Cy doing barrels

[GoSearchk9]

I havnt' put any pictures up of Cy in awhile so I thought I would post this. One of the guys on the team sent this to me today. Cyrus has started working with scent in barrels. He is coming along so nicely, this dog is a dream! Im so glad he is working out!

[Miss Molly May]

That cool!!!

[EMarie59]

Originally Posted by GoSearchk9

I havnt' put any pictures up of Cy in awhile so I thought I would post this. One of the guys on the team sent this to me today. Cyrus has started working with scent in barrels. He is coming along so nicely, this dog is a dream! Im so glad he is working out!

How awesome! I read back at the time of 911 that dogs who do SAR for people can get depressed when all they are finding are deceased bodies.
They brought up a tragedy (can't remember now what it was) that all they were finding were people dead and the dogs were getting so affected by it that they started having people hide in rubble just so the dog would see that he rescued someone who was in fact alive.
I never knew...

[GoSearchk9]

A lot of times you can do "fun" searches after a heavy real life search scenerio to give the dogs some confidence. Have someone hide (in rubble, behind a tree) and when they find them make it super fun with the toy, tugging, high pitched voices etc. You will see this a lot when the dogs dont come up with anything on a search. This way they will continue to want to do it. The dog has to enjoy the work, it has to be fun or they wont want to do it anymore...

[EMarie59]

Originally Posted by GoSearchk9

A lot of times you can do "fun" searches after a heavy real life search scenerio to give the dogs some confidence. Have someone hide (in rubble, behind a tree) and when they find them make it super fun with the toy, tugging, high pitched voices etc. You will see this a lot when the dogs dont come up with anything on a search. This way they will continue to want to do it. The dog has to enjoy the work, it has to be fun or they wont want to do it anymore...

Interesting! So is it just for confidence and not that they really feel anything emotionally as the news report said?
This sure has peaked my interest

[GoSearchk9]

Im not sure? There are many dogs that do HRD (human remains detection and cadaver work) I would be curious to hear from someone who trains their dog in this area...Im sure they can definetly sense that there is death and definetly feel tension and tragedy from people around..so I guess it would make a lot of sense that they would react to this. I have heard of many dogs coming back from war and having PTSD.....

[EMarie59]

Originally Posted by GoSearchk9

Im not sure? There are many dogs that do HRD (human remains detection and cadaver work) I would be curious to hear from someone who trains their dog in this area...Im sure they can definetly sense that there is death and definetly feel tension and tragedy from people around..so I guess it would make a lot of sense that they would react to this. I have heard of many dogs coming back from war and having PTSD.....

Oh my.

[jocoyn]

Dogs don't get depressed about finding dead people; people do and the dogs sense their handler's emotion. I imagine a disaster scene is stressful in and of itself.

My dog is very very energized after a weeklong cadaver seminar ( he is a cadaver dog - single purpose) and has never expressed other than extreme excitement upon encountering a large amount of human scent such as a whole body.

I would think the PTSD would be from the constant noise and human emotions....not from the dead bodies.

Some dogs are aversive to Human Remains - those dogs should not be cadaver dogs. And the people have to be able to handle it too. It has not been the few dead people I have seen that has depressed me; it has been being within earshot when a family member finds out and feeling their pain. THAT is when it hits me in the gut. A dead body is just a dead body.

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I think the "depression" you may see on a dog not finding live scent is an area with no live humans in it would be a "negative" area for a live find dog. So they are doing all the work and not getting a reward. Any dog needs a break and a chance to "find" something and get a reward after a long day. I know I take a waterproof match container with one q-tip dipped in blood and after a long day on a cadaver search I take the dog away from the scene, hide the q-tip, and give him a chance to find it and get his reward.

What I don't know on a FEMA live search, does the dog get a reward for an indication? I know on a HRD search the dog is not rewarded at the find unless it is 100% obvious. just a "good work" - mainly because you never reward the dog unless you are 100% sure of what you are rewarding.

[jocoyn]

Oh, cool on the barrels, I know Konnie Hein took home a lot of stuff from watching Randy Hare on detection work and putting people on barrels is, I know, one idea she took back and has a whole web page on it. She is a FEMA handler.

Teaching Focused Scenting: March 2009

Is that the approach you are using?

[EMarie59]

Originally Posted by jocoyn

Dogs don't get depressed about finding dead people; people do and the dogs sense their handler's emotion. I imagine a disaster scene is stressful in and of itself.

My dog is very very energized after a weeklong cadaver seminar ( he is a cadaver dog - single purpose) and has never expressed other than extreme excitement upon encountering a large amount of human scent such as a whole body.

I would think the PTSD would be from the constant noise and human emotions....not from the dead bodies.

Some dogs are aversive to Human Remains - those dogs should not be cadaver dogs. And the people have to be able to handle it too. It has not been the few dead people I have seen that has depressed me; it has been being within earshot when a family member finds out and feeling their pain. THAT is when it hits me in the gut. A dead body is just a dead body.

Thank you for informing us about that. So interesting SAR...