrs.K]

The RH titles can appear in your SV pedigree. Also, from now on, RH titled dogs can go through the breed survey as well.

[jocoyn]

This is true but over here not so many, plus an RH (IRO) title does not necessarily mean the dog is an operational SAR dog. It depends on what you are looking for.

[bethany.cole2013]

Oh, ok. Thanks. Reason for asking is because my girl, Nyx, is AKC registered and her sire's side is totally not confusing at all because it's all mainly white GSD's. Her dam's side is the side of her pedigree that according to her breeder are from SAR dogs and I was wondering how I could go about proving this, if I could at all. Her breeder seems nice enough and seems to know what she's doing sometimes lol, but I was just wondering mainly if there was some database with SAR dogs listed that I could go through and search for.

[Mrs.K]

Originally Posted by jocoyn

This is true but over here not so many, plus an RH (IRO) title does not necessarily mean the dog is an operational SAR dog. It depends on what you are looking for.

That is true. There is the difference between Sport and Operational. However, the Operational part is not as easy as many think it is, especially once you get beyond the RH1 title and the same goes for the sport part.

Over here is a different story but then again... AKC is a different kind of Monster, isn't it?

[jocoyn]

Yes, if you are looking at this from the prospect of being a future breeder, most of the folks I know are perfectly comfortable getting a pup from a dog out of schutzhund lines or police stock given a demonstration of the parents' hunt drive.

Even if someone claims that there are SAR dogs in the background that may or may not mean anything.....a lot of mediocre SAR dogs out there plus it is also a lot about what is combined with what.