Intermountain Search Dogs (ISD) Prospective Member Letter
If you have a desire to be a search dog handler, (Please read the following…)
Search dog handling and training is virtually a full-time, un-paid effort, requiring significant personal, physical and emotional commitments from yourself and your family. However, working a search dog can be a rewarding experience, and as a handler, you will have a wonderful opportunity to build an incredible bond with your animal.
Although we are volunteers, handling a search dog is taken as a serious endeavor to provide professional quality services as a K-9 resource in Spokane County, around the state, as well as nationally and internationally if needed.
In general, a typical search dog takes approximately 18 months - 2 years to achieve mission ready status. To accomplish mission ready status, the dog is usually trained at a minimum of twice per week, every week.
To be considered for ‘Mission Ready’ status, the ISD Search and Rescue K-9 Teams (handler/dog) must obtain their K-9 Good Citizenship Certification, K-9 First Aid/CPR along with their desired field function evaluations, (air scent, trailing, cadaver, evidence, etc.). Once the K-9 team qualifies as mission ready status, they must be re-evaluated every other year to maintain documented proficiency.
In addition to the dog’s training, the handler must meet local, state and in other area’s national requirements for being a search and rescue (SAR) volunteer. This is accomplished through additional training as it becomes available (You do not need a dog to join the team; we are also in need of support people/land navigators who have an interest and become familiar with working alongside the SAR K-9 teams). Handlers who belong to ISD are expected to attend and participate in trainings and team meetings.
As a search dog handler, you will also be required to keep clear and accurate records of your dog’s trainings and missions. At times, handlers have been called to testify in court. Keeping accurate records shows that you and your dog are qualified to perform SAR work.
You and your dog, (more conceivably you), will likely make mistakes when first beginning to train for SAR K-9 work. If you plan to be a handler, understand that becoming a SAR handler does not consist of just attending and relying on local training’s. The knowledge necessary to be successful comes from studying SAR K-9 material, researching training techniques, seeking out and attending SAR K-9 courses as well as initiating training’s on your own. Handlers are encouraged to take other SAR courses as they are offered.
Each dog is different and will require you to become aware of those unique qualities that will define what will work or not work with your own dog. You may spend the entire dog’s SAR career trying to truly understand how to “read” him or her. Your dog might become sick, injured or not able to perform the required task (‘s) after you have trained for 1-2 years or longer. Or more positively, you and your search dog could have a very successful and rewarding SAR K-9 career.
At times, you may feel that other handlers and their dogs are progressing faster than you are. You may have days, weeks or sometime months of frustration because you believe your dog is inept, (most of the time… we have learned that it is we, the handlers, who have the problem). You may believe your dog is “ready” for the evaluation to become a mission ready team, then take the test and fail.
All of these possibilities are likely in the realm of the SAR dog and handler’s life.
On an average, SAR dog teams in eastern Washington respond to call-outs approximately 8-10 times per year. During a ‘call-out’, there may be times you are out of town, committed through your place of employment or have a family obligation that will prevent you from responding. You could drive 1-3 hours to the search site only to receive a message that the mission has been cancelled due to the subject being located. Or, you could search for 10+ hours only to learn that the subject was located many miles away from the search area or even that the subject was transported out of the wilderness three hours ago by a passer-by.
Due to the vast and varied terrain around eastern Washington, you could theoretically spend hours looking for someone who might not be in your search area. Or, you may be the search dog team to bring a child or lost person home to their loved ones. You might even locate an Alzheimer patient who wandered away from their residence or even track down a developmentally delayed person. Every search is different.
It is possible, at some point in your search career that you may locate a subject who is deceased. Should this unfortunate circumstance occur, the Spokane County SAR program provides Critical Incident Stress Debriefing (CISD) to volunteers.
Lastly, please do not expect special treatment in the public eye just because you are a “mission ready” search dog team. Your dog (and faithful companion) is still a ‘dog’ to some people, and some people simply don’t like dogs. As a responsible handler and dog owner, it is important to keep this in mind and realize that we each leave an impression with who we come into contact with.
We hope this information will help you decide if the commitment to becoming a search dog handler is something you (and your dog) are willing to do. It can be an experience that will bring out the best in yourself as you learn from your dog and try to be equally as good of a search partner for him/her as he/she already is for you.
“So that others may live…”
Sincerely the Board of Intermountain Search Dogs