SAR dog Search and rescue

[Rits]

LOL thats hilarious. And what fun!!

 

[Dasz88]

As of yesterday, Gilly is no longer a search dog in training! We are a SAR team!! (This is sadly still just the beginning lol! But 20 months of work on a 24 month old dog later... we are legit!).

My secret santa sent us some great SAR motivational material too! Will save that pic for the official thread!!

 

[remy]

Congratulations, that’s awesome!

 

[Ddski5]

Really have to say how impressive that is…the amount of work and energy you two have put in is tremendous. You really have to be proud of yourselves!!

 

[jazzies mum]

Well done and what an achievement. Now you are an official SAR team! Looking forward to seeing the thread!

 

[Rits]

Congratulations!! What a great accomplishment! Did you ever envision yourself here?!

 

[Ravenbird]

SO FREAKING PROUD OF TEAM GILY!!!

You definitely start your own thread and keep us posted on all your updates and adventures.

 

[Kaiser2016]

Way to go Team Gilly!

 

[JanS]

How great!

 

[Ravenbird]

Attn: @Dasz88 !!!

Have you seen this?? Hopefully you or others on your team can/will apply?

 

[Dasz88]

One of my teammates just posted this today, too!! I'm going to talk to my.mentor about it tuesday- this looks amazing!

 

[Dasz88]

Gilly investigating a (fake) hanging at a drill yesterday! (He is cautious around hanging things so I wanted to work this specifically lol!).

 

[jazzies mum]

I suppose that's part of it. All the different circumstances a cadaver may be found in! I find all this really interesting. Maybe there's something wrong with me!

 

[Ravenbird]

Gilly investigating a (fake) hanging at a drill yesterday!

Was this a drill for every team or you just did it for Gilly to look up? Asha looks up all the time and follows ravens in the air or from tree to tree, but we were in town one day and someone had a drone over the park and it's about as spooked as I've ever seen her. She wouldn't/couldn't take her eyes off of it. it was just a little higher than the telephone wires and going around and coming back. I tried to train and play ball but she was too fixated on it so I just sat down in the grass and let her watch. The only thing I've ever seen her display total weirdness, like it needed to be barked at but she knew it wasn't alive so what then? LOL.

 

[Ravenbird]

I suppose that's part of it. All the different circumstances a cadaver may be found in! I find all this really interesting. Maybe there's something wrong with me!

I've been fascinated by all the weird things all my life. I think that humans have made death more of a foreign scary thing in just the last 100 years or so. Children use to grow up with grandparents in the house and dying at home and even open caskets were set up in homes. Seems like now the only ones exposed to death and dying are in the medical or caregivers line of work. I'm not dismissing it, it's hard to deal with in each of our personal lives, but as a whole most humans have a hard time with it being part of life.

@Dasz88 I've read that cadaver dogs can be 100% reliable on odor and finds and close to deployable and then are tested on a real cadaver that is pretty much intact and they freak out. Is that true? Have you heard of that? I can imagine the same for the human side of the team too. It takes a LOT to do HRD on physical & emotional ends!

 

[Dasz88]

I suppose that's part of it. All the different circumstances a cadaver may be found in! I find all this really interesting. Maybe there's something wrong with me!

I'm the same! I will get really excited about himan remains stuff and then be like "but.of course I am treating this with the appropriate gravity."

 

[Dasz88]

I've been fascinated by all the weird things all my life. I think that humans have made death more of a foreign scary thing in just the last 100 years or so. Children use to grow up with grandparents in the house and dying at home and even open caskets were set up in homes. Seems like now the only ones exposed to death and dying are in the medical or caregivers line of work. I'm not dismissing it, it's hard to deal with in each of our personal lives, but as a whole most humans have a hard time with it being part of life.

@Dasz88 I've read that cadaver dogs can be 100% reliable on odor and finds and close to deployable and then are tested on a real cadaver that is pretty much intact and they freak out. Is that true? Have you heard of that? I can imagine the same for the human side of the team too. It takes a LOT to do HRD on physical & emotional ends!

No this is 100% true!!! Most of the sources we train on are so old. Like, I can give an example that is not depressing or a real search. We have a very old leg that our team owns and gilly is trained on it. But our statewide SAR conference came into possession of a donated FRESH leg (courtesy of a truly badass old navy seal who had his leg amputated. He named it lefty and wanted to have pics of us working with it sent to.him! This guys is so.awesome!). Anyways, the FRESH leg totally weirded gilly out at first because he isn't that familiar. He approached it tentatively and barked at first! He was almost afraid of it. When something still has a face, it can be even more surprising for them. So it's good to expose him to all sorts of weirdness to bomb proof him as much as possible.

 

[Ravenbird]

Thanks so much for confirming this - I've only "heard" about this so wasn't sure if they were anthropomorphizing the situation or if the dogs really did react differently. So cool to know coming straight from the horses mouth, so to speak! Gilly will get the exposure & be the bestest dog for you!

 

[Rits]

He was almost afraid of it. When something still has a face, it can be even more surprising for them.

I wonder too if the breed is more sensitive to that situation than other breeds? I feel like Dobermans on a whole are so in tune to humans that this is a very normal response Id expect from the breed.

 

[Ravenbird]

I wonder too if the breed is more sensitive to that situation than other breeds?

The bit I read about this didn't have Dobermans in the article at all. Labs and herders did it. I wish I could remember where I saw this, it was years ago, maybe even before I got Asha.