Greetings all,
One of the things I thought I would touch on is what it takes to be a search dog handler in a disaster setting. Usually on tv or in the papers you see these people walking around with nicely trained dogs in a horrible setting and think, ‘wow, that would be cool, going out there with Fluffy to find people.’ There is a lot of training that goes into the dog and the handler to prepare them for that type of a situation.
A disaster search dog handler has to sit through classroom training, yes, it’s not always about working with a dog. You do have to understand things about safety, collapsed structures, rope systems, hazardous materials, marking systems for buildings that are not safe, how to communicate in the command structure as well as all of the information you need on how to train and handle a search dog. This type of training is what professional firefighters also go through to prepare them for their career(the basics anyway). So as a canine handler, you have to understand how to fit in that structure, how to keep yourself and the rest of your team safe, help the person you are looking for AND handle the dog. This takes a lot of time. My team training for this weekend is actually the maintenance of my CPR/First aid certification through the Red Cross, which has NOTHING to do with training my dog but is part of my responsibility for keeping my skills as a first responder current.
So yes, you do have to spend a lot of time on ‘non dog stuff’ in order to be a disaster dog handler. Keep in mind, FEMA has a 40 hour class that all disaster dog search dog handlers MUST go through before you can be deployed. This is not a class that is open to the general public, you have to be part of a FEMA team in order to take the class. You spend 1/2 a day in classroom learning about such things as building markings, how buildings collapse and the safety precautions you have to take as well as dog training things. You then spend the afternoon out training, HARD. In addition to this 40 hour class, the other classes include: your hazardous materials class is usually 16 hours of classroom, the ropes class is also 16 hours, the CPR/First Aid is 8-12 hours, then you also have the incident command classes which run anywhere from 4 to 32 hours of classroom. That’s a lot of time in the classroom and very little spent working your dog!!!!!
So then, you add your dog training time on top of that. You and your dog have to train in obedience, agility, rubble search and having the dog take directions on which way to search. So while you are sitting in class learning all sorts of new things, at some point you have to make time to train with your dog (remember, the cool part about searching with Fluffy). First and foremost, you have to see if Fluffy has the ability to do this work. (which is a whole different post).
Am I trying to talk anyone out of doing this type of volunteer work, NO! It’s great, I love it and my dogs love having a job. But then I’m the person who got up at 4am on Saturday, drove 3 hours, to sit in class for 6 hours, train my dog for 1 hour, train other people’s dogs for 2 hours, drive home for 3 hours (got home at 8pm) and spent my own money to do it.
Just have an appreciation for how much time, sweat and training those cool dog handlers have put in when they make their job look easy.
Wags,
Robin and Dunder (search dog in training)